Range Day Stories of Horror and Woe

Public ranges suck. When you look at the general population, the real truth is people and guns don't mix well. This isn’t a comment on the 2nd Amendment or who should or shouldn’t have guns, not even remotely. But it is stating the true fact that guns are dangerous and there’s a lot of people who have them who don’t know what they are doing or who care to seek guidance or education. When you go to a range that has public access, you quickly come to this conclusion.

I've been lucky enough where nothing horrific has happened. For the most part, people will follow at least one of the cardinal gun safety rules to help prevent catastrophe. Of course, they're treading extremely dangerously by removing the other three to four layers of redundancy, so that's not even remotely a consolation, but hey, it displays how effective the set of rules can be even when not all goes right. Again, not really a consolation though.

For these reasons I've made efforts to getting in with private clubs that typically have bays to remove the variables of A) being around other people and B) being around inexperienced people. The peace and quiet with the ability to train and drill are big factors in seeking out these different ranges. So these stories come almost exclusively from my first year and a half of shooting at a range that is accessible to the public.

A view out of the 100 yd range section of the range that’s the subject of this article.

Before hopping into my range day stories here are the gun safety rules for review:

Always treat the gun as loaded.

Always keep the gun pointed in a safe direction.
Always keep your finger straight and off the trigger until you are ready to shoot.
Never point the gun at anything you don't intend to destroy.
Be sure of your target and what is beyond it.

And lastly, before hopping into these stories and instances, I should describe the range briefly. It isn’t a super typical set-up, so that’s why I witnessed so much shit. It toted itself as a private range, but that was just a means of it to “be member-run” so that no RSO or owner was required to be present. The public was able to come any time and use the place as much as a member (with having to pay a higher daily rate of course). So that’s the setup and why so much of what I saw unfolded.

COLD RANGE? HOT RANGE?

I understand coming into a range and not understanding what’s the norm and what the procedures are, but my understanding only goes so far. This is in regards to hot and cold range and going down range to set up targets. Usually, I was able to explain to someone how a hot and cold range worked if they seemed green. Or I had no issue answering any questions someone may have or asked. Some people, however, are just too damn proud (or dumb) to ask and will just walk past the firing line and go down the range when it’s hot to set up targets. That happened too many times, but fortunately, everyone else was typically aware enough to notice it and call ceasefire each time.

The other side of that is typically older dudes, “fudds” if you will, just not giving two shits and going down range to set up or check out their targets. I presume they could care less if you’re shooting or not, but every time they would cross the firing line the rest of us would stop, go make the range cold and wait on our fudd. Dick move, but we can work around it safely enough. The flip side is when said fudd starts shooting when you’re downrange. Typically they’d claim their prowess and ability to shoot straight. Yeah, you’re probably right that you won’t shoot off your lane, but that is not even remotely enough grounds for shooting on a cold range with people downrange.

The bottom line is if people can’t be bothered to put on their turn signal when driving a car, then you’re damn right they are going to struggle with balancing what a hot and cold range is and how to behave.

MAG DUMPING IDIOTS

Not so much a safety issue, but I have so many stories here, I might as well share this snippet of range behavior I observed. Now don’t get me wrong, sometimes you just have to let it loose and just dump a mag, or, better yet, bump-fire a mag out. It’s simply fun. And on the other side of the spectrum, I’m not saying every time you go to the range, you have to be taking meaningful reps. But where I raise an eyebrow when someone loads up a full mag and just shoots it all a steady cadence and does that the whole damn time they’re at the range.

I’ve seen dudes unload drum mags on repeat. Burning it down once should satisfy most people, especially someone who owns the guns and has made range visits before. I would regularly see people practice mag dumping at 25 yards into the dirt. It was so bizarre. I also saw a lot of people mag dumping at 100 yards into dirt repeatedly. Sometimes they would be shooting so recklessly the gun would bounce in their poor grip and rounds hit the dirt all over the spectrum from 10 yards to the whole 100 yards out.

I get a lot of it can be simply being unaware of how to shoot and spend your time and ammo wisely. But damn me if I have a hard time not wincing when I saw it all the time...even in the heart of the ammo shortage.

GETTING FLAGGED

Probably the cardinal sin of gun safety is flagging, sweeping, or holding your barrel at someone. That hits the next level when you flag someone with poor trigger discipline. In my couple of years going to a public range, I've been flagged far too many times. Everything in this post stands as reason that I don't mess around with public ranges anymore, but this is obviously one of the major ones.

Poor muzzle awareness comes down to two things; someone is new, unaware, and/or poorly taught OR they're an idiot. You can be both and neither is an excuse.

I've been flagged more often than not by people I'd deem as inexperienced. Even if you hammer it in them and they are aware, some will just slip up as it's not registered in their head permanently. At a public range, you're going to have a lot of new people; some with the best of intentions to learn and build this new skill set or some who just bought their "home defense" weapon will take some shots and call it good. The only way to mitigate it in this range setting is to stay vigilant and call things out and call them out firmly. In some cases, you can tell when you need to say something before they load up too. But in the end, this is one of the biggest liabilities here with public ranges; inexperienced people sweeping people with their muzzles.

All this is comprehensive coverage of these new people. Now let's get into the other side of the coin with idiots being idiots flagging people. There are too many instances to share, sadly, but I’ll just share one that felt most noteworthy.

