Any strange/funny incidents you've witnessed at the range?

P

Pond James Pond

New member
I only ask this as the other day I was at the club watching a guy having a go using a revolver, and trying to hit a couple of mini IPSC targets on a timer and somehow, on the start signal, he managed to open and then empty the contents of his cylinder onto the floor.

I've heard of people accidentally dropping their mag on the floor but never accidentally dumping a cylinder's worth at their feet! :confused:

I think he must have had his thumbs in the "both forward" semi-auto position and inadvertently pushed the cylinder release...:o

There were a few raised eyebrows amongst those waiting their turn!!
Poor guy: bad enough when your alone, but with a whole bunch watching as well!?

Any odd moments for you?
 
I think he must have had his thumbs in the "both forward" semi-auto position and inadvertently pushed the cylinder release...
Click to expand...
Very lucky they didn't blow their thumb off! :eek:

When it comes to Thumbs Forward Grips it is not emphasized enough that it is dangerous when shooting a revolver.

Was at a range once when I saw these two people (details of who omitted for good reason) came in and claimed they had shot there many times and knew the rules to avoid filling out a form and watching a short video.

In my gut I knew they were lying and green. They broke almost every rule and ended up shooting through the side panel/divider. Thank god no one was hurt.
N
eedless to say they threw them out and when I came back about a week later there was a sign posted on the front door with their pictures on ( a still shot from the cameras) :D as a warning to them and anyone who thought to try the same thing.
 
I saw a lady stick her thumb straight up behind the slide on a striker fired semi...
I was able to stop her before she fired
 
I saw two young guys with a new 1911 don't remember what kind. Using handloads they had gotten one stuck in the barrel. One went to the car and came back with of all things, a screwdriver and proceeded to attempt to clear the slug with it. This happened before I could stop them from doing so.
 
True story!....

Id say the strangest event that I ever witnessed on a firing range was in South Korea in 1990.
On a US Army training range, one of guys in my platoon loaded a M16a1 5.56mm with about 20 tracer rounds.
We were ordered to shoot up a few boxes of 5.56mm rounds before we left the rifle range.
We'd normally fire a 5.56mm tracer every 3/4 round just as we'd do in real combat(to aid our marksmanship at night or in low light).
When the MP(not me, :D ) fired the tracer filled magazine full auto the 5.56mm red tracers lit up the paper target & wood target frame! The entire target stand caught fire! :eek:
If we had cell phone cameras or DV systems back then it'd be all over www.youtube.com .
We quickly put out the small fire w/o incident but it was interesting to watch what a full auto M16a1 model could do with tracer ammunition.

Clyde
PS; Id add that before any TFL/veterans post that the M16/M4 isn't full auto or can't fire in full automatic, keep in mind this was the older M16a1. Not the A2 5.56mm which became a 3 shot burst format.
 
At our remote firing range somewhere in south central MS our tracers caught the range field on fire. When the fire crept a bit too close for comfort, we were ordered to all go and stamp it out. While out there, one of my buddies found and picked up an old 'dud' grenade...with no spoon!.. That had just gone through a fire!!
:eek:
 
I was at a local gun club rifle range yesterday. I'm not a member, so I am extra careful to be on my best behavior. The folks are very friendly, members volunteer as range master and safety guys walking the line. It was very busy, lots of folks sighting in their rifles for hunting season. About half of the lanes were taken.

After a while, a man and his son showed up and took the lane two over to my left, as that was the best available. The guy was probably late 30's, and the boy looked about 12-13 years old.

The first problem came when the range master called cease fire. The dad walked up to the bench and started unloading the case. The range master called out over the PA, but the guy was clueless, did not realize that he was the problem. Took a minute to sink in.

The range rules are clearly poster on a large sign. The range has a cement floor, so the rule is if the firearm is not pointing downrange, it needs to be pointed straight up in case of AD. The son got called out for it a few minutes after the dad was called out.

Soon after everyone changed targets and the range went hot, we all start shooting. His son had a single shot rifle they were trying to sight in the scope. I was shooting my 1895 45/70 shooting five shot groups. So I had a lot of time to wait until the next cease fire. The dad and son were having a lot of trouble. Most of it was the communication between the two. Son would shoot, dad was watching through the spotting scope.

I'm no expert, but it seemed to me that they were adjusting the elevation the wrong way. There were a lot of rounds hitting the dirt way in front of the target. I could see the dirt flying up. Dad couldn't see it because he had his eye in the scope the whole time. Son didn't see where the rounds were going either.

Dad's mood wasn't improving, and the son was getting defensive. I didn't want to say anything, but finally mentioned that he was hitting way low. Fortunately Dad happened to see the same round go low, and just said "yeah". So they did get it worked out.

I did find some keyholed marks on my target at 100 yds from their misses at 50! :eek:

They left a short while later, and left all of their brass lying around. The volunteers then had to pick up after them. I don't think they will get sponsored for membership... :rolleyes:
 
Probably 25 years ago at an outdoor range, saw a kid using a knife tip to dig out the fired cases from his Smith revolver.

I asked him about his cylinder star extractor. He had a blank look.

