DO NOT PLAY tacticool operator at the range.

[feets]

For the love of all that is holy PLEASE do not go waltzing into the retail area of your local gun range with an AR hanging from a chest rig.
Nothing cries "lookit me, I'm a poseur" more than pretending you're getting ready to kick in the door and make entry at the local all you can eat pizza buffet.
Yes, you have an AR, just like the other 53 million Americans who own one. The only difference is that you've rolled yours through the Tapco catalog and are showing it to the world in a struggle to be relevant.

Nobody is impressed.
It is far more likely that those of us who are also at the range are not only unimpressed, we're putting you solidly in the "most likely to do something stupid and get hurt" category.

We've all got guns. We all know how to shoot. Please, act like you've done it before.

[MTT TL]

Ut-oh somebody had a bad range day.

[DaleA]

The only difference is that you've rolled yours through the Tapco catalog

Good one.

[FITASC]

Is this something that happened where you live or just a rant?

[krunchnik]

I am an armorer at a local indoor range and gun sales-and believe me we see all kinds of different types.Our range does not allow AR use during the normal day time hours-we have Tuesday nights and Saturday nights for those.I am never there during the evening hours so I don't get to see many of the carnival acts.

[HiBC]

Hmmmm.
Well,I don't open carry. I never walked into a WalMart to buy Oreos with a long gun slung.
IMO,thats NOT good PR. And Oreos give me heartburn
I never ordered anything from Tapco.
After 40+ years of owning AR's,the "new" thing has long since worn off.I do not feel compelled to make public displays of affection like teenage lovers.

I'm not a Veteran or an LEO. I've never been to war. With respect,I will leave "being an operator" to those who "been there,done that"

The image of "Running your AR through the Tapco catalogue" is a good one.
Some folks "Tapco out" themselves.

I got that. Its like playing wit GI Joe dolls...or Barbie Dolls,only bigger.Looky! I'm a Ken doll in Cammies and Kool MOLLE gear!(What? You want me to run how far?) I get it.
But then,folks might want to wear the gear they shoot in.It makes a difference slinging up,changing mags,etc.

But I'm picking up on something else here. The same pervasive,insisious bigotry against an inanimate object,the AR-15,that the media and antigunners embrace.
Get over it.
Society had to do the same thing when those darn 1873 Winchester repeating rifles came on the market.

If you don't want the BEHAVIOR that YOUR IMAGINATION associates with AK's and AR's,fine.If you don't want rapid fire mag dumps at your range,fine.

There are a LOT of AR's that were built for sub MOA performance,that are fired with serious,one shot at a time responsible marksmanship.What rifle gets fired in NRA competition?

And are no different on the firing line than a Remington 700 .223.

IMO,the range may create whatever rules they want,but restricting AR's to two nights a week buys right into the propaganda that an AR is evil.

Now,if you want to open your range to combat style shooting two nights a week for three gunners,etc,that I can support as a positive thing.

And I agree,that style of shooting is not compatible with many other range activities.

If a shooter is doing serious load development or position rifle marksmanship to restrict him/her from the range purely because the rifle is a match grade AR,is,IMO,like most predudice,based in ignorance .
Lets get over "You have to be like me" Its a big world.

[kenny53]

I go to the range often.. I have never seen anybody waltz into the range with an AR any other gun. I do hear a mag dump once in awhile but for the most part it is just girls and boys practicing with gun.

[Colorado Redneck]

IMO restricting AR's to a couple nights per week is a great idea. There is a good reason for this-- it is annoying and a distraction to have a 7.62 Nato rapid firing an entire 30 rd. mag, then stick another mag in and continue firing. I quite the local indoor range because I got tired of submitting myself to that. Just my $0.02.

YMMV

[Targa]

I was at the indoor range Friday. Couple of goof balls mag dumping in the lane next to me, I looked a them with their Star Wars and Wizard t-shirts on and as they giggled and laughed I figured this is really all they had going for them to feel cool I guess. I did pull out the .454 Casull to slap them with a little side blast to get their attention...

[Wag]

Didn't think I'd learn anything from this thread but now I know what a Tapco is.

