this is a great suggestion. I had a laminated one for years, and eventually moved to an iPhone Notes checklist.Originally Posted by runngun
this is a great suggestion. I had a laminated one for years, and eventually moved to an iPhone Notes checklist.
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I like separating concerns so it's easier to keep track of whether you brought enough of whatever. One big bag and you're probably going to forget at least 1 thing. I usually keep my guns, mags, earpro, parts, and basic tools in a range bag. If it's a small amount of ammo, range bag works. 500rds+ and I'll just take a case or half case as opposed to cramming boxes in bags.
For gear like holsters, belts, pouches, etc. I tend to like taking a duffle bag full of spares. I'll usually keep spare eye/earpro in here as well (cheapo stuff). If it's a brief range trip where I know I'm just taking 1 or 2 guns, I might cram the basics in the range bag.
Med stuff I like to keep separate, with a few separate blowout kits, TQs, or whatever.
I find milk crates to be really useful for range equipment. Stuff like: staplers, hammer, tent stakes (for target bases), spray glue, targets, tape, etc. They're stackable, simple, cheap and good enough to yank out at the range and throw on the ground at the firing line or wherever. They're easy to lash to the side or bottom of a trunk/truck bed to keep things secure while driving. If you get the 2X-sized rectangular plastic crates (for groceries?), sometimes you can fit certain target bases in those too. I'll also usually keep a sealed, plastic binder that's filled with B8's or other 8.5x11 targets in one of the crates as a last resort when I forget my box of targets. LOL Only downside with the crates is, most are an open lattice style, so anything small needs to go in a bag or box so it won't fall out.
If it's range trips where you are at least in some part responsible for setup, I don't think there's an easy way around having a trunk full of 1x2's.Then, after the trip, dealing with a trunk full of 1x2's with staples that's all like this:
Excellent thread.
These are great points.
Another variation on the same theme is to have one bag for pistol, and one bag for rifle. Smaller bags overall, and if you’re only shooting one discipline you only need to take one or the other. There might be some mild overlap on things like lube, but they’re generally small and having two of them isn’t a big deal. I do the same for shotgun/clays as well. I think that, for most folks, the pistol bag will be the primary, and the rifle bag will actually be smaller with maybe a chest rig, belt mounted mag pouch(es), some dedicated rifle tools and spare parts, etc. All bags get a BOK.
FWIW, I prefer to have a spare gun to having spare parts, but having spare parts is a nice way to get the primary gun up and running during lunch break or whatever.
I keep my ear pro and hat I like to wear for shooting on top of all the bags in a big filing cabinet drawer, so it’s pretty impossible to miss. Grab the headgear and the appropriate small(er) bags, and any required ammo cans, and I have a pretty high level of confidence that everything I’ll NEED is in there. Shotgun ammo stays packed in the pallet as it’s pretty hard to get that into any smaller profile and doesn’t require mags. Rifle mags and ammo are, as previously mentioned, packed into ammo cans (or the ten mag purse I helped design). Pistol mags are in the pistol bag, with spares and extra ammo in cans.
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When I started competing seriously, I bought the original version of the Shooters Connection Tournament Series Shooting Bag PRO.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSn8T4M47-0
It holds almost all that I need for practice or competition; pistols, ammo, timers, spare parts, paper targets, staplers, etc. I just weighed it and it is currently 52lbs. I just use the inner bag for carrying from stage to stage at a match or in classes.
I also use a plastic tote storage box for other shooting crap, ammo, bipods, etc.
With these 2 items in the truck and the stands, cardboard and sticks that are always in the truck, I have everything that I need with me. No more wasted range trips due to forgetting things.
Gringop
Play that song about the Irish chiropodist. Irish chiropodist? "My Fate Is In Your Hands."
Great points so far by everyone.
As the original poster, I’ll mention some of the failings of my packing over the years. I take all day, and 2-day classes, but only rarely, like 1 to 2 times a year. And the rest of the time it’s an indoor range where I’m shooting handgun only 99% of the time and my indoor range handgun backpack doesn’t need much stuff. And I’m not worried about emergency sight adjustment or repairing a broken gun at the indoor range. The cost to mitigate the risk in terms of carrying extra shit does not outweigh the potential loss if I waste a range trip and waste driving 10 minutes each way.
But when it comes to classes, several things change:
1. If my shit breaks mid-class, it’s much more costly to me because I paid a lot of money and dedicated special time and likely traveled 1 to 12 hours to get there and the instructor is there for a limited window to train with. So it shifts the calculation into wanting to bring more stuff to repair or fix certain issues that may arise.
2. Sometimes these outdoor classes are long gun -based and my indoor range bag is pistol-based. And if I want to shoot a long-gun at the indoor range, honestly I just bring the long gun in a weapons bag with 2 to 3 loaded mags or a few boxes of shells in the case of shotguns. Usually to zero or to do some familiarity training hot. Not getting too crazy with long guns at 25 yards stationary standing up in an indoor range.
3. Indoor range with handgun means I bring my usual 4 dedicated training mags, empty. And i shoot 50 to 100 rounds of ammo. And I need a break between strings of fire anyway and lots of drills work better if the mag is empty so I don’t want to bring full mags. Loading 50 to 100 rounds by hand over an hour, broken up is easy. Classes mean either bring a ton more loaded mags to avoid wasting time and/or bring a mag lula to speed things up. Also classes have always involved me bringing some loose ammo in my pockets or tactical gear to top off mags on the firing line between strings.
