Stuff seen at the gun range

[GJM]

Seems like we ought to have a place to chronicle “the good stuff” observed at the range.

Yesterday morning, my wife and I were sitting in the truck waiting for a bay to open us. At this private range, there is one larger pistol bay that is used for some mixed group stuff, and the remaining bays are single use, meaning it is you and your group’s bay until you are done. We were watching a smaller bay to our right, and saw two guys shooting at the same time, each at their own target. They stopped shooting, each let their handgun dangle in one hand, walked to the targets, inspected them with their guns dangling, and then taped their targets with one hand with their other hand holding their dangling gun. With taping finished, both turned up range, guns in hand, at which point one guy holstered and the other walked back, gun still in hand.

In the bay to the left, two guys were “teaching” a hot blond in yoga pants how to shoot an AR. Couldn’t see anything but a lot of hands on her getting into the right position. Don’t think she ever fired a shot. Saw no problem with this operation.

Late afternoon, we headed back to the range to check zero on one of my wife’s pistols. We were literally the only people there. Old guy cruises past in a Cherokee, and we wave. He turns around, stops and parks at the back of the bay. He gets out of his vehicle, and I ask him if I can help him. He says “I am here to bust some caps.” I said “you mean like with us in this bay?” He says “yes,” at which point I asked him to go use any of the empty bays all around us. Not sure if he liked the looks of our targets we had set up, was lonely, or just clueless.

[0ddl0t]

I hope I never see anything "better" than the absent-minded fella scratching his head with the front sight of his pistol while waiting for his target. But hey, at least his finger was indexed against his slide...

[GardoneVT]

Well, RSO storytime it is!

• A couple come into my range. Unusually it’s a younger couple ; yet true to trope the male strutted around, bragging about how good of a shot he was with his dads 30-30. His mouth kept moving even as her eyes rolled and I cleared the rifle prior to check in.
  
  Gave them lane 1, and watched the cameras for the other lanes. As I get up to open the ammo case I catch his 4’6” girlfriend punching out a 3” group at 25 yards with the lever gun. Best Mr Big Shot could manage was a shotgun pattern bigger then he was tall.At range checkout he had more excuses then the White House press secretary.

• “Howdy. It’s unloaded- do i hafta clear it?”
  Sigh.
  
  ‘Yes , you have to unload all cased weapons before entering the range.”
  
  He racks the slide of his Springfield XD Grip Zone Richard Pryor Tactical Carry ...and a shiny forty caliber round arcs out of the chamber.
  
  “Huh. I swear that thing wasn’t loaded....”

• “I’ve got my carry gun in the jacket. Mind if I shoot it ?”
  
  Not at all,I respond with. But it’s gotta get cleared with the rest.
  
  We head to the clearing barrel. At which point he unzips the tactical jacket pouch of his high speed delta force coat to pull out an XD compact.
  Or he tried to . The sight caught on the zipper, forcing me to step behind him to avoid another look down the barrel while he fumbled with the piece. For a scary moment all I saw was the wrong end of a .40 XD - the rest covered by his coat pocket.
  
  Eventually he unfouled the gun and cleared it. This was the day I decided being a volunteer RSO might be hazardous to ones health.

Edit; this last one was at a local range, not the one I volunteered at. Since I was paying for my time I brought out the WC Beretta. At the check in desk another shooter asks what it is. I tell him.

“Look out- that slides gonna separate. I had all kindsa problems with my M9 back in the military. Safety’s junk too...”

“Gotcha on lane 3” interrupted the RSO. A pity, that bystander sounded like a real Beretta 92 SME.

30.9 minutes later

As I’m swiping my card for the range time Mr Beretta comes running out of the shooting lane room. He’s holding a small silver thing.

“Halp! My Glock stopped working and I saw this spring. You know how to fix this right?”

You’ll all be glad to know my WC 92 slide even now remains in one piece. I don’t know about Mr SME’s Glock 19....

[Clusterfrack]

I know I posted these stories elsewhere but here they are:


Brass rat

I was practicing at my home range, in one of the outdoor bays. The bay is ~50’ long and 30’ wide. I had set up 3 USPSA metric targets and was working on shooting into and out of position at 15 yds. I guess I was really in the zone, and my situational awareness was disturbingly low. I didn’t realize anyone was in the bay with me until I heard something behind me. I looked back--there was a super old guy crouching down right behind me! I backed up and yelled “What the FUCK are you doing???” He was picking up my brass and putting it into a sack. He said, “Oh, do you want your brass?” Before I sent him on his way, I made him pour out the contents of the bag, which he argued about because he claimed the brass hadn’t all come from my gun. Note to self: check your 6 more often.