:-D

--Wag--

[CLC]

This is why so many in the gun community hate FUDDs. Maybe some people like practicing mag changes and testing out their gear? Crazy I know. I see no problem with it if people are being safe.

[rickyrick]

I don’t have any AR with a sling.

[Colorado Redneck]

CLC--you hate me (a proud Fudd) because the AR shooters annoy me? Jeeze...look, if it makes you hate others because you annoy them, maybe you have the problem. Shoot whatever you want. Just understand that not everyone thinks what you are doing is cool. That is known to Fudds the world around as "consideration of others." If there are certain times allotted to shoot an AR, that satisfies everbody.

[MTT TL]

I don’t have any AR with a sling.

Nobody is perfect. You start saving now and you can get together a pile of nickles and dimes by Christmas sales event time.

[HiBC]

the AR shooters annoy me?

See,that,IMO, illustrates the problem. This is really not so different than that Hogg kid trying to get the AR-15 banned because it was used to kill students.

There are,what,53 million Ar-15's? Some PEOPLE behave badly and they choose to shoot AR-15's.
Certainly murder is unacceptable bad behavior.
But its not about the AR-15 or the other "villainous tool of evil" as they seem to think the NRA is.
If the real problem is "AR shooters annoy me" well,sounds like a personal problem,and where ever the center of the universe is,you are not it.

I do not have a problem with a Cowboy Action shooter showing up looking like Hopalong Cassidy with a double Hollywood rig ,a vest,a Stetson and a 73 Winchester. However,quick draw and fanning might not be safe or appropriate RANGE BEHAVIOR Don't ban sixguns. Ban fanning and quick draw.

I don't care if a guy shows up looking like an Airborne trooper with his M-1 on June 7th 1944.But AP and Tracer ammo might be a bad idea.

You can wear black PJ'sand shoot an SKS,for all I care,or a "Gold Deagle"
Come dressed up as Tiny Tim,I don't care.Just don't sing,please.

I don't put a $400 cut rifled match barrel in an AR and feed it Matchkings to do mag dumps.
I can slow fire a 5 round group the same way a Remington 700 does,and frankly,I don't care to be around the AK/AR/mag dump folks while I do it.
Aside from looking at my rifle,you would not be able to tell my AR from a Rem 700 if I was on the line with you.

So ban shooting rapid fire,or over 10shot strings,or whatever BEHAVIOR you reach consensus on.

And I'm sure the 3-gun and combat shooters love having the range a couple of nights to do their thing.

Banning ARs from the range is just silly.

[doofus47]

Was my chest rig too much?

It looks good on Hawaii-5-0, so...

[K_Mac]

A Fudd by definition is a gun owner who thinks guns not necessary to the narrow range of activities he or she participates in should be regulated and restricted. Black rifles and high capacity semiautomatic pistols are popular targets as Colorado Redneck shows here.

CR I don't hate Fudds, but I have little respect for them. The only reason you can legally own a flintlock, pump shotgun, SA revolver or any other firearm on your approved list in many locations is the 2A. The 2A had the black rifles of the day in mind when made part of the document that defines who we are as a people. There are plenty of firearm owners who are only concerned about themselves. While this is certainly true of some AR shooters, it is by definition true of all Fudds in my opinion.

[Jim Watson]

I am not a Fudd, I am equally annoyed by a walnut and blue steel hunting rifle and a black plastic military-ish rifle on an indoor range. It's the RIFLE on a five foot lane that hurts my head. I know it is a profit center for the business and they don't want to hear me complain, so I just go in during the hours least likely to host a rifle.

[4V50 Gary]

Whatever the range rules permits and the RSO says.

Be aware that at a public range the media could be there and how you dress and comport yourself reflects on the 2A community as a whole.

[44 AMP]

The guy doing burnouts in the next lane at a stop light annoys me.
The guy doing a mag dump in the next lane at a range does annoy me. So does someone pelting me with their brass.

But, if it doesn't annoy the Range Officer or owners, then its not really my place to complain.

I do mag dumps and rapid fire, but NOT on a regular shooting range. Out of consideration, not out of any requirement.

