Scary Range Stories

[CajunBass]

You haven't described anything unsafe. All you've described is a rookie shooter who doesn't know how to aim and squeeze the trigger properly. As long as his bullets were going downrange in the general direction of the targets, he wasn't unsafe -- he was just a poor shot.

There's a difference.

That's what I was thinking. What'd he do wrong?

The scary part of the story is that she PASSED!

Again, what's "scary" about that? Rounds loaded backward won't fire. She made a mistake, apparently from lack of knowledge, was corrected and taught the proper way to do it, and from your story had no more problems. She learned, which is what you're supposed to do.

Maybe I don't pay close enough attention to what's going on around me, but I've never seen anything like what I read here. Even on the unmonitored range at the local WMC, everyone was careful and respectiful of the rules. Not to say I haven't seen the bullet holes in walls and ceilings, it's just never happened when I was there.

Am I the only person who hates to be the first one to fire after the range goes "hot?" I'll check the lights it seems a dozen times. At the indoor range with the electric target hangers, if everyone stops shooting, I stop and look around..."Did someone call a cease fire?"

[UncleEd]

Incident One: Downrange at 50 yard rifle range and guy at other end opens
up. I yell. He shrugs and puts gun down.

Incident Two: Guys downrange at 25 yard rifle range, two others open up.
Yell at them. They explain they weren't shooting near those downrange.

Incident Three: Guy holding rifle with barrel down (rule says skyward) and walking. Call him on it since bolt is closed as well. He points it at range
house and pulls trigger. Click. See, he says, it's empty.

Incident Four: Marine at indoor range flipping and sweeping others with
Glock as he transitions back and forth from Glock to AR. Tell range
officer. Officer says guy's a regular and a trained commando with the
Marines.

Incident Five: Break called for downrange target change. One guy remains
at his stall, playing with his guns and loading them while others are downrange. Rule is leave guns open and back away. He shrugs when called on it.

Incident Six: Guy next to me putting holes in my target. Call him on it.
He explains he doesn't have targets and thought those downrange were for
everyone to use.

In all cases, rules covered incidents but a lot of eager beavers never learn them or don't think they pertain to them.

[SARuger]

I have a couple;

Potts Mountain Slope public range; Call the range cold, everyone agrees, i get a solid report, even from the unsupervised teenagers at the other end of the range. I'm the last one down range changing targets for my group and one of the teenagers points a semi auto pistol down range and pops two off quick. I yelled with my loudest football coach voice and told him to put the gun down. The teenagers thought it was funny but no one else at the range did, we called the authorities.

Public range in Blacksburg VA; We call the range cold, there are three groups there, mine on one end, a group in the middle of VT students and a group of Asians, also VT students on the opposite end from me. I knew there was a language barrier and made sure each time we went cold that I got a report from them but after about an hour it went downhill. As my group was changing targets the Asians opened up fire. Scary as hell! I went down and talked to them and only one spoke English. He said he would communicate range calls to his group better. He had stepped out to use the facilities just before the range went cold.

Needles to say I do not shoot at public ranges anymore. I joined the local Izaac Walton League and we have a 250yrd rifle range that is not used hardly at all except right before deer season. Everyone that uses the range has to have NRA range training. Never had an issue.

[rtpzwms]

I have three or four that spring to mind. The first was in boot camp where one of the recruits shot a DI. The second hearing a bullet hit a tree above my head at an open shooting area. Third a group of security guards spraying and praying for hits at an indoor range. Muzzle control was not there strong suit. The last was a government ballistics expert (no kidding) that tried to show me how clean his shotgun barrel was, it was all I could do to not beat him to a pulp.

If you shoot long enough you will see just about everything. Don't let it rattle you and keep your focus on your safety. And remember that most of them just don't know what their doing wrong. So correcting them nicely will go a long way for all of us that want to do the correct thing.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

1. Old guy who had to have his rifle wrestled away as he kept shooting during a cease fire - he 'knew how to shoot'

2. Guy walks up with a Glock 23 slightly out of battery, in his hand, pointed at us, to get advice.

3. Guy draws his gun from holster and throws it down range.

4. Take daughter to the indoor range, she looks at ceiling above and makes snide remarks about the holes.

[smarquez]

At a very active range, I watched an asian guy start trotting out to setup his target. While range is hot. RO gets on the PA screaming for cease fire and for the guy to stop. They guy is 25 yards out by now and turns to look. Sees everyone stopped and proceeds. Gets yelled at again,finally comes back and is escorted off the property. Staff even loaded his guns in the car for him.
I don't go to indoor ranges so no horror stories from those.

[Mosin-Marauder]

There was this one time I was at my range and these inconsiderate bugs kept landing near my muzzle, knowing it was unsafe, I As acting range officer "escorted them off the property".