Gangbanger’s girlfriend

When I visit a buddy in California, there isn’t a lot of options for shooting. A convenient, but sketchy location is an indoor facility called Targetmasters West. In the evening, the clientele is typically wannabe gangbangers and their chicks. One time, in the lane next to me and my buddy, a guy was there with a girl in 4” heels and super tight jeans. He had given her a big .40 Beretta, and was standing behind her looking at her ass. The girl had obviously never shot a gun before, and was very nervous. Just as I was about to intervene, she closed her eyes and fired. Then she danced and squealed “I shot it! I shot it!”, and turned--sweeping me and my buddy--and stopped with her finger on the trigger and the gun pointed straight at her guy. I couldn’t help thinking, “please… pull the trigger” ;-)

Is it loaded?

This next incident was the last time I’ve been to Targetmasters because it’s just too scary. In two lanes to my left was a large group of older Chinese guys. One guy went to the back of the bays and took a Glock 26 out of a bag (obviously violating safety rules). Since he was pointing the gun in our direction (with finger in the trigger guard), I walked over and calmly put my hand on top of the slide and pointed it downrange. I asked him if the gun was loaded, but his English wasn’t very good. He didn’t like me grabbing his gun, and for some reason, he kept trying to point the gun at me. We ended up having a little grappling match while he was yelling at me in Chinese and his friends were trying to get in on the action. We ended with his gun pinned to the bench. After he finally let go, I discovered that gun was loaded and chambered. We left and informed the ROs (who never seem to pay attention to what’s going on in the bays).

I shot the roof

Another story from an indoor range: Cletus and Billybob were in a lane to my left. They had one of those monster S&W revolvers for killing bears or Godzilla. It was so loud that I gave up trying to shoot and just watched them. After a couple of shots, Cletus was so twitchy that he was visibly shaking. He touched one off prematurely, and a ton of ceiling tile and dust rained down.
Cletus: “FUCK! I shot the roof…”
Billybob: “You idjut. They charge you like $20 every time you do that”
Cletus, looking up at the hundreds of holes in the ceiling: “Huh. They sure must make a lot of money that way.”

[HopetonBrown]

The less lethal shotgun thread reminded me of this.

Guy brings an 870 and boxed Magpul furniture to the gun store/range, asks if they can install. Sure, it'll be ready in an hour. He leaves, and employees status check the 870; full tube. Open the Magpul boxes and he's purchased orange furniture.

Dude comes back and says sorry, he totally forgot it was loaded. When it's explained to him that orange furniture is used by police to differentiate shotguns with less lethal payload from lethal he says yeah he knows, he's a cop.

[Clusterfrack]

INFIDEL!
One day at our local Practical Rifle match in an active rock quarry pit, I snuck off down the hill to take a piss behind a bush. As I was relieving myself, I heard a loud drill-seargent voice above and behind me, “INFIDEL! DO--NOT--URINATE.” As I choked off the piss-stream, I turned and saw the match director standing atop the hill laughing.

[0ddl0t]

When I visit a buddy in California, there isn’t a lot of options for shooting. A convenient, but sketchy location is an indoor facility called Targetmasters West.

Lol that was where mr. itchy head flagged himself. Alas, it is no more: antigun activists finally succeeded in shutting it down this summer over lead exposure (which they brought on themselves having such shitty ventilation, but still). https://www.reddit.com/r/CAguns/comm...nently_closed/

[Lex Luthier]

I last set foot in Targetmasters West in 1999, I think. I'm surprised they made it that much longer.

[Darth_Uno]

At an outdoor range I used to be a member of, there wasn’t always an RO on hand and members were encouraged to enforce the rules amongst ourselves.

I snuck out there in the middle of a weekday and it was just me and one other guy. I was down range changing targets and I look back to see him holding his rifle looking through the scope.

“HEY! Range is cold!”

“I know! It’s not loaded. I’m just looking at my targets.” *thumbs up*

After a short discussion in which I referenced the big sign next to us spelling out cold range protocol, he didn’t see the big deal because “it wasn’t loaded”. While I saw a lot of other dumb stuff, this is the only person I ever reported to the club. Not because I was ever really in danger (I wasn’t). I can forgive an epic brain fart, but he clearly just thought it was a dumb rule and could ignore it.

[Stephanie B]

I used to shoot at a commercial indoor range. The range had very large signs, in large red letters, that said: "All rifles must be shot at 25 yards."

A number of times, I pounded on the glass to alert the counter-rat/RO that some nimrod was banging away with his cheap-jack AR at a target set down at 7 yards. When the RO talked to them, it was always "I didn't see the signs".