Scary Range Stories

I've told this before, but it's worth repeating.
The first stage of a USPSA match, with lots of folks waiting their turn.
The R.O. instructs the guy in the box to load and make ready.
He does and reholsters.
Just as the R.O. raises the timer to begin, I notice an unnatural movement of a small bush on the backstop, nearly in line with the first target array.
I shout stop, and to the R.O.'s credit, he does just that.
I hurriedly run down to the bush on the backstop and there's a four year old girl playing behind it.
After everyone recovers from near heart attacks, we find the parents and give them plenty of hell.
The moral to this story is don't bring pets and small children to shooting matches, unless they are on firmly held leashes.
 
OMG. I saw something like that at an outdoor range. A small boy got away from his father and got behind the target stands as he wanted dig the bullets out of the berm.

Other things I remember - I was score keeper at a match and standing next to the SO, when we tell a guy to load and make ready. He's shooting a 1911 and as he holsters he fires a round into the ground a foot away from my foot and inches from the SO's foot. He gets so startled that he starts to wave the gun and the SO grabs his arm to freeze it.

At a class, a student asks the instructor about a draw. The instructor draws his loaded gun, pointed at the student. The instructor is horrified at himself and drops and does 50 as penance.

At a match next to a rifle range, a round bounces off something at the rifle range and whizzes into the match bay and cracks a guy in the head. Raises a welt. He says to ignore it. I would have go to the hospital to check for hairline crack (but it was his call, I suppose). If he did go, the law would have to have been called.
 
A gentleman went down range after a called cease fire. Checks his target and along with everyone else starts walking back (100 yard range). Then decides he needs to use a tree as a restroom. everyone is back at the line and hot range is called. Gentleman steps out from behind tree (it's on the side berm) and many calls for cease fire are heard from the RO and shooters.
 
When ya' gotta' go, ya' gotta go.
Did the fellow have any leakage at the other end when the bullets came whizzing by?
Seriously, the RO is supposed to keep track of everyone, even on a crowded range.
That's what they get paid all those big bucks for.
And the folks shooting are supposed to watch out for this kind of stuff, too.
 
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He puts a target on the cardboard and pushes it out to 15ft. He fires off all 17 rounds deliberately, taking his time in between shots and he appeared to be aiming.

As he pulls the target in I glance over to see 1 single hole through the left-hand side of the target...
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:eek:

I see beginners all the time, we shoot 25 meters one handed and I have never seen anybody shoot this bad, even the first time

newbies of course mostly shoot 22lr but pretty wuickly the get to try a 9mm or a revolver, still never seen anybody shoot this bad

how is it evne possible?
 
At a local indoor range, it is not uncommon to see a person load up a piece of crap, Tek-9 ish something. Then they fire all 30 rounds in a string at 3 yards.

The target has holes from top to bottom and left to right. :eek:
 
I would have go to the hospital to check for hairline crack (but it was his call, I suppose). If he did go, the law would have to have been called.
Click to expand...

I have been at more than one indoor club match with splatter/round bounce and hit me all the way back at the firing line-once making my arm bleed from a gash.

At an outdoor match shot a round, it ricocheted up and hit a bird standing on the top the berm. I felt really bad about that actually.
 
I had my chin split open by a fragment that bounced back off steel (at a supposedly safe distance). Didn't know it till my beard turned red. The SWAT guy teaching the class, wanted to shave the area but I went for direct pressure and got it stopped.

Saw a 45 ACP bounce off a tire and whack a guy hard in the chest.
 
It's a little off topic, but the issue Glenn mentioned is exactly why our range requires eyepro for all past a certain point on the road. Many of our steel matches have ricochets and fragments going every which way. Rarely do they have enough power to break skin, but I would NOT want to be caught in the eye by one.

I have to say, despite it being a relatively unrestricted range, I've never felt the need to leave due to anyone else there.
 
Someone was shooting .357 2 lanes down from me - hit the steel hanger and a sizable piece fragmented and hit me in the chest. Felt like an angry steroid guy reared back and hit me as hard as he could in my chest. Left a real nice welt too. Makes you wonder what it would feel like with a full-on body hit.:eek:
 
I once had a piece of hot brass hit me from another lane, I was mid break but jerked slightly and put a crater in the ceiling. The concrete dust led to a cease fire and everyone was very concerned.
 
Stupid twit loaded pistol powder in a 5.56 case. Blew up the gun on the next position at an out door range. T handle broke my nose and glasses.
Shooting with my nephew several weeks ago when what appeared to be a family outing showed up. Took up position about 10 down from us. Several AR’s came out of the cases and I don’t think I have ever heard as many magazine emptied as fast as they were. I started watching what they were doing and in 5 min I was swept multiple times by several people with magazines in guns.
Since they and I were the only ones at the range I went up and pulled up the no fire sign which is a large metal sign and called out The range is cold stop firing.
I told them what they were doing and none of them seemed to understand that sweeping a rifle that’s not loaded is a problem. We left for the day. I did file a report with the range master.
 
