Of Range Etiquette and Stupidity (long)

Gentleman showed up at a pistol range I was practising on carrying a Smith and Wesson 59. He parked himself in the lane next to me and cranked off one round. No shots followed, so I glanced over at him, just in time to see him pivot towards me with his finger bouncing in the triggerguard.

I'm hear to tell you that have never seen a firing line clear so fast.

Man kept asking, "What's wrong with this thing?"

Turns out that the 59 had gone from DA on the first shot to SA on the follow-ups, and he thought the lightened triggerpull meant the pistol was broken. *sigh*

He admitted later that he only fired revolvers prior to the 59 and thought all pistols had revolver triggerpulls.

A friend of mine and I were out shooting his .40 Sigma. Got done, and he's getting ready to clean it...racks the slide, and drops the magazine. Anyone notice the problem there?

Apparently, disassembly of the S&W Sigma requires that the trigger be pulled, while holding the slide back a wee bit.

Yep, blew a 155 gr JHP through the meaty part of his hand. Damn near hit my leg.

We don't shoot or clean guns together anymore. :D

LawDog
 
Even at the public ranges you occasionally get some wha-hoo's that don't know what their doing or have no regard for others nearby. One example occurred when my wife and I were out shooting .22's at 100 yards for accuracy, when the guy next to us opens up with his F/A M16. The muzzle blast from the 16" upper that he had installed was so bad that we had to back off the line until he was done. In his defense, he also had a F/A MP5-SD that was quieter than our .22's. The (only) problem that I had with him was that he was firing long blasts without any warning or respect for my wife and I trying to shoot small caliber for fun. He was only into 'blasting' magazine after magazine through the M16.

If the range had been any slower, we might have moved, but this range is normally jam-packed on weekends. Our loss,
 
Just move out here to the country and you never have to worry about going to a range again. :) Just make sure you don't shoot the cows was always my only rule. :)
 
I gave up on public ranges years ago. The range at our club is usually safe, given that most of the members are experienced shooters.
Problems arise, though, when it's crowded. In one instance, a guy yelled "ok, the range is hot," and closed the bolt on his rifle. I looked downrange and saw a guy hanging his target on the 100 yd backstop, and quickly yelled for a ceasefire. Since then I've learned to count the number of shooters before a ceasefire is called, and count them before the range goes hot. Every so often, a
guy will go behind a berm to relieve himself, so just looking downrange isn't enough.

Dick
 
Man! I guess I never knew how good I have it. My "range" has always been my farm where, luckily for me, the only people I ever run into are myself and whoever I invite out with me. I guess I should just be thankful that I don't have to put up with anyone else and can just enjoy shooting at my own pace.
 
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