I asked to see revolver and turned it muzzle up, then hit the cylinder extractor rod. Boing, the six fired cases popped out.

He was one surprised kid.

Guess he never read or had an instruction manual or someone to teach him about DA revolvers.
 
During my basic training in the IDF about half my platoon was Ethiopian immigrants who didn't know squat about anything mechanical. After firing a mag, we had to run down range and stand off a bit 'til the sgt.s called us to go over our target. Daraj was two down from me and you should have seen his face when they called him to explain his target to them. I noticed that one of the commanders had stuck an unfired 5.56 cartridge into one of the holes. They started yelling at Daraj that he didn't pull the trigger hard enough. A good laugh was had by all..............except Daraj.
 
I was at a range I used to be a member of shooting at a 20 position 50 yard handgun / rimfire rifle range. I was the only guy there that day. I was on position 5 and two guys stepped up to position 15 while I was shooting a .45acp M1911. One guy started walking out to set up a target, but didn’t call for a cold range. So I unloaded and set my pistol on the bench, and stood back to watch. He set up a big piece of cardboard then walked back. His buddy loaded a shotgun to shoot for a pattern I guess. The wind blew over the big piece of cardboard about 5 times. They never did get a shot off. So one guy stood there holding the target upright. The shooter would raise the shotgun, the target holder would quick jump away, and the shooter would blast a round before the wind knocked over the target. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I sat down on a bench and watched them repeat this 10 or 12 times, then they packed up and left. So I resumed shooting my 1911. When I got home I called the President of the rifle range and told him what I saw, and gave him the license plate number of the vehicle they were driving. I never saw those two guys at the range again. I would imagine they got their membership revoked, or at least I hope they did. Strange, yes. Funny in a way, yet sad too.
 
I was in Brunei in 2006 as part of a joint training exercise, 4 of us from Okinawa went into the jungle with a platoon from their Royal Landing Force to do some bi-lateral training. They carved a 50 yard range out of the jungle in about a day. Their platoon sergeant had been on the Brunei Olympic pistol team and we watched him shoot 3" steel discs at 50 yards while bent over shooting between his legs with a High Power. That however is not the interesting thing that happened.

We were running them through some CQB drills at the 25 yard line when one of them decided to send a 40mm round out of his 203 (we didn't even know they had brought 40mm ammo to the jungle with them), the surprising thing was that it actually detonated on a cardboard E silhouette at 25 yards.
 
I was at a public range shooting some loads I worked up for my rifle at the 200 yard range.

In comes this van, a young fella gets out with a 22 rifle and scope still packaged in their respective boxes, sits down at the 25 yard bench and proceeds to un-package everything.

He installs the scope on the rifle and ask me if he could go down range to put up a target, I unload my rifle, step away from it and tell him it's safe to proceed with hanging his target.

He comes back to his bench, tells me thanks for waiting on him, loads his rifle and starts to sight it in.
His group is dead center on his target, I'm standing there with my mouth hanging open and can not believe my eyes, he says I guess that's good enough.

I told him that he should immediately go buy himself a lottery ticket and that I've never seen that happen in all my years of shooting.
He had this puzzled look on his face and told me he thought they were all preset from the factory.

Best Regards
Bob Hunter
www.huntercustoms.com
 
Strangest thing I saw was when we were qualifying for our department handguns, one of the female officers had a Glock 22, .40 cal blow up in her hands. Luckily she was OK, we heard a loud bang and we looked and she was standing there just holding the lower part of the pistol. The magazine had blown out, the barrel breech blew apart and the slide had blown off, apparently as designed. We did manage to find all the pieces and it was packaged up and brought to our ordinance unit, where apparently I think a Glock rep was going to meet them. We learned later that they believed it happened over bad ammo.
 
Dumping a cylinder whhile firing .....

I think he must have had his thumbs in the "both forward" semi-auto position and inadvertently pushed the cylinder release...
Click to expand...
Not a problem with a Colt :D

As for "a funny thing happened at the range" ...... I had two that were not thought of as very funny by the folks in charge of Camp Guernsey, WY:

1- A call for a "Fire Mission, Infantry in the Open!" on a flock of sheep that had wandered onto the Impact Area ....... 12 155mm M107 HE rounds with VT fuzes will tangle wool pretty badly, apparently ....... and knot Official panties, too.

2- Battery MG familiarization range, with a wooded draw 50 meters to the front, and a shallow, open hillside beginning 200 or so meters beyond that, with targets on it ...... at the first burst from the line, a herd of deer ran up out of the draw, and were nearly instantly pursued by 10 lines of tracers ...... apparently, it is hard to hear "Cease Fire!" over 8 M2's and 2 M60's .......
 
Brass Pickers

There use to be a guy, who went around the public ranges, picking up brass. In fact, he was kind of a nuisance as he would not always wait for a shooter to leave before he started picking up the brass. More than once, a shooter would call him on it for doing so. ..... :mad:

On one occasion, while switching from shooting my .22LR, to a 22-250, he started picking around behind me. Man, I hate when folks get to close to me while I'm shooting. Politely told him to give me some space as I was getting ready to shoot my 22-250. He replied that he would be okay. Before the shot, he was squatting down, picking and after the shot, he was flat on his A$$. This time, I told him to leave and come back after I was done. ..... :rolleyes:
I understand that eventually the part time safety officer barred him from being on this range.

