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Charlie Two Tracks
01-07-2013, 06:32 PM
I just got back from the only local range around here and I'm pretty hacked off. I was out there two days ago and things were fine. I get out there and there are used targets all over the back boards, someone used and AR half way to the 25 yd board and there were steel casings all over the ground and snow. I mean hundreds of them. Then to top it off there was a small blood trail from that area back up the stairs and to the parking lot. This range is owned by Springfield Armory and it is darn nice of them to let us use it. You have to belong to one of the gun clubs around to be able to shoot there. If they mess it up, I have no where to shoot within 45 minutes of the house. I'm going out tomorrow and clean the place up. I tell ya, some people should not own a gun............ A few years ago a fishing buddy of mine bought an AR-15. We had gone out rabbit hunting and after we were done, he fired up the AR. He was shooting at a small tree and I hollered at him to stop and go down and look at the tree. Yup, shot clear through it. He had only fired .22's and 12 ga. before. Gets me to thinking that everybody should go through the military. Can you tell I'm getting old and ill tempered?

Gar
01-07-2013, 06:37 PM
Can you tell I'm getting old and ill tempered?

Join the crowd, every time I get to one of the informal ranges around here I get "ill tempered". Wouldn't believe the trash people leave at the range!

Bored1
01-07-2013, 06:43 PM
I completely UNDERSTAND!!! Joined a private gun range (pretty expensive too!) Just to find out after joining that the 100yd range was closed unless a range officer was availible because too many people where breaking the rules ie using the shooting benches for target holders, blatantly shooting into the frozen infield and skipping rounds over the berms etc. Just doesn't make sense.

wv109323
01-07-2013, 07:09 PM
It is the same everywhere. The public ranges around me just a little better than a trash dump. This fall people were bringing canolopes, potatoes, watermelons and pumpkins for targets. Trash all over the place.
The standard distance for an AR-15 is 25 yards arond here.
There was some young guy that brought an expensive H&K rifle and set up a 8" steel target at 25 yards.
At another public range some one stole a car and drove it under the covered firing point at set it on fire.It burnt the covered firing point down. The state rebuild the covered firing points and some one repeated the act with another stolen car.

41 mag fan
01-07-2013, 07:57 PM
I just got back from the only local range around here and I'm pretty hacked off. I was out there two days ago and things were fine. I get out there and there are used targets all over the back boards, someone used and AR half way to the 25 yd board and there were steel casings all over the ground and snow. I mean hundreds of them. Then to top it off there was a small blood trail from that area back up the stairs and to the parking lot. This range is owned by Springfield Armory and it is darn nice of them to let us use it. You have to belong to one of the gun clubs around to be able to shoot there. If they mess it up, I have no where to shoot within 45 minutes of the house. I'm going out tomorrow and clean the place up. I tell ya, some people should not own a gun............ A few years ago a fishing buddy of mine bought an AR-15. We had gone out rabbit hunting and after we were done, he fired up the AR. He was shooting at a small tree and I hollered at him to stop and go down and look at the tree. Yup, shot clear through it. He had only fired .22's and 12 ga. before. Gets me to thinking that everybody should go through the military. Can you tell I'm getting old and ill tempered?


Maybe the blood trail was the reason it wasn't cleaned up? Might of got hurt to the point he had to leave quickly?

bob208
01-07-2013, 08:07 PM
i still say gun owners are their own worst enemy. yes there are some that should not own a gun.

Love Life
01-07-2013, 08:07 PM
Don't even get me started on the public ranges out here. 'Fridges, TV, Computers, several dishwashers, washers and dryers, microwaves, bottles, tires, etc. It is like a regular appliance store. I ask people to take their trash when I see them there, if they don't I call the law and report them. It is just soooooooooooooo infuriating. I come from the south east where just about everything is owned. I am very thankful for the wide open spaces and public lands in Nevada. I do what I can to keep it clean and I applaud you for doing the same.

Do you know what the messed up part is? The ones who trash the ranges would be the ones sitting on their hands screaming the most if they got shut down. Yep.

They should really lower the punishment for punching somebody in the face...

x101airborne
01-07-2013, 08:14 PM
I agree. Maybe with the blood trail this wont happen again. Either through learning or natural selection.

starmac
01-07-2013, 08:20 PM
This kind of junk has been going on forever, and I see no end in sight for it.