And if you're going to do tactical training with all the ninja gear, the local range with shooting benches and a firing line isn't the best place for that, either. If you want to race, you go to a racetrack, you don't do it on city streets.

How is that hard to understand??

This is why so many in the gun community hate FUDDs.

If there was one guy(s) I would hate, its whomever popularized "Fudd" as the name of a gun snob. I always liked Elmer Fudd, and never once did I ever hear him make any kind of statement about banning or regulating whatever it was that he didn't use...

[TruthTellers]

The only time anyone ever annoyed me at the range was when I went to a shop that had rentals and there was a bachelor party there on a Friday morning, the day after I got fired from my job. The .30-30 wasn't annoying, but the .308 in the booth RIGHT NEXT TO ME, just had to shoot when I was sighting something in.

Besides that, I've never come across any "operators" or tacticoolers. I consider myself a tactical shooter because I mostly shoot manually operated guns (revolvers, levers, single shots) and find them to be way more tactical than AR's.

[MTT TL]

And if you're going to do tactical training with all the ninja gear, the local range with shooting benches and a firing line isn't the best place for that, either. If you want to race, you go to a racetrack, you don't do it on city streets.

How is that hard to understand??

One is legal behavior and one is not.

Be aware that at a public range the media could be there and how you dress and comport yourself reflects on the 2A community as a whole.

It's way too late. There enough archival footage on YouTube of people being stupid with guns to fill several servers.

[kmw1954]

Guess I don't have this problem because the indoor range I use only allows rifles chambered in pistol calibers and I've so far yet to see anything AR looking. Then at the outdoor range I use the pistol range and the rifle range are separate also so one again no problem.

Seeing as we all feel the need to label ourselves and others I would label myself a pistol shooter. I own one rifle which is a 22LR bolt action and other than that I have no interest in rifles. In my neck of the woods there is very limited hunting because of population levels and am one of those that does not trophy hunt.

Now if I lived in an area where there were wild pigs running loose I may or most likely would have a different perspective.

[buck460XVR]

Originally Posted by feets

For the love of all that is holy PLEASE do not go waltzing into the retail area of your local gun range with an AR hanging from a chest rig.
Nothing cries "lookit me, I'm a poseur" more than pretending you're getting ready to kick in the door and make entry at the local all you can eat pizza buffet.
Yes, you have an AR, just like the other 53 million Americans who own one. The only difference is that you've rolled yours through the Tapco catalog and are showing it to the world in a struggle to be relevant.

Nobody is impressed.
It is far more likely that those of us who are also at the range are not only unimpressed, we're putting you solidly in the "most likely to do something stupid and get hurt" category.

We've all got guns. We all know how to shoot. Please, act like you've done it before.

Originally Posted by MTT TL

Ut-oh somebody had a bad range day.

^^^LOL.

Soooooo, is showing off your favorite rig(I don't go to public ranges, I have my own) in a known gun friendly place such a bad thing? Would it be different if the shooter just took his gun out to his Big Azz 4x4 truck and roared off into the sunset pumping out a huge black diesel stream of smoke? How about sitting in the parking lot jacking the throttle on his load Harley or his pumped up Honda Accord? Gun owners fight enough battles, we don't really need other gun owners coming down on us, if we are using safe and responsible gun handling practices in a gun friendly environment.

Again, I don't own an AR, nor do I go to public ranges with retail areas.......and I don't parade around in public like a Mall Ninja. But I also don't see a point on belittling other gun owners for little or no reason other than they do things differently than me.

[zukiphile]

Originally Posted by CLC

This is why so many in the gun community hate FUDDs. Maybe some people like practicing mag changes and testing out their gear? Crazy I know. I see no problem with it if people are being safe.

This is where I land too. If a lad gets chuckles from firing quickly, how is that any skin off my nose? How can gun fire on a hot range annoy people? (I won't set up next to a big rifle with a brake, and I won't fit side discharge brakes on my rifles, but that's my choice).

People safely enjoy shooting in many different forms, and it doesn't diminish me in any way for someone to shoot safely in a way that would bore me.

As to dressing in a silly way, it does seem funny to me to get all camouflaged to go to a range, but I type this wearing a bow tie (my summer preference) which I am sure a lot of people also find silly.