I'll paint this picture for you. I get to the range, park my car and grab my gear. I open the door and walk into the range. To my left on the line is a family of 10+ having a range day, walking all over the line with their guns at their hips and sweeping EVERYONE, trigger discipline sort of existent. Immediately to my right, another family is walking towards me away from a pistol bay carrying their guns swinging in their arms AND with fingers on their triggers. I wasn't at this range for 10 seconds and I was flagged five to six times.

SHOOTING STEEL

“Steel” Targets at 100 yards.

My steel target I brought accompanied by random junk set up by other people days prior.

Shooting steel is extremely fun. Nothing beats the instant feedback of connecting on steel. This is especially important at a public square range where it can be hard to see your hits past 20 yards on paper. It's for these reasons I got steel targets to bring to the range. I read up on the safety and ratings of plates before shooting them simply because I had paid attention when I heard steel target shooting and safety brought up in the past. Other people don't care and just shoot at these fun targets willy nilly.

The most common thing I saw was people shooting steel far, far too close. There was a busy range day where some parents had two young boys at the range shooting steel 7 yards away with a handgun. Off-topic here, but the kids were also eating snacks off lead, mildew and God knows what covered shooting benches. Oof. These people were centered on the firing line and spalling was flying just yards in front of everyone on the line. The angle was perfect too where the spalling could come in perpendicular to someone, going past eye pro or common glasses and sunglasses. Nothing came of it, but it wasn't ideal.

The next most notable incident was a time I was alone at the range shooting out to 100 yards. All of a sudden some meatheads come in and whip their AR15s out of their bags, guns loaded, and begin unloading at the most cheese-cratered block of steel dangling by a chain at 25 yards away. And these guys are mag dumping. The steel is so disfigured it didn't really matter, but he was shooting it at a 30-degree angle, not even in front of it. And guess who's also at a 30-degree angle on the other side? That's right, me. Again nothing came of it, but that was a super dicey mag dump. I was too dumbfounded to say anything. They promptly left shortly after.

PEOPLE WHO SHOOT YOUR TARGETS

Not so much a safety issue here, but something super annoying that happened far too much with my time at a public range and that was people shooting my targets.

When I had my steel set up, I understood if people would take some shots. It’s enticing, I get it. I would politely ask someone to stop especially when they were shooting something too close or too powerful given whatever variables. When people would ask to try, I would double-check what caliber they were shooting and accordingly say yes or no depending on round and distance. Either way, I feel like it's a pretty standard courtesy to double-check with the person directly aligned in front of the target, no? Which unfortunately barely happened or only after I told them, "Hey, that's mine." Also, I feel that "know what your target is and what's beyond it” applies here. Knowing what you're shooting is okay to shoot seems to be pretty basic and common courtesy.

Anyways there was one instant though that particular irked me. There was a guy shooting an M1 Garand of all things and after he started shooting at my steel, I politely asked him to stop as he was destroying the stand the steel was hanging on. Shortly after he shot again and the stand broke and the steel target fell to the ground. I let out a, "What the hell man?!" He followed with a careless "Ha, my bad." I was without a target for the day after an hour's drive out to the range thanks to this bozo.

People shooting your steel in one thing barring damage to the target or stand, but people shooting your paper is next level frustrating. I take that back, what's next level frustrating is people mag dumping into your paper at 100 yards while you're trying to zero your rifle. And better yet? When they deny this right to your face when you saw it and saw the hits land on target. I don't even need to explain why that is annoying.

The last story is a time I got one of those dumb bleeding zombie targets. I like to get those when I take first-time shooters to the range. It just makes it more fun and welcoming for them. Anyways, we set one up at 25 and were saving it to shoot after getting the basics down and getting some first shots off on some other paper targets right next to it. Soon after a dude rolls up ten tables down from us. He pulls out an AR10 and mags dump across the range to our Zombie bleeding target. I ran over to him and told him to stop. Frazzled, but also trying to save face he deadpanly says, "Sorry, I didn't see your name on it". Did this mid-twenty-something-year-old dude just whip that line out on me? Are we in the 4th grade and little Timmy took my pack of Gushers? What the hell? To add to that, the target was in front of us and still fresh. And again, does it hurt to ask? Also, shooting across lanes? Mag dumping an AR10 at 25 yards? This is probably the pettiest instance in this post, but damn does writing this out make my blood boil.

BREAKER OF ALL RULES

I categorically broke down a lot of the instances I’m sharing, but this guy and his friends broke just about every rule in the book. So he gets his own section. I show up to the range, and there’s a big white van with the doors all open and empty. I walk into the range and see three guys and about 20 guns scattered all over the place. The longer I’m there, the more clear it gets that I really shouldn’t be here. I can’t remember the sequence but these are the things I see:

Walking all over the range and past the firing line while the range is hot
Keeping guns pointed down range or in a safe direction was apparently something they thought was optional
Finger off the trigger until ready to fire was completely not a concept to them
I soon found out all the guns around the range, stacked, laying on tables….literally everywhere, and pointing in every direction were all loaded and chambered with live rounds. Half the time when they picked one up they’d laugh about how the gun wasn’t on safe.

I left.

For the remainder of my visits at that range, I used the pistol bays that were decently sized. It allowed me a private setting and the ability to train. In time, I was able to find alternatives and have not remotely had anything like what I’ve outlined happen again. Mostly in part to the fact it’s just me or my friends at these private ranges. It’s great. There’s no other way to do it other than having your own land., which, if you have your own land you’re able to shoot on, then I’m extremely jealous. One thing is for certain, I’m never, ever going back to that range again.

The beauty of a private range. You have it all to yourself and you can drive right up to your bay. Perfection.

Author: John Gelardi