Your worst day at the range?

About 6 weeks ago I decided to go to the National Forest Range about 45 miles from my house. Would be my first time since late last spring. Not being a hunter I don't keep up with the hunting seasons that closely.

Get to the range, parking lot full and hear lots of loud booms as getting out of the car! Suddenly realize it is the Friday before black powder season opener the next day. All the folks were sighting in their rifles. More people arriving. I decide it was no place for me today.

Nice fall drive into the country.
 
I took my M1 Garand rifle and drove over 100 miles to get to the range. I unload all my stuff and loaded a stripper clip with the ammo from the plastic bag I grabbed as I left. I go to put the loaded clip into the gun and it doesn't "look" right. I then discover I had grabbed a bag of 8mm Mauser ammo, not the .30-'06 ammo! Loaded everything back in the vehicle and drive the 100 miles back home, very disappointed.
 
Qualification with bad ammo. The department reloader was down. RO got some cheap reloads. No one got through a 60 round run with out at least 10 bad rounds. Fire fire did not fire get cleaning rod and insert down the muzzle and push the wad cutter back into the cylinder.
Another time an idiot rookie decided to drop full prone then draw his revolver as he pulled it out of the holster with finger on the trigger. He discharged one round and shot a trench the length of his right buttocks. A ten year range safety record ended.


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I was at the range one day with my M1 Garand. I had loaded up rounds that were medium velocity and increased the load half a grain from there. I was nowhere near a max load with any of the bullet/powder combinations.

I had just finished shooting the medium velocity stuff and chambered the first round that was half a grain more. When I pulled the trigger that round kicked like I had fired it out of a bolt gun, not a Garand. I stopped immediately and tried to unload the clip.

There was smoke coming out of the chamber, and I had to tap the op rod handle with a plastic hammer to eject the empty case. The primer dropped out of the pocket and you could see the imprint of the ejector channel/bolt on the base of the case.

I called it quits for the day, packed up and went home to pull the bullets on the rest of the loads; all were within spec. I took the rifle to a gunsmith and had them check the chamber with a go/no go gauge. The chamber was fine.

I still don't know what caused it.
 
My worst day on the range was the first time I went after my shooting partner died!


Best day: They really are all good! But I had a stroke 10/5/10, I have a miraculous recovery and on MLK day 2011 (1/15?) I went with the guys. I was shooting my 338 Lapua mag Savage 110BA. I was shooting well and call out that I was going for the cigarette pack sized gong on the 500 yard line. It was the January Thaw and several people had pounded that target already, but I got it in my scope, on target and squeezed the trigger. I looked to Jim Bragg, spotting on my right and he was just lying there prone and shaking. "Did I hit it?" He told me to look at it. I got back into the scope, but couldn't find the gong...….or the post...….or the base! I started looking around the area, and finally found it; ripped out of the ground and thrown up the hill about 15 yards! I knew I was back into the sport again!

Ivan
 
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Mine wasn't wrong ammo or broken gun, it was the manager of the Firing Line indoor range.
I asked at check-in if I could take a chair into the range and was told fine.
After setting up, the next thing I know this absolute jerk is screaming at me for using the chair. He was about as dangerous as I have ever seen anyone, standing there so angry he was shaking. And of course, everyone has a loaded weapon in their hand. I cleared mine and laid it down.
I kept my cool and explained that I had asked at the desk. That just made him madder as he went into how he ran this place and those other people didn't count. I immediately smiled and said I was sorry and that I would remove the chair, trying to de-escalate the situation.
At just about that same instant, several cops who were firing on the line started telling the manager to calm down. Of course, that took him up another notch.
Finally one of the cops identified himself and told the manager if he reported what he had just seen, the manager would loose his license and perhaps even his ability to own a firearm. I didn't wait for a response.

By that time, I was packed up and headed out. I was scared. Guns and anger don't mix well. It looked like it could turn South at any moment.

I shoot solo in the backcountry about 90% of the time.
I really dislike indoor ranges.

Prescut
 
Went to the range with my first loads off my Dillon 550B. Load was approx 200gr SWC over 3.8gr Bullseye. Fired through my magnificent PC 5" 1911.

First shot stung my hand. Fired 5 rounds total. Stopped. Something is wrong here.

Got home and checked setup on Dillon. Everything seemed okay. Checked my RCBS scale that I set it up with. WHOA! Weight block on beam was set on 5, not 0. Load was not 3.8 Bullseye; it was 8.8 Bullseye (!). Yikes! More than double charge!

Gun seemed to be okay. But that's no way to treat a fine target pistol.

Worst day at range II:

Got to range. Half hour drive. Realized I forgot something. Well ****!

Ever since then, I have had rangelist.doc on computer, which I check before I go. Twice.
 
Worst day at the range you ask......

Getting shot in the leg at a Service Rifle match......308 from 900 yards off the target upright still sucked!!

I was in pits pulling targets when it happened.

Randy
 
6518John said:
I don't see how anyone tops this experience. I also don't see how you kept from dying from exposure.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what you're asking. It's not like I didn't know I was going to be outside in the winter for a significant amount of time. What I wasn't prepared for was to stay "in the field" for a week.

