Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Ever get pissed at the gunrange goofs ?

I used to shoot at the public ranges since living out here but got fed up after having the same experiences already discussed here. Joined a private club. They have idiots too but not as many. Fortunately I am able to shoot during the week and I go early so I normally have the place to my self.

And of course I avoid the place during October and November when all the once a year shooters/hunters start showing up.

One time when I was in FT Hood, TX we were doing night fire with M16 rifles. More than once I would see a tracer go a good 40 or 50 feet over the targets. It wasnt ricochets either, it was just somebody being a wise azz and launching bullets into the sky.

There are two ranges that I use regularly. From March to November I use the local Wildlife Federation range - outdoor, and not controlled. However, you can shoot almost any weapons (no shotguns & no exploding targets, steel cored bullets, tracer rounds, or armor piercing ammunition), and it goes up to 300 yards. The shooting positions are very nice - individual, and separated from each other by a few feet.

[img]https://scontent-den4-1.xx.fbcdn.ne...f6149a57ddda60fa6b1d011a&oe=5E95BFF5[/img]

This was taken before the positions were rehabbed and the awning erected, but shows the cleared area for pistol targets, the 100 yard berm, and the 300 yard berm (up the hill a tad) - the 200 yard berm is barely visible just below the brush, and needs the grass removed.
[img]https://scontent-den4-1.xx.fbcdn.ne...3cea0e29a84df635159ce560&oe=5E9C1EB1[/img]


Then there is the County-owned Shooting Sports complex. Two buildings... one for pistols & rifles (50 yards), and the other for those who shot a "qualifying target" on the 50-yard range (to make sure you can actually shoot somewhat accurately, so as to protect the long-range building). Yes, that's right - a 100/200/300 yard mostly-indoor range (only 50 yards is not covered by a roof)!

The 50-yard range costs $5 per hour per person, no matter how many weapons you bring. The 300 yard range costs $8/hr. I haven't used the 300 yard one yet, but I will when I am ready to sight in my rifles (I qualified expert 5x in the USMC, and was on the 1980 western US high school ROTC champion .22lr rifle team in high school, so I damned well better pass their qualifying target to go to the long-range building)!

The shooting positions on the 50-yard range (high for pistols/standing and low for sitting using bench-rest) are divided from each other with walls, and the targets are on a powered transport run - you enter the range you wand on the control screen and it runs the target out. Just press recall to being it back to you.





Here is an article from when the range was refurbished from a Law Enforcement/Military training range to a public range: Weber County’s government-owned gun range

Living in Utah has advantages for a shooter.

I guess I never realized until now how fortunate I am to be able to step out my back door and shoot as much as my heart desires without worrying about being a bother to someone else or them being a bother to me

At a range I used to shoot at sometimes there were vultures hovering around too. Same thing, I don't care if they're there but sometimes they go too far. The worst was one day showing up and there was 4 very sketchy looking tweakers in a beat up truck that were out there with tools scouring the place for anything they could find. One was at the line with a hard tined rake scraping the dirt and grass around the benches and the other three were digging up the berm with large sieves scavenging bullets. They were prepared with several large drums in the back of their truck for their diggings so that wasn't their first time raiding a shooting range. It was on public land so I called a warden on the way out to report them, hopefully they got arrested.

Those shooting benches look like someone who never shot from a benchrest designed/built them . Completely stupid , just like the crap around here - although great for laying down ''cover fire'' by mag dumpers ..

MANY people shouldn't own firearms - i know we all wish everybody would be safe with them it's just a fact that far too many people are ignorant in use them .
Saw this last night on youtube - forward to the 18min. mark and watch for 2min.30sec. . I did learn early in the video by an 'expert' caliber is determined by bullet diameter 'and bullet weight . Laf .

I truly envy those of you who own your own property on which you can shoot.




It's amazing isn't it? Notwithstanding safety fouls, I pretty much tolerate any idiot at the range. As long as they are safe, they are good to go in my mind, irrespective of whether they are practicing mag dumps, shooting big boomers with brakes or socializing loudly. I can always leave.

Heck, we all regularly participate in discussions on this forum with people who mostly share our same interests. However, based on interaction between members we read everyday, there are a large number of "shared-interest" individuals with whom we would never even consider spending time with at the range. I include myself in that group also. I share these interests with a large number of members here who, after reading my posts, think to themselves, "jeez, I'd never want to spend a day at the range with that BigSky idiot".

If we could just be separated where boomboomboomboom didn't effect others type shooting i wouldn't care if they melted their barrels off with 500 round mag dumps . . I don't want them to leave - just let handloaders and people zeroing a rifle be able to do what they came and paid to do .
Real simple shoot from these bench positions if you're firing an autoloading somewhat fast - definition - firing a round faster than every 20 seconds .

As i said earlier the RO said they've had a lot of people saying the speed shooters are ruining their range day and it's being discussed on what can be done .

There is an old guy that frequents our range.....he's kinda borderline Alzheimers...he will clear a jam on one of his semi auto rifles
pointing his barrel to his right or left... at anyone sitting to his right or left...oblivious to it...

Range management tolerates him, and guys like me walk away when he's on the range..and leave it to him..

He's a guy in his late 80s, highly decorated Marine from the Korean War and also the early days of Vietnam...

Probably not the right thing to do....but I feel it won't be a long time before he's not going to be there one day...

Thats tuff!

Saturday I was shooting next to a nice couple who were having fun with a braked 338 Lapua magnum. It had a good boom to it but wasn't bad to be around. No bother at all.

Sunday it was a little tough at the range. Someone was shooting what I believe to be a Romanian semi auto chambered for the 7.62 rimmed Rooskie. It literally stank up the place. Whatever is loaded into those steel cases must contain a significant percentage of some kind of crap. On top of that it was obnoxiously loud. The only thing on par has been a 30-378 Weatherby with a Swiss cheese muzzle brake. The big Wby had the pimp slap shock wave to go along with the ear splitting boom. But the Romanian rifle had the rate of fire advantage.

Druganov in 7.62x54R?

Something like that. It could have been called a Stinkanuff.

And this is why suppressors should be removed from the NFA! If they were $150 like they should be, a lot more people would have them and then the only issue we would have with the mag dumpers is where all that hot brass was going!

Depending on the make and construction, doing mag dumps with a suppressor canl wreck it in a hurry, they can get real hot real fast.

Nothing is more depressing than to pull up to the range and see several guys with see-thru scope mounts and cheap scopes.. You know they will be cranking on those scopes trying to hit something for at least an hour or two. I saw a guy trying to hit a 100 yard target and waste a bunch of ammo, then he walked up to about 20 yards and still couldn't hit the target. I looked to see if he had managed to mount the scope sideways or something. I don't think the deer had much to worry about that year.


Another time I went to the range and had it by myself, but the person that had been there before me had blown up one of the newer cheap Remington bolt guns. I don't know what caliber it was, but I found pieces of the receiver and stock scattered around the benches. I never heard anything about an accident, but I don't see how the person could have escaped losing a finger or two. I didn't see any blood, so he might have got lucky. I'm just glad I wasn't their for the fireworks.

My gun club is being sued right now. An idiot club member shot the neighbors German Shepherd right out of their backyard. SMH

Purposely shot the dog ?

Was down at the NRA Whittington Center range near Raton, NM, a week and a half ago, shooting with my wife. Had the place to ourselves. Awesome.