Those who can't

[Bigguy]

I was at the range checking zero on a couple of rifles and was watching the guy next to me just having a fit with a new rifle he bought...when we were down range looking at targets he showed me a target with over 40 rounds on it. He was convinced the store sold him a defective scope, mount or rifle. I tried to explain to him in the 100 degree AZ heat and with firing several rounds down the pipe the barrel heats up causing loss of accuracy. Especially on the light barrel rifle he was trying to sight in...

In one ear and out the other, watched him put another two boxes of soft points through the barrel, wrap it up and out the gate. He didn't even go down to retrieve his target...

Reminds me of my dad. We squirrel hunted with .22s. The best were the little single shot bolt actions models, but all my friends were getting Nylon 66s and I just had to have one. So one Christmas Santa left one under the tree. Me and my firends scoped everything in those days because, well .... because!
So dad grabbed it one frosty morning to go squirrel hunting. The first couple of shots were OK, but then he started missing. (I won't go through all of his qualifications again, but suffice it to say that when dad missed something was wrong.) He finally just stopped and sighted it in. Again the next few shots were OK, but soon he was off again. I know he sighted it in at least three times before it settled down and stayed on sight. By that time, he was back to the original notches.
He eventually figured out that as the rifle lost the heat from the nice warm truck cab, the sight started to wonder. If you just waited long enough, it would eventually come back on sight. If I remember right, he counted 7 pieces of metal between the sight mounts and the barrel.
That was a fun little rifle. Wish I still had it.

Edit: I wouldn't use a scope on it though.

[Salamander]

Maybe I'm lucky, or maybe it's because there's a strong gun culture around these parts, but I've seen remarkably few really dumb things. At the place I RSO we're fanatical about safety, at least two RSO's on duty any time the range is open to the public and usually a couple more who are there just to help keep an eye on things. Even at the other range, which is unsupervised, I've never seen anything half as good as some of the stories above. There's plenty of mediocrity of course, but at least they're hitting the target.

The one place that occasionally gets a little interesting is the river bar. There's a steep cut bank for a backstop and several gaps in the vegetation where targets are traditionally set up and usually there are at least a few people down there shooting any time of day. This place tends to attract the young-guy-with-cheap-AR15 crowd for some reason, and there are usually folks with pistols as well. I'd say 90% of them are reasonably competent and aware though.

Entry from the gravel parking lot proceeds past several informal shooting stations ranging from a 100 yards in to better than half a mile. What I find fascinating is that there seems to be a direct correlation between distance from the entrance and frequency of incompetence and/or thoughtlessness. This is true even though it's possible to drive in with a 4x4, and many people do.

The first and closest station is the only one where I've personally seen questionable behavior. At least three times now I've walked by when no one was shooting there and seen targets full of holes and set up on top of the bank... that's right, high enough that the bullets would have easily cleared the top of the embankment. I'm wondering how long til one of these guys takes out a cow in the distance or worse. In every case I've climbed up there and ripped down the makeshift target holders. This station is also by far the messiest, these guys are absolute slobs. Is there a correlation between laziness (always take the shortest drive/walk possible) and competence? I guess if there is that wouldn't surprise me.

The second and third stations are pretty good, still a bit less than tidy but otherwise I've never seen anything to be concerned about or even anything particularly funny there. The really serious folks are further down though, the groups seem to be a lot tighter down that way and most folks pick up after themselves. Once I even saw a group with a pickup truck cleaning up other people's messes, they'd brought shovels and garbage cans so it was planned in advance.

Maybe I need to come and shoot by some of you folks so I can collect a few new stories... on the other hand, maybe in this case boredom is nothing to complain about.

Also, I'll echo what a couple of others have said. This place is a good reminder of what's possible, a good reason to always strive to get better. Even out here it's too easy to be better than the locals at the range. I guess I do have a story to share about that; when I took my CCW class a few years ago, I brought my target out after qualifying and one of the three instructors while marking it up said "remind me never to mess with you." Actually I was pretty unhappy with that target, I was just back to shooting after a lot of time away and felt really rusty. I'd done well only in relation to most of the rest of the class, and to that particular instructor who was pretty much a spray-and-pray type.

I went back there two weeks ago to qualify and add two new guns to my permit, and the same instructor was there. It was fun to watch their face when they saw two 100% targets... especially since I'd taken a two-day pistol course with LAV just a month or so prior, and although that class contributed a lot to the perfect qualification scores (done with no time constraints) I was still feeling like a rank amateur compared to what I'd seen those two training days. I guess everything is relative.

[Alembic]

I'm a bit confused. Does this thread have any value, beyond the the opportunity to say how incompetent others are? The first fews times I read on this site I was impressed by the level of knowledge. However this thread is pretty low brow.

[GardoneVT]

I'm a bit confused. Does this thread have any value, beyond the the opportunity to say how incompetent others are? The first fews times I read on this site I was impressed by the level of knowledge. However this thread is pretty low brow.

I agree.

The 2nd Amendment does not apply only to the intelligent and the hard working.As uncomfortable as it may be to consider, the simpleton and the genious both have an equal right to own weapons .We should better our skills without feeling the need to throw stones at our fellow shooters.

[fixer]

That sounds a lot like Usery Mountain. A place can only have so many holes in the roof before I feel uncomfortable...

small world...I've been to Usery many times.

[fixer]

I agree.

The 2nd Amendment does not apply only to the intelligent and the hard working.As uncomfortable as it may be to consider, the simpleton and the genious both have an equal right to own weapons .We should better our skills without feeling the need to throw stones at our fellow shooters.

Kind of have to agree.

I've seen people shoot patterns with a ruger charger at 7 yds with a scope and a laser. They were honestly trying. Amusing as it was I don't feel the need to kick a guy when he is down and trying to come back up.

However, the "kind of" part is...those doods who go to the range and project 2x more than they are capable of.

[UNK]

Several months ago one of the local range instructors shot himself through the hand during a class.

One of my students was thinking about taking a job at a new local range in the area as a firearms instructor. He went in for an interview and chose not to take the job...I had known he was interested in the job for a while, and I asked him why he decided not to take it. He told me:

"It's one thing to have new shooters who are uneducated violate safety rules, they simply need someone to show them the importance of their actions. It's a totally different thing to have range owners who have been in law enforcement their whole lives place little to no value on safety. I have been taught how important safety is, and as I taught that to my students, it wouldn't be seen as a necessarily lesson, but instead as either 'something that just has to be said' or viewed as 'making waves'. I couldn't in good conscience work somewhere where 'professionals' don't take safety 'professionally'."

It's so absolutely sad that he is entirely right. I don't feel so bad when noobs don't know better. I feel awful when 'professionals' don't know any better. If you're a cop who has a negligent discharge on the job, you shouldn't have to go through remedial training; you should be banned from being a cop for life. There are millions of freaking EPA, noise ordnance, etc hoops to jump through to own a range. Why isn't there the slightest bit of safety training required? Oh, you read the NRA range safety officer book and mailed in a paper test? Wait, you took two more days of training and now you're a chief range safety officer? It's sad that many range owners don't even make it to that, the absolute bare minimum of training.