Worst incident for me was visiting a college friend's house with a few other people to go shooting. Myself and a 3rd friend were sitting on the sofa chatting with the guy's dad about concealed carry, and he was telling us how he carried a .44 Mag snub nose because it was hefty enough to smack 'em with if need be (he was in a wheelchair). Then he proceeded to pull it out and wave it around to demonstrate his pistol-whipping technique. Swept both of us multiple times, finger was probably on the trigger as well, but thankfully my memory isn't that clear. I'm not sure how high your blood pressure can spike before your arteries start exploding like water balloons, but I feel sure that mine was right on the borderline.
 
Is it my imagination that I feel like I am getting a revolver like splatter from a local range that has steel targets at 7 yards? Is 7 yards too close for steel targets?

I am familiar with the splatter feeling from shooting next to revolver shooters at the same local range that does not have dividers between the lanes. I avoid shooting next to revolver shooters if possible at ranges without solid lane dividers.
 
My story about a shooting range experience was when in army basic training at Ft. Polk, La in 1968. We'd been shooting our M14 rifles enough for us to use a full magazine. Our M14 rifles were semi-auto only.

So, I'm on the firing line with 15 or so other guys, readying to fire in the standing position with a full magazine of 7.62 Nato rounds. To my left is a young guy from some city in the northeast, who'd never shot anything before being drafted by the army. He is one of the smaller guys in our company and had no physical attributes for playing any sports. Guy shouldn't have passed the induction physical due to his eyes.....he was legally blind in both eyes.

So, as I am just about to fire my first round, guy to my left fires first and his rifle goes on full auto. I turn immediately, drop my rifle with intention of running to his aid with the rifle. He'd managed to drop the rifle to his hip in an attempt to control it. While he could keep the barrel level, recoil was swinging him to the left and there were about 4 other guys on the firing line on that side. I hadn't taken two steps in his direction when his muzzle had spun him around enough to be inline with the guys to his left. They didn't seem to be aware of his problem. Thank the Lord, he'd emptied his magazine just as his barrel lined up with them. Needless to say, all heck broke loose with this event.

Basically, what had happened was something had broken in the rifle, some sear as I recall. The M14 had been designed to have a selector switch, allowing semi or full auto.
 
I go to a very cheap and shoddy outdoor range, about 30min west of Atlanta of I-20(for those of you who know about it). there's always children, newbies, lots of people and little supervision(sometimes none at all) from RO. maybe because it's in the boonies and little known about, but I haven't ever had an issue at a shooting range. I see people need to be reminded not to be fiddling with their guns when range is cold, but that's all I can think of.
 
The range I go to is really well run.
They have a public address system that works really good.
Sometimes when the range is cold and we are checking targets, one of the range marshals will get on it and scold someone.

I got no complaints. They watch everyone all the time and I like it.
Most of the yelling from them is directed towards the handgun area.
I feel safe at this range because they stay on top of every rule on their books.

Sac. Valley Shooting Center. Wide open and clean. Love it.
 
South/southeast of Camp Victory Kuwait, and out past the old "Highway of Death" boneyard and Ali Al Salem was a big stretch of nowhere-edness. After we'd done our year in Iraq we'd been moved back to Kuwait and was waiting to go home when we caught word we'd been extended and would have to go back to Iraq. This was in April or May of '04. Anyways, somebody thought that stretch of desert was a good place for us to re-qualify before going north again. When we got to the area, everybody un-trucked and was milling about the area when we started noting several 40mm grenades laying on the ground. These were just the projectiles- no cases attached. We chewed on the map reader who got us to such a wonderful spot. I caught sight of 5 or 6 of the little golden eggs as I was rounding up my squad to get them back to the trucks. We found another area to shoot just before the wind picked up again, and luckily nobody kicked, stepped on, or ran over one of those things.
 
When I was younger, I was swept by more loaded weapons, witnessed more negligent discharges, and saw more rounds sent down range while under a "cease fire" than I can count.

I've witnessed rounds sent into the parking lot, into the benches, the target stands, the roof, and even watched one guy put a round through his ammo can.

I've seen a few guns go ka-boom from wrong ammo, overloaded handloads, and bore obstructions. I've also seen a dozen or so cleaning rods and ram rods go downrange.

Once I got older, and shooting on my own, I avoid public ranges like the plague. All my shooting is done on forest service, BLM, family owned private land, or private land accessible by the public.
 
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