Somebody mentioned some people shouldn't own guns, I am afraid that may be getting worse as we speak. This latest gun buying craze has people buying guns at prices that doesn't seem sensible to my way of thinking, I am hoping it doesn't come back to bite us.

smokeywolf
01-07-2013, 08:26 PM
And the ones bob208 and Love Life are talking about, in addition to not owning guns, should also not be issued driver's licenses. And, at the first sign of their total lack of common sense, should be chemically sterilized so they can't make more idiots.

smokeywolf

MBTcustom
01-07-2013, 08:28 PM
A trash dump is the ideal place to pink and target practice, but folks have a tenancy to turn their ranges into trash dumps and that is wrong.
I confess, that while I never dumped a fridge or garbage at the local shooting hole, I did nothing to clean it up either. I just enjoyed going there and plinking, and never thought "gosh, somebody owns this property and might not appreciate the garbage everywhere."
Of course that thought crossed my mind hard and heavy when I saw the "posted no shooting" signs everywhere. Now I lost my favorite range, and I did nothing to keep it. Feels kinda like what's happening to our country to tell you the truth.
Lesson learned: Support the things you love, with your time, money, and voice, or you will have nothing but fond memories of the good ol days.
People are going to pile up trash. Cleaning up after them is a small price to pay for the right to shoot our guns......or keep them as the case may be. Take it however you want.;)

cloakndagger
01-07-2013, 08:33 PM
Me and a friend cleand up a local informal range once, the scrap value in old appliances and shot out plates, brass was about $100 each. Took us a full day t do...

Love Life
01-07-2013, 08:33 PM
I have made so many trips to the dump after leaving the range through the 2 years I have been here it is a bit silly. The dump is 35 miles north so a 70 mile round trip. California won't let me dump Nevada trash in their dump and they are only 15 miles away. Two good things have come of it though. I am on very good terms with the BLM and game warden, AND I usually find a bunch of range lead in the washing machines.

Another side benefit is the Douglas County range is right next to the dump, and they have w 300 yrd range with a cover, concrete pad, and steel tables. I can go to the range from the range!!

As Tim said you have to support what you love with your time, back, and sometimes money. It may be infuriating putting all the work in so others can enjoy the range with not a thought of how it got cleaned, but I already pay to support a large number of bums nationwide anyway.

Back to the facepunch...

wiersy111
01-07-2013, 08:39 PM
They should really lower the punishment for punching somebody in the face...

That is the truth!!!
We have a small local range that you are supposed to be a member in order to use the range but there is no enforcement. There are very few people that clean up after themselves, I try to make sure it is cleaned up better then when I arrived. All of the trash cans, dumpster has been shot and that's behind the firing line. As soon as we dig new pallets in for target backers some genius always starts shooting the runners off in order to make them fall down. It always amazes me the amount of **** left behind.

DLCTEX
01-07-2013, 08:43 PM
My brothers and I and friends on two recent fishing trips spent time cleaning up the mess left by other Lake users. Such a callous attitude toward the privilege of using the property. The property is owned by a rancher who generously allows one side of the lake to be used by the public. He also owns the other side and does not allow public access or trespass, but in the two trips there we saw people cross the lake in their boat and fish, hunt, and explore the shore there. We fear the landowner will get a belly full and cut off all access to a great little lake.

gbrown
01-07-2013, 08:47 PM
That is something that gets in my craw, also. I belong to an NRA affiliated private range (about $75/year) that is about 5 to 8 miles from my house. 22, pistol, tactical, 150 yd, 600 yd and trap ranges. Nice. Been a member since I was about 18. Laid off about 20 years and then went back. Really torques me to go out there and see it misused. Not bad, like appliances or anything, but lazy people who won't sweep up 22 brass or steel stuff. Beer bottles (alcohol on the range? OMG) or other small junk laying around. Holes in places where there shouldn't be holes. It's our range, for goodness sake!! I do not understand people who don't appreciate what we have. Shame on anyone I catch abusing it. I'll be on them/call the prez or whatever faster than a chicken on a june bug!!

Charlie Two Tracks
01-07-2013, 08:49 PM
I hadn't thought of the guy getting hurt was the reason for the casing left. Maybe........ but then again (to my way of thinking) he shouldn't have been 12 yards from the target. I just envision a guy just getting his AR and pretending he is Rambo......