Had I known that was going to happen I would have some extra socks and underwear. I would have brought my sleeping bag and likely my poncho liner.

Thinking back I must have had my wet weather top because we were in Field Uniform which included LBE with wet weather top attached

The first night we all stayed in a maintenance shed on the range. The next day when the rest of the battalion showed up, my room mate brought my sleeping bag and I started sleeping outside. An Extreme Cold Weather sleeping bag is warm, I woke up covered in snow a couple of mornings.
 
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No really bad days, when I was in the National Guard and the Reserves all the horror stories were ones I heard about, never saw.
1. One time firing an M1911 an indoor range, a case bounced off the wall, wedged between the frame of my shooting glasses and my cheek-OUCH !
2. Bought a vintage Winchester M77, magazine model, first target, at 50 feet-BLANK ! Then it realized the front sight was an after marked addition that looked like a ski jump.
3. Bought a used barrel for my Browning HP, first group at 50 feet-a pattern, not a group. Looked at a fired case-I was shooting 9MMs out of a 40 S&W barrel.
 
The day I retired from competition, I was 62, it was a hot day in Florida (and man that's REALLY HOT) on the third stage my front sight and knee both went almost simultaneously. Geoff Who is occasionally tempted by steel plate competition...but I'm over 70 now...sigh.
 
A long ride to the range, taking only my brand new PC 27-7, my first centerfire handgun.
The tenth round that I fired was a squib-the first and last that I've ever encountered. At least I had the sense not to pull the trigger again, but just barely.
I didn't have a dowel to knock it out, so soon I was taking the long ride back home. Thereafter, I was prepared for such things.
 
The drive from my house to the range is about 25 miles. Worst range trip ever was the one when I got to the range and realized I'd forgotten to bring targets. My range is a private club, and it doesn't have a shop to sell targets or ammo. So I drove about five miles to the nearest convenience store and bought a pack of cheap paper plates to shoot at. Better than nothing. Drove back to the range and stapled plates up scribbling roundish dots in the center for bullseyes. Unpacked pistols and ammo and realized I'd forgotten half the magazines I had loaded for the trip. After finishing up on the pistol bay we decided to visit one of the "full auto" bays and shoot a few shotgun rounds into a cat litter bucket. Yup, I'd forgotten the bucket - and the shotgun shells.

Either that or the time my son decided he wanted to drive us to the range, so we loaded all the guns, ammo, and targets into his vehicle instead of mine. Drove 25 miles to the range and realized I'd left the key card for the gate in my vehicle and had to turn around and go back home.
 
I've always had great long distance vision. While shooting black powder muzzle loaders I started getting in the bad habit of shooting over my shooting glasses. I could see the sight picture clearly as well as the target at distance, my glasses messed me up somewhere between the rifle and the target. Peep over the glasses and everything is crystal clear. One of my rifles had a particular hooded front sight that made it even more difficult with glasses on. I shoot mostly American made or custom built rifles but do have a Lyman Great Plains rifle which is made in Italy and therefore metric threaded. I have spare nipples for all my rifles and decided to change nipples on the one that currently was giving my sight problems. I went through my kit and found a nipple, gave it a touch of anti-sieze and lightly threaded it into the drum, it went just fine...I gave it a fairly firm tug with the nipple wrench and got back into shooting. I fired probably a dozen more shots, got down behind the peep sight, peeped over my glasses and touched off the shot. Immediately I was hit in the eye with a hot blast, I jerked upright, my buddy came running over, I could see out of the eye but it was tearing up like crazy and seemed irritated. We looked at the rifle and could not find the nipple, we never did...(I laugh about it still being behind my eyeball). What had happened is I had put a metric nipple which is just off a couple though, ever time I fired it backed itself out of the threads until finally it blew. Fortunately my eye was behind the sight disk which is nearly an inch across, still the hot gas blasted through the aperature of the disk enough to scar my lens. Eyesight is very precious, I've always been careful by wearing shooting glasses but this bad habit could have been catastrophic. When I went in for a yearly eye exam the doc said I had a slight scar in the place where I was positioned, I have to work with it today, moving my eye around a bit to get a clear picture.
I've had trying days dealing with members and non members, they are usually responsible for a great day at the range turning into a job I don't get paid to do.
 
Smoke said:
It was in 1988, I was stationed at Peden Barracks Germany. I was selected for an M16 qualification with night fire in Vilsek or maybe Wildflicken.

We left post at approximately 4AM and arrived at the range at 8AM or so. Four hours in the back of A Duece and a half in a German winter.

By the time we got to the range we were in a blizzard. The targets past 50 yards were invisible. Since everything in the Army takes longer than expected they decided to keep us there overnight. We had no tents and no sleeping bags.

The next morning, the battalion commander decided that instead if bringing us back he was going to send the rest of the battalion down and do all small arms qualifications at once.

We ended up staying there for 5 days. My roommate brought my sleeping bag but I had no change of socks, no wet weather gear, no shaving kit (and believe me they expected us to shave daily) none of the comforts of home.

I never left post again without an overnight bag at a minimum.
Click to expand...

Probably Wild-Chicken, we went up once D 1/48 inf (84) to have a qualification day and night and all it did was snow. We would take turns going up to the range tower and huddle around a burning candle
 
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