These stories make me glad I don't have to go to these public ranges.

There was that one time at appleseed, the girl beside me shooting prone kept slinging brass all over my mat, still have a few of those burns.

[Tom Servo]

A few years ago, I was sighting in at an outdoor range. I noticed something move just out of my FOV. I looked up over my scope, and a child was on the backstop, changing targets.

The father's explanation was that I was shooting well, and his target was 12 feet to the left of mine, so there was no risk. Things got a bit heated.

I've lost count of how many people have taken loaded but malfunctioning guns off the line and pointed them at me.

Oh, and the weapon is still loaded, even if it "only has a couple of bullets in it."

[g.willikers]

Guy draws his gun from holster and throws it down range.

A guy did that at a match with his uber expensive open class pistol.
It probably cost more than the car I was driving that day.
Some folks take life way too seriously, don't they?
Before leaving, I did look for it in the trash can.
No such luck, though.

[Erno86]

Just last Saturday at our outdoor range...a guy muzzle swept me while both of us were on the concrete firing pad. I said: Hey...you just muzzle-swept me --- He said: "It's not loaded." I said: You have to treat all guns as if there loaded.

Then the same guy opened his double rifle case...and picked-up the rifle that was not pointed downrange or upwards. I told him that formed double rifle cases that had the firearms pointed in different directions, had to be put in the rifle rack behind the firing line, or taken from the car with actions open and empty chamber indicators installed. When he starts to leave...he commits the same infraction on the benchrest table.

A few years ago at our outdoor range...A guy gets so incensed with his muzzleloader: He grabs and picks-up the rifle by the muzzle, and swings it baseball bat style towards the steel support overhead canopy pole on our concrete firing line. He stopped just short of hitting it.

While I was standing on the firing line, at an indoor range about 8 years ago...I noticed a teenage girl sitting behind me on the bullet pocked-marked carpet --- Doing dry fire drills with her revolver while having the muzzle pointed at people on the firing line.

At the same indoor range, that just had a successful suicide at the range with a rented pistol about two years ago: I was standing behind a guy that just bought a 500 S&W pistol --- He cocked the loaded piece with the web of his left hand covering the face of the cylinder --- The gun went off, with the bullet ricocheting off the concrete floor about two feet in front of him and ricocheting off the side wall. He instantly dropped the pistol on the floor, after receiving a three inch long cylinder blast gash on the web of his hand.

The owners of the range told him that he had to go to the hospital --- while dressing the wound the best they could --- So what does the injured shooter do? --- He goes back to the range to shoot some more. By then...I was long gone.

[GLS_1956]

My scariest range story is when my gun club shared a range with local police force.

One day I was out getting instruction on Cowboy Action Shooting from an instructor, when the local "SWAT" team showed up. They set up 50 yards to our left and about 20 yards behind us. After setting up their targets, we waited while they did so. The started firing MP-5 submachine guns from the position behind us, instead of joining us on the firing line.

Their excuse for doing that? They were "Professionals" and had fired weapons with people in front of the line before. Needless to say we left the range. Much to the "Professionals" dismay, when the Police Chief, Mayor and City Council were called and informed of this act, the SWAT team was disbanded, later to be reformed but with new members.

[kbuilta]

I belong to a private club where the members are their own RO's -- which is usually no problem and people communicate well. I was there this past Sunday at the outdoor benchrest range and there was one other group at the far end. I setup my shooting mat on the concrete near the left end to shoot from position. An older guy came after I'd been there a while and was chatty - then he setup on the lane just on the other side of a wood partition to my right, completely out of sight.
After a while, while I'm up using my spotting scope, he walks over into my lane with a small pistol and starts talking about how he wants to try this out, it's only a few shots, and proceeds to shoot across 3 shooting positions at the 25 yard targets that are off to the left side. Posted rules say no firing at the 25 yard target from those rightmost lanes of that part of the line and no cross-shooting anyway. I was glad when he said he wasn't going to reload it (it was blackpowder) and shoot it any more.
Later, I was down in prone concentrating on my 100 yd target with my Garand when out of the corner of my right eye I see the guy step in front of the line onto the grass - far enough that I can see him clearly past the wood partition. He's collecting brass. I took my finger off the trigger. He was out there about 3 more times while I'm still trying to shoot. The Garand throws its brass right where he was rooting around and at the very least I would have nailed him with some hot .30-06 brass.
Nice guy, and friendly - just seemed to have entered that stage in life when some people think they've outlived the need for rules. At least he didn't pickup my brass - there were a half dozen rounds out right where he had been scavenging.

[g.willikers]

It's the older you are the less you have to lose attitude.

