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

My wife and I were shooting at a large indoor range/gun shop. After some time we notice a woman who comes in with her purple framed LCP that she obviously just purchased. Being the safety minded individual that I am, I was keeping an eye on the obviously new shooter to ensure that she knew how to safely manage her firearm.

After some fumbling, she got the magazine loaded, and commenced firing. At this time I was standing back from the line watching my wife and happened to be looking right at the woman next to us as she fires a shot, the slide comes back, ejects an empty case, and slides forward chamber the next round. The only problem was that the slide never stopped moving forward. The slide, barrel, recoil spring and guiderod all flew about 15 feet downrange leaving a very confused woman holding on the purple frame of her newly field stripped pistol! :eek: We called a cease-fire and a range officer came and retrieved the parts that had gone downrange which took some searching. During this time the lady kept going on about how it was a brand new gun and she can't believe it broke already.

I found the takedown pin laying on the ground at her feet and explained to her that, "no, your gun isn't broken, you just need this very important piece to hold everything together. She took the gun to the gunsmiths counter and they got her put back together and she came back for more shooting. I think she was embarrassed so I did my best to not make her feel bad and showed her a few things like how to load her mags and how to lock the slide back etc.

I hope to God she gets some instruction on how to use that thing!

Now, every time my wife and I see a purple LCR, we just have a laugh about it! :D

I guess that gives a new meaning to "slingshotting" your slide!
 
German Shep, welcome to TFL.

Good for you for going out of your way to treat a new shooter kindly after an incident like that. I'm sure she was embarrassed, and a bit of tact goes a long way. But, yeah, I hope she got some instruction. :rolleyes:
 
Thanks Vanya,

After re-reading my post, I hope I didn't come off as arrogant about range safety and keeping an eye on a new shooter. Its just that at a public range you have your fair share of knuckleheads.

I have only been really into shooting for a couple of years so I remember very well how intimidating it can be if you don't have someone to show you the ropes. I hope that she came away with a positive experience!
 
Shep, many of us try to keep an eye on everyone at the range. Redundancy helps to keep things safer. A kind/mild word at the time of the bobble helps to prevent bigger problems later on.
 
In ROTC, being the prior service pro that I was:rolleyes:, I was tapped to help run the range one day when some of the younger cadets were shooting for score.

In out Det., this was a big deal, because your shooting ability directly parlayed into a test score that was your mid-term.

A sophomore nursing major, who up to this point, had done really well in all things military, landnav, pt, including initial site in, was all of the place, but appeared to be doing everything right.

When she was shooting prone, I crouched down beside her as she changed mags and asked what her problem was.

She said her rear sight had a water bead in it. (it was raining of and on that day)

I go "Darlin, why don't you just rub it out like this?" (and proceed to knock out the little water droplet with my thumb and index finger.

And she very seriously told me that she had been told not to touch her sights after getting them zeroed.
 
Funny?

Probably my sense of humor....
I have seen strange things at ranges but anything that caught my attention was never funny.
 
Guy walks up to the pistol range at my local Izaak Walton League outdoor range and parks his big butt on the bench and loads up his black powder revolver. Range went cold and he walks out to place his target at the 25 yd mark. Goes back, range goes hot and he takes one shot, drops the gun on the table, and runs back about 20 yards flailing his hands around like an idiot. Turns out there was a good sized wasp nest under that bench. Yep, that was me. :mad:
 
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