Be Safe !!!
 
Many years ago, while at the Tampa Police Pistol and Rifle Range (now closed), I set up my target at the 100 yard line of the rifle range.
At this time there was no Range Master on duty and everyone was expected to obey the rules and cease fire and make safe at the sound of the bell.
After a shooting session had finished, the bell had rung and everyone looked up and down the line to make sure all was safe. We walked down range and while standing at our target frames some idiot opened fire.
We all screamed and hollered and hit the deck but this idiot kept firing at his target.
It wasn't until he'd finished that we were able to get up and return to the benches.
The shooter couldn't understand why we were all upset, after all, he was firing at his target.
The office was informed and he was permantly barred.
 
I had a brass picker show up next to me at the range last week. He would fire off three shots and proceed to pick up his three empties and any of mine he could reach. He must have been doing it a while since I had so little on the ground when cold range was called. I started noticing his movements after three shots. I stood there unloaded with pistol in hand and took a step back when I thought he was behind me. He was close enough the last time to step on his fingers. He was almost in my stall.

I yelled and brought the attention of the range master and anyone within earshot who saw him scurrying back to his spot. The range master must of said something to him because he packed up and left leaving his targets down range. What tool.
 
A couple of years ago my son and I were at our local indoor range and had a nice laugh at a warrior wannabe who was shooting next to us. I shoot in competition and my son (in college at the time) is better than I am. We're cutting out the centers of our targets, my son with his STI Trojan and me with my STI Edge, when in walks a weekend commando. This guy is dressed in all black. Tight black t-shirt, black cargo pants, black tacticool vest with all the goodies (d rings, Velcro straps, mag carriers...). He was also wearing a thigh holster rig and carrying a fancy pistol case and large range bag (both black of course). He then pulls out a couple of Sigs and before shooting, I kid you not, he puts on a pair of black gloves. At this point it was simply amusing, but when he started shooting it became funny. This guy was only shooting at 5-7 yards (my son and I were shooting at 10 and 15 yards) and he couldn't hit anything. His target looked like someone was shooting a shotgun. I mean he was hitting the target from edge to edge and all points between. The guy was making a show of looking at the gun as if that was the problem. I thought my son was going to start laughing out loud. This guy must have had $3k in gear and couldn't hit the side of a barn. When we were checking out I asked the owner of the range, who we've known for years, who Joe Commando was. He just shook his head and said he's safe, but he can't hit a damn thing.
 
Gun Shop Rangers/Weekend Rambos...

You see a few "gun shop rangers" :rolleyes: & weekend Rambos from time to time on open ranges/rental ranges sometimes.
Once, years ago, I saw a odd looking guy in a wool SAS Commando sweater & black military beret stroll around a few gun show displays. He looked over a few military type weapons(AUG rifle, SIG 550, Beretta AR70, HK MP5) & remarked that he "wrote" military fiction.
I guess he liked to get into the get-up & "pretend" he was a real military spec ops guy. :confused:

Clyde
PS: Id add that the young kid in post #8 might have been related to the elected official in the recent news clip about guns who honestly thought the US military used magazines once only! She said that the "clips" can only be used once then thrown out.
 
At knob creek gun range in ky, two guys rented some AR's and hit the stall next to me. They loaded up their mags with 32 rounds and every time they tried to load one it'd fall out. I should've let them fumble around, but I didn't. I explained to them what was wrong and went back to shooting only to have hot brass pelt me. Whats worse is I saw some green Lt do this in Iraq. We were in a stack on a door, for some reason he'd yet to charge a round. He went to charge the M4, mag falls out at his feet and he proceeds to kick it around as he tries to pick it up... Funny looking back at it, not so funny then.

Another not so funny at the time: in a stack in Samarra, this NCO noticed he'd never hit the bolt release and his bolt was locked back. He hits the bolt release, bolt slams forward and *BOOM* M4 AD's in the stack. Our counter intel guy was the guy in front of him starts screaming. He gets carried back crying about how he can't feel his toes and just carrying on. Get the medic who pulls off his shoe... No blood...round has passed through the edge of his boot but hadn't hit him. We didn't know it (this was back in 03/04 and was our units first deployment. We'd been putting the round back on top of the mag ever time we cleared our chambers and the firing pin would light strike the primer every time the bolt slammed forward.

At a range down in Ft Polk I was working up some loads and some old guy takes the bench next to me. Starts trying to sight in his rifle. After a minute of loading rounds and pulling the trigger with no booms he sets that gun down and pulls out another. After about a box of rounds and adjustments I notice him looking puzzled and offered to help. He said he thought is scope was broke, I pointed out that it was canted 90* the wrong way. Zeroed fine after that. Then he picks up his 30-30 lever and says he's been having trouble with it. He levers in a round, hits the trigger *click*. Levers it out and shows me the round; it has a light strike mark in primer. I ask if I could try. I lever in a round, take the gun off safe and *boom*. He'd never taken off the safety...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top