flopsweat brings up a very interesting question.. good catch! actually, i spent the rounds at my dad's land showing my niece and nephew how to shoot a pistol at the request of my sister and her husband. They had their 22 rifle and 410 with them and were plinking around, and she asked if i'd let them shoot mine, so i taught them how to properly use, aim, secure and handle a pistol. it was a fun day actually. my little .380 was a perfect size for them, and i shot the 9mm - which actually has less recoil but the grip was a little large for them to handle what i would consider -safely-. they did well!
but, with that, the land is several hours away, so it's not someplace i go very often just to unload rounds,
and for those who mentioned it, yeah... i really do need to find a new range, these guys are a little bit anal about just about everything. I suppose they kind of have to be though, it gets incredibly crowded out there, sometimes to the point of having to wait for a bench to open up, even in the middle of the day on a weekend.
Here's the funny part, and i don't fully understand the logic behind it.
You cannot use hollow points for the pistol range, but you cannot use FMJ at the rifle range.
the rifle range makes sense because the bullet doesn't really crunch when you hit a 3/8" thick piece of particle board, and if you miss, can go on for up to a mile depending upon the gun, whereas a hollow point rifle round will smash and slow down substantially (according to them anyway, i wouldn't know precisely, or if it's true scientifically)
but a hollow point pistol round may slow too much and ricochet - or, maybe it just tears up their target backboard too much to riddle it with expanding bullets....
i don't really know for sure.
their psycho though.
during a cease fire, they tell you - secure your weapons, if you need a target from your bench get it NOW and step behind the line, DO NOT go back to your bench for any reason.
once they have personally checked every single weapon drill sgt style, they say "go to your target now, do not go back to your bench, DO NOT cross the yellow line..
so you go back to the target and re-hang, and go back behind the line...
inevitably SOME idiot will put something on their bench
I SAID DONT GO BACK TO YOUR BENCH.. GET BACK BEHIND THAT LINE RIGHT NOW! and they'll start yelling at them for it.....
then they check over the range several times to make sure no one's on it and commence firing.
yea........ it's all for safety, and i totally get that. but they are a little extreme about it.
"we've never had an accident"
i can think of a lot of ranges that have never had an accident, and are nowhere near as strict.
i mean these guys are to the point where, even if you have your guns unloaded, cased, and are walking out the door with them, if they call a cease fire, you have to set your weapons, weapons cases, ammo bags, etc down on the ground and wait until the cease fire is over before you can resume... even if you're 2 feet from the door.
failure to do so can get you kicked off the range.
if you conceal, you need to remove the weapon from your hiding place and put them on the ground....
failure to do so will get you kicked off the range. --if they know....
if you show up while they're in a cease fire, you can run out there and put your targets up, but you cannot take your weapon out to the range, it has to stay in the office where they "watch it for you" otherwise you're waiting another 30 minutes for the next cease fire before you can hang targets.
granted, most people at the range are honest people and won't steal your stuff but everyone in the office is in their 70's or 80's and as nice as they are (sometimes), i really don't trust their observational skills to keep my guns safe while i'm out hanging targets.
there are tons of ranges here, the only reason i go to this one is because its closer to my mom and step father's house, and he and i go shooting on occasion. but it is a good hour away from me and overcrowded usually.
oh yeah.... the other thing is you have to wait at least 1 second between shots. no quick shooting, no shooting from the hip, no drills, no nothing. so it makes it hard to practice stuff like that.
the only way i can do that is at home with a (verified to be) unloaded weapon at home. lol which brings me to a final thought.
Is anyone else this anal about gun safety?
any time i get my gun, i of course check to see if it's loaded or not, pop the clip out, unchamber, make sure it's totally unloaded.... tell whomever i'm talking about it - about it, check to make sure it's unloaded again, then again, then hand it to them... tell them to make sure it's unloaded... take it back from them, check to make sure it's unloaded, talk for a while, make sure it's unloaded, anytime a weapon is anywhere near me, i check it at least a dozen times almost compulsively. almost as if a bullet may manifest in the weapon for some reason magically.
i have never understood how people can shoot themselves or others in a "gun cleaning accident"
i have never tried to clean a loaded weapon...... ever. lol
everyone knows that your work bench should be 100% free of ammo to prevent any sort of accident.. you unload it, put the ammo AWAY lock it up... especially if the gun is going to be sitting on your bench for a bit while it's in pieces or whatever. remove all possibility of it ever becoming loaded lol.
i guess it happens though... or people blame it on gun cleaning, and bleeding hearts use it as an excuse to ban guns.