[DaleA]

Nice guy, and friendly - just seemed to have entered that stage in life when some people think they've outlived the need for rules.

I wasn't there so I won't second guess you about dealing with the gentleman.

If I was the 'gentleman' in question I'd like someone to take me aside and politely but FIRMLY tell me I was just flat out wrong and messing up the smooth operating of the range and if I did it again I could be bounced off the range. If you wanted to soften the blow you could add 'just saying' at the end.

[scottMO]

a bullet hole at the check in counter for the local rental range. Should have caught the rental clerk in the legs but somehow missed.

How abt the youtube video of the outdoor IDPA style match where the shooter is moving/engaging targets and gets to the last string of targets and someone is there pasting the cardboard. Very scary to say to least...

found it:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8tft9tBQ0g

[g.willikers]

I've told this before, but it's worth repeating.
The first stage of a USPSA match, with lots of folks waiting their turn.
The R.O. instructs the guy in the box to load and make ready.
He does and reholsters.
Just as the R.O. raises the timer to begin, I notice an unnatural movement of a small bush on the backstop, nearly in line with the first target array.
I shout stop, and to the R.O.'s credit, he does just that.
I hurriedly run down to the bush on the backstop and there's a four year old girl playing behind it.
After everyone recovers from near heart attacks, we find the parents and give them plenty of hell.
The moral to this story is don't bring pets and small children to shooting matches, unless they are on firmly held leashes.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

OMG. I saw something like that at an outdoor range. A small boy got away from his father and got behind the target stands as he wanted dig the bullets out of the berm.

Other things I remember - I was score keeper at a match and standing next to the SO, when we tell a guy to load and make ready. He's shooting a 1911 and as he holsters he fires a round into the ground a foot away from my foot and inches from the SO's foot. He gets so startled that he starts to wave the gun and the SO grabs his arm to freeze it.

At a class, a student asks the instructor about a draw. The instructor draws his loaded gun, pointed at the student. The instructor is horrified at himself and drops and does 50 as penance.

At a match next to a rifle range, a round bounces off something at the rifle range and whizzes into the match bay and cracks a guy in the head. Raises a welt. He says to ignore it. I would have go to the hospital to check for hairline crack (but it was his call, I suppose). If he did go, the law would have to have been called.

[CowTowner]

A gentleman went down range after a called cease fire. Checks his target and along with everyone else starts walking back (100 yard range). Then decides he needs to use a tree as a restroom. everyone is back at the line and hot range is called. Gentleman steps out from behind tree (it's on the side berm) and many calls for cease fire are heard from the RO and shooters.

[g.willikers]

When ya' gotta' go, ya' gotta go.
Did the fellow have any leakage at the other end when the bullets came whizzing by?
Seriously, the RO is supposed to keep track of everyone, even on a crowded range.
That's what they get paid all those big bucks for.
And the folks shooting are supposed to watch out for this kind of stuff, too.

[CowTowner]

No other leakage that I'm aware of.
Range policies changed after that AFAIK.

[Husqvarna]

He puts a target on the cardboard and pushes it out to 15ft. He fires off all 17 rounds deliberately, taking his time in between shots and he appeared to be aiming.

As he pulls the target in I glance over to see 1 single hole through the left-hand side of the target...

I see beginners all the time, we shoot 25 meters one handed and I have never seen anybody shoot this bad, even the first time

newbies of course mostly shoot 22lr but pretty wuickly the get to try a 9mm or a revolver, still never seen anybody shoot this bad

how is it evne possible?

[Glenn E. Meyer]

At a local indoor range, it is not uncommon to see a person load up a piece of crap, Tek-9 ish something. Then they fire all 30 rounds in a string at 3 yards.

The target has holes from top to bottom and left to right.

[zincwarrior]

I would have go to the hospital to check for hairline crack (but it was his call, I suppose). If he did go, the law would have to have been called.

I have been at more than one indoor club match with splatter/round bounce and hit me all the way back at the firing line-once making my arm bleed from a gash.

At an outdoor match shot a round, it ricocheted up and hit a bird standing on the top the berm. I felt really bad about that actually.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

I had my chin split open by a fragment that bounced back off steel (at a supposedly safe distance). Didn't know it till my beard turned red. The SWAT guy teaching the class, wanted to shave the area but I went for direct pressure and got it stopped.

Saw a 45 ACP bounce off a tire and whack a guy hard in the chest.

[Rattlehead]

It's a little off topic, but the issue Glenn mentioned is exactly why our range requires eyepro for all past a certain point on the road. Many of our steel matches have ricochets and fragments going every which way. Rarely do they have enough power to break skin, but I would NOT want to be caught in the eye by one.

I have to say, despite it being a relatively unrestricted range, I've never felt the need to leave due to anyone else there.