Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters How wild is Your Gun Range?

Our local rifle range gets pretty realistic some times.

Several times while doing last minute sighting guns in the day before opening day (in my old days ) a buck has crossed between me and the target.

I can honestly say I never even wanted to shoot one.....mostly because they were smaller but I would be all torn apart if a giant 180" crosses.....hope I never have to be put to the test though I think I would do the right thing.

Wow! That's a good one.

We've had, "Cease Fire!" called so some does could walk between the 150 & 200 yard berms. The range officer has also let it be known that there'll be Hell to pay if anyone shoots the groundhog he feeds.

FC

tangozulu;
I hope this finds you and yours well today tango.

We have a pretty "wild" range at the club I shoot at, the Southern Okanagan Sportsmen's Association out of Oliver, BC.

One day I was banging away at a 100yd gong on the pistol range with my Security Six when I noticed a 2 point muley bedded no more than 30yds from where the bullets were landing. Strangely he paid no heed to the shooting, which I thought was a little wierd.

Mule deer are pretty regular visitors there though.

About 20 years back, the club executive had to enact a �no hunting on club property rule� when a local shot a nice black bear on the hillside above the entrance to the club. Somehow it hadn�t occurred to this chap that it was a very unsafe direction to shoot.

Before that rule was enacted, we were packing up the guns one day on the rifle range when a young male coyote ran up and stood on the berm in front of the 100 yard target butts��yah, I shot him.

We always see lots of California quail there and it is one place in the south valley that I�m aware of where pheasants are seen fairly often.

Anyway that is our range stories. Thank you kindly for sharing yours.

Have a good weekend tango.

Regards,
Dwayne

We have had several matches delayed to let deer(slowly) cross the range. They seem to know that they are safe and don't care about the gunfire.

Ernie

Now,That's a range.

We don't have, within 200 miles of where I live,a rifle range that I know of..Spokane/Missoula and Boise are the closest aka 200 miles.

This is our local range without game this day. .



With my rest.



Jayco

Very, very jealous...

I'm with Jayco, we don't have a formal range. I just go to a local farmer[2], set up and shoot!

maddog

I guess this is showing my hillbilliness,but I have never been to a formal rifle range in my life, with rest and targets.It has always been off the hood of my truck or the back of a lawn chair..Except,Fort Benning Georga, if that counts at pop ups.

It would be nice to have a range all set up to try once,but I don't loose any sleep over it.

Jayco

Something pretty peacefull lookin about your range. I would be a bit reluctant to make any noise. It looks like there may be a few wild critters just outta sight.

At my club's old range we had a family of foxes. Would be great fun to watch the kits frolic in the range. After a while momma would call them and they would all scoot. Still had to be careful as sometimes they would continue to tussle behind the backstops after it looked like they had cleared the area.

At our range over the years I have seen numerous mule deer, whitetails, a couple moose, two bears, and about a dozen elk...all in the line of fire, and activities had to be halted and the critters shooed off...

Ingwe

You might think I'm pulling your leg, but I've had deer walk BETWEEN the bench and target no more than 10 minutes after we quit shooting groups.

Bill

Ok, you got me beat

Bill

Dont think you are pulling my leg..Ive had them walk out while we were shooting, and had to call a cease fire more than once..on one occasion I literally had to walk downrange, cussing and throwing sticks, and still couldnt get the deer to move till I literally walked up and swatted his azz with a stick...it was a whitetail buck of all things....

Ingwe

Ingwe;
If that isn't "the" definition of ironic, it certainly must qualify as one of the top ones, no?

I used to have a little mule deer buck that would bed down in front of the archery target in our yard.....maybe they are there to test our adherence to the rules?

Have a good weekend Ingwe.

Regards,
Dwayne

Not sure exactly where you are and don't figure it's open to the public, but I'd bet they have a pretty formal setup at the Flying B in Kamiah. Also, IIRC, I saw a somewhat formal set up near Cavendish. Course the Rod and Gun Club in Stanley is always worth a visit!

At our range we have had turkeys, wt deer and bobcats wander across. Not bad considering we are only 35 miles away from Toronto which has a population of about 2.5 million people.

Jim

We have these come across every now and then.

He will use your target to wipe his azz.

The owner of the range here hunts "on" the range on days the range is closed.