DLCTEX
01-07-2013, 08:52 PM
Slinging Sammy Baugh owned a ranch near my hometown and made a lake on his property that he stocked with fish and allowed people to fish there. The public made such a mess, fired guns with wild indifference as to where rounds landed, and left gates open so that his cattle strayed. He responded by locking the gates and requiring a key be gotten so he could control the process. Someone cut his fences on several occasions to bypass the gates. He finally used Rotenone to kill the lake and prosecuted several trespassers. Many spoke evil of him for being so "selfish".

Gliden07
01-07-2013, 09:17 PM
My club was having a lot of damage done to it mainly because of laziness. They installed video cameras it cut way down on damage and mess's but it still happens! The best story is they had a couple of problems with theft, they had a pretty good idea who it was but of course couldn't prove anything, well after the installation of the cameras they caught the guy on video!! They confronted him and he denied it up and down threatened to sue people etc... The powers that be let him ramble and then showed him the Video!! He turned 8 shades of white picked up his gear and left!! Never said a word!!

waksupi
01-07-2013, 09:19 PM
It's not just shooting ranges. Lakes where people ice fish are pretty trashed out by spring. Real sore spot with me.

chsparkman
01-07-2013, 09:41 PM
I agree whole-heartedly. When I lived in So. Cal. there was a public shooting area in Lytle Creek Canyon. The amount of trash left there was appalling. It was closed down in 1990 or so then everyone started going farther north to Horse Canyon. By 1997 that was also closed down for the same reason. That which we abuse we ultimately lose. Now I live in Virginia where there are no public shooting areas so I'm a member of a local club. There are strict rules, but they are not always adhered to. What I see mostly now are the steel cases from cheap ammo. I bought a rolling magnet from Harbor Freight to pick them up when I go, which is not nearly often enough. Just trying to do my part after hard lessons from the past.

Az Rick
01-07-2013, 09:54 PM
If you have enough energy to drag your old TV or computer out and shoot it, you have enough to drag it to the dump!

I too am worried about the flurry of gun buying, guess I'll be seeing more TVs and computers lying around all shot up, at close range of course, there is not a Marksman among them.

It's just a matter of time before the State and Feds. get tired of it.

Best,


One can only hope they tire of firearm ownership.

geargnasher
01-07-2013, 09:57 PM
I think a person with no criminal record and a CCW permit ought to be allowed three occasions of dispensing good, solid, open-handed bitchslaps in their lifetime before being liable for assault charges. Might make people a little more polite toward each other.

Gear

Az Rick
01-07-2013, 09:58 PM
Well said, Gear!

Best,

rockrat
01-07-2013, 10:00 PM
We finally put a video system at our indoor range. We have a few volunteers that check the video camera system every week to check if there are any problems. That, and raising our price to $175 to join, then $75 year, has stopped alot of problems. Next, cameras at the outdoor range. Have some problem with people shooting rifles at the pistol targets and putting holes in them. If we catch them, it won't be pretty.

Para82
01-07-2013, 10:28 PM
We have a public range about 20 minutes from me. Every time I go I try to pickup what trash I can and clean up but it is usually pretty bad. I would not be surprised if they close it some day.Have seen some pretty scary stuff up there from time to time.

Love Life
01-07-2013, 10:35 PM
Only advice I can give is to grab a couple buddies, head on up to the public range, and clean it up real well.

Below is a list of what you will get if you clean the range:
You will get exercise
You will get brownie points with the USFS, BLM, or whoever
Agencies will see someone has taken an interest in cleaning the area, and won't have it at the front of the mind to shut down
Hot chicks will want to give you their phone number and buy you stuff

Don't lament how it will get shut down some day. Go keep it from shutting down. If the people won't police what is theirs then the Government has no problem shutting it down, and then the greenies get it and make it an endangered wind current habitat. Then you have no chance of getting it back.

A bunch of humor above, but if you have the back and the people to clean it up then please do.

Bad Water Bill
01-07-2013, 10:37 PM
I used to shoot at an unsupervised range. One day there was a wanabe sniper with his new AR and a BIG stack of store bought stuff. I looked down range and there were 0 targets on the backstop. He was trying to shoot both 8 X 8 posts.

I had been able to pick up as much as 38# of 223 brass alone in a 1 hour period. The D N R finally came in and converted the berm into a putting field. Now I have to drive an extra 15 miles each way.