4. Indoor range is inside. Classes are outside. Which means sunscreen, wide brimmed hat, lots of water. Indoor range is 60 to 90 minutes, classes are 8 to 12 hours which means food, snacks. Indoor range has a bathroom 20 feet from the line. Classes means sometimes pissing onto the side berm or using a porta-john so baby wipes are nice.
So here’s been my problem. I can go 12 to 18 months without taking a class. And then class day arrived and I’m panicked trying to remember all of the special shit like SPF and then evaluating if I should bring any spare parts or tools because I don’t have a dedicated “class spare parts kit” to grab.
And my SPF was a spray bottle that I’d shove into my indoor range bag and the handle would get depressed half the time and waste it, sometimes draining it fully. Because I had no system, it was a goat rope of last minute shoving random shit into places it doesn’t belong.
Why was I always so unprepared? Why didn’t I have all of the gear laid out days in advance? Because when I’m taking a 2 full day class on Saturday/Sunday it means I have to take care of all of my personal shit I otherwise would have gotten done that weekend, but earlier in thr week. And it means I was meal prepping on Friday night to have food for the class to pack and food to eat when I got home exhausted. And I’d have to grocery shop for snacks that week because I don’t eat snacks, ever. Except during classes when I’m expending a ton of calories and have a non-defined eating schedule.
So in all fairness to myself, it’s not like I was being lazy because the week leading up to the class has always been stressful getting ready. So based on my own self-critique and the ideas so far, I’ve come up with the following:
1. Create a checklist of stuff I need for a class. This removes the mental overhead of anxiety of worrying if I forgot something. I always forget the neck cold cloth thing that you soak in cold water and wear around your neck to block out sun and keep you cooler.
2. Create a spare parts kit that is portable. Since I don’t have too many weapon systems, I’ll just include all weapons spare parts in one small container. Limited to what I can realistically repair in the field. It won’t be too big. I’ll also include some diagnostic testing parts I keep like one of each weight AR buffer.
3. Buy some SPF lotion in a tube. I picked some up last night at Wally World. No more spray bottles that can be compressed and caused to leak and are difficult to tell how much is left.
4. Create a “spending the day outdoors” mini kit. I rarely spend the whole day outside somewhere that isn’t my home, a friend/relative backyard, or a public park with numerous amenities. This will be a wide brimmed hat, SPF lotion, baby wipes, travel tooth brush/floss, and a couple other things.
5. I won’t buy a dedicated “class” large range bag because I do it so infrequently it doesn’t make sense for me personally to double up on owning two sets of gear like some here do. If I competed or took more training classes I’d consider it. Instead I’ll use my checklist and an empty Rubbermaid container that I’ll put the outdoors mini kit, the spare parts kit, and other stuff I need like rifle mags in it.
As I type that out, it might make more sense to use a cooler with some kind of attachment nylon system to add things to the handle. Since Mags and ammo are too heavy to put in a Rubbermaid and carry by hand. And I need a cooler anyway. Maybe I can figure out a way to attach the outdoors stuff to a small pouch on a small yeti cooler. Fewer total things to pack my car with. And the mags/ammo can be in ammo cans.
Or maybe the outdoor stuff kit goes into a regular daybag separate from my range bag. Since I also should have some extra clothes and a few other things.
Some more planning to get this right. Open to suggestions on these ideas and hope it helps others.
My wife's idea of the jumbo size range bag is the Sprinter. Has everything but a Dillon.
Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.
I feel what people are putting down, because semi-contact classes like ECQC require extra stuff that most people don’t take to the leather couch indoor range to shoot dot torture (unless you are wearing a mouthpiece and nutcup to run dot torture after looking in the Glock sales case for the hundred thousandth time; whatever makes us happy…)
So I have a vertx range bag with indoor range stuff, a rifle case with rifle stuff, a jits gym bag with jits stuff, a first aid backpack with all that stuff (plus redundant sunscreen), and lots of room in the car trunk. I take things by category. For something like ECQC, I’ll have everything but the rifle case with me. For IAJJ, same, minus the vertx range bag. Car trunk also has permanent change of pants, spare t-shirts, wool sweater, billed hat, etc. that ride around in there full time, next to the spare oil quart and air compressor, etc. etc.
I absolutely hear the part about the stress of packing all that shit up after a long day of work to start driving across the state to do a weekend class. I also make lists on bright colored cardstock to keep from screwing something up, and put the list in a file folder along with hardcopy directions, hotel reservations, yelp printout of coffeeshops and brewpubs, gas stations with ethanol-free gas, whatev.
Travel out of town is always a pain in the ass though; it’s amazing how far the “normalization of deviancy” has taken us as a society when it comes to daily travel around the city.
”But in the end all of these ideas just manufacture new criminals when the problem isn't a lack of criminals.” -JRB
Incidentally, @Sanch, David Lee Roth of Van Halen fame has you covered, literally, on the sunscreen. It’s not cheap, but a single stick of this deodorant-like form factor has ridden around to 4 states with me. I can grab it and rub my arms, neck, and even all over my thinning hair in, like 90 seconds. Hipster, but functional. FWIW.
https://inktheoriginal.com/products/...unscreen-stick
”But in the end all of these ideas just manufacture new criminals when the problem isn't a lack of criminals.” -JRB
Over the years I've gone smaller. I have one of these for my commonly used pistols. https://www.midwayusa.com/product/939160870?pid=648356
I have pistol, mags, holster, mag holders and ammo all in one package. Just grab and go. I mostly just do monthly local matches. I remember using a great big heavy range bag and being worn out by the time I lugged it to the range.
My most admired competitor was the guy at an IDPA match who had his holstered pistol and a 100 round box of WW white box. That was all he carried.
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