Last fall I was walking the banks of the Kankakee river picking up trash and talking with a true fisherman. All kinds of tires stoves T V sets etc around the parking lot. What a bunch of messed up fishermen said I. Norm replied not the fishermen but the neighbors getting rid of stuff the easy way. Rather than drive to the dump themselves they dump it here and let the D N R pick it up and the fishermen get the blame.

Gliden07
01-07-2013, 10:52 PM
I think a person with no criminal record and a CCW permit ought to be allowed three occasions of dispensing good, solid, open-handed bitchslaps in their lifetime before being liable for assault charges. Might make people a little more polite toward each other.

Gear

Awesome thought!!

Para82
01-07-2013, 10:54 PM
Hey Love Life. I clean when I can, shoot when I can and have to work the rest of the time. Need to work some time for money for ammo! I agree with all your points and I try to do what I can when I can. I always have. Don't really think my wife of 22 years would care for the hot chicks giving me their number and buying me stuff,but it would be nice! By the way, like the M18 A1 Claymore in your avatar. Always liked setting them off.

OeldeWolf
01-07-2013, 10:55 PM
People do the same kind of dumping out where I work. Every morning it is something different.

Love Life
01-07-2013, 11:05 PM
Nothing quite as reassuring as holding the clacker. Squeeze, Squeeze, Squeeze...

As for the hot chicks buying you stuff just tell her it was karma returned.

Para82
01-07-2013, 11:17 PM
Love Life, will try that Karma line when the first hot chick comes by with stuff!

starmac
01-07-2013, 11:19 PM
I think a person with no criminal record and a CCW permit ought to be allowed three occasions of dispensing good, solid, open-handed bitchslaps in their lifetime before being liable for assault charges. Might make people a little more polite toward each other.

Gear
Are we talking three times for each person or three people total for life.Hmmm I'm betting a lot of folks here have passed there lifetime quota if thats the case. lol

DIRT Farmer
01-08-2013, 12:03 AM
Not just the ranges. I had the good fortune to have every dove in the area come in to a silage field one year and being a "nice guy" invited friends and family to a dove shoot. I planted the field to hay and for the next several years had wads and el cheepo shells stuck on my hay rake and in the hay.
They all wonder why I don't put out a dove field like I used to.

geargnasher
01-08-2013, 01:13 AM
Are we talking three times for each person or three people total for life.Hmmm I'm betting a lot of folks here have passed there lifetime quota if thats the case. lol

I'm just talking about three incidents per lifetime where if somebody tries to get the law to press misdemeanor assault charges on you they get automatically dismissed, but a mark goes on your record. That way it doesn't get out of control, but you know those rare times when you just want to grab up some punk by his collar, rear back and land a good one (or two, if deemed necessary) right on the side of his smirking little deviant face and then, after getting his full attention, read him the riot act. Like those times when you catch someone making a mess on public land and you're out of cell phone range to call LEOs.

Gear

mpmarty
01-08-2013, 01:53 AM
Being an RSO (Range Safety Officer, not Registered Sex Offender) at our local club I could tell some funny stories about fools with firearms. Our club is over 100 years old and is owned by the members all 800 of us. No range is open without a range officer present and we take the NRA courses several times a year. We don't suffer fools lightly. I've had occasion to physically eject a guy from the indoor range one evening when he insisted in parading around the room carrying a loaded pistol.

dakotashooter2
01-08-2013, 12:40 PM
Appliances are not as big an issue here as they used to be. With the price of steel being what it is, once the "pickers" find out where the stuff is it is gone. You'll hardly find brass cases on the ground anymore but most guys won't pick up their steel or aluminum stuff. And I don't know why some guys find it so amusing to shoot the posts for the target backstops. Around here shooting up organic stuff isn't that popular but it's not much of an issue either because the deer usually clean it up pretty fast.

Beau Cassidy
01-08-2013, 01:02 PM
I think a person with no criminal record and a CCW permit ought to be allowed three occasions of dispensing good, solid, open-handed bitchslaps in their lifetime before being liable for assault charges. Might make people a little more polite toward each other.

Gear


Oh Hellllll yes! Sometimes more!

My personal pet peeve on the range is the number of shotgun hulls left out there. People usually pick up brass but shotgun shells? Never. I make it a habit of always picking up at least two handfulls of trash- usually shotgun hulls or cans- every time I come back from going downrange.

Bad Water Bill
01-08-2013, 01:06 PM
Our range got a FREE load of steel fence posts.

RAMBO messed them up as well. One magazine full of AP cut the post off in a couple of places.:twisted:

hiram1
01-08-2013, 07:32 PM
.It is a Real sore spot with me to. To go to my range to shoot and find it trashed up to i will find out who is doing it im sure someday

geargnasher
01-08-2013, 10:22 PM
You folks lucky enough to have free public land to shoot on might consider game cameras if you can hide them where they won't be found or shot, once a spot gets a local "reputation" for being watched and a few license plate numbers get prosecuted for dumping/littering, the problems might slow down for a while. Funny how places get reputations locally, everyone knows where to go swimming, "parking", where to dump unwanted animals, deer carcasses, tires, appliances, where to do underage drinking, drugging, etc., you all know what I mean. As the "safe" place to do irresponsible shooting gets a "bad" reputation (usually through some good busts, word seems to get around), and good people continue to keep the place up, I think the effort would pay off. Just musing out loud, I don't really know what sort of difficulties catching these yayhoos entails.

Gear

uscra112
01-08-2013, 10:38 PM
I'm thinking of an incident that occurred at my (club) range last summer. Now, my club occasionally holds mil-surp shoot-em-ups where a few old cars get burned, etc. So, midweek after one these sessions I'm down there with one of my Schuetzen rifles, all by my lonesome, when a coupla very scruffy looking guys in a battered pickup drove in. OK, that doesn't mean much in my neighbourhood - heck, my own pickup is a 1995 F150 with a bit of "patina". But what happened next was a bit of a surprise. They asked if they could have the wrecks! Scrap metal scroungers. One way to keep a range clean!

BTW I can't say I mind the exploded vegetables - they sink in and nourish the grass. :-D

Silver Eagle
01-08-2013, 10:58 PM
The problem with the free pass on one or two good biffs is that a lot of people still will not get it! I know a few people that I would love to take out back and give a good whippin'. But, then I realize that it is only gonna give me bruised knuckles. They are just going to do the same thing again! [smilie=b:
I see the same thing with people using the parks and forest preserves. They can lug their full cooler in to fish or party and will just leave the crud behind. Most of the time there is a garbage can not too far away from them. I rarely go for walks in the public woods anymore because all of the filth left behind just despises me.

Harter66
01-08-2013, 11:04 PM
I used to be the guy that kept the backer boards up on our range. Nice clean graded roll packet 200 yard range. 4 lanes 25-50-100-150 200, 150ft berm 90 degree field of fire. Nice covers decent benches dumpster 50 ft behind the line. Most of the last 5 yrs there was little trash except steel and shot shells. I put up 100 or more 4x4 posts that were just sawed off. They'd shoot out cores in the backers. I beat that some by putting baffle boxes in behind them. 400 # of take home lead later the commander closed the range for environmental concerns about lead and accounting for rounds fired. Seems now that as shooters we just hit the desert to shoot. I've noticed that trash does accumulate but the scroungers keep all but the party pits pretty well picked clean. Now if only glass paid decent........

dk17hmr
01-08-2013, 11:19 PM
Get this to get out to our FREE public range you have to drive passed our county dump which doesn't charge anything either.....no way around it without going 100 miles out of your way......the amount of **** left behind is stupid.

I have a range set up on public land that I use for shooting extreme ranges. When I set up the range I left a 30x30" steel plate out there and a tack board for paper targets. Everything out there is shot to heck now. My steel targets have holes blown in them the up rights holding the steel is shot up. I had a cheap bench I made out of scrap wood from one of my constructions sites that I would leave out there. I guess that was a bad idea it made it a little over 2 months and someone figured it was free for them to take home. Now I bring my good steel plates in after I shoot. I spend more time out there picking up trash and brass than I do shooting.....wish I would have never set up the range. I know another guy in town that set up a 1000 yard range he was telling me that everything I was getting on my range was the same at his range, probably worse because you can see his targets from one of the main highways here. At least mine is out in BFE.

William Yanda
01-08-2013, 11:22 PM
Chemically? How 'bout a dull spoon!

1Shirt
01-09-2013, 10:13 AM
The people who violate logic with guns, are not hunters, shooters,reloaders,casters, etc. they are just idiots who happen to own guns and have no common sense.
1Shirt1