Generally speaking, the horizon at sea is about 10 miles away.  If nothing is between you and horizon, you are good to go.

An ND into the ground is embarrassing.

An ND into the hull will ruin your whole weekend.

You do realize that most of the shoreline of the Gulf of Mexico is the US, don't you.  You do also realize that most of the Gulf of Mexico is international water, don't you.

And what Florida paperwork would that be?

isn't this how one of those "famous last words" jokes gets started?  hey, let's shoot ______ off the back of your boat...

WTF are you talking about?

Methinks someone skipped their geography lessons.

Now this is target shooting. I forgot what ocean this is in. Somewhere on the otherside of the world.

We used to do a security broadcast for 50 nautical miles IIRC. But we were shooting .50 cals and a 25mm.

And yes, bullets skip on water and go in all different random directions. It is very interesting to watch tracers go over the horizon, skip 3-5 times, go straight up, or come back at you.

As long as you are outside 12nm you are in international waters, you can shoot all you want.  When we shoot M16's of the flight deck all the time if I remember the safe zone was like 3-6 nm.  If I remember the CIWS (20mm) safe zone, was something like 15,000 yards down range. So you are good to go with small arms.

Don't whales float?

Yeah, the CG doesn't fire if anything is withing 5k yards to our boat.....at an absolute minimum when shooting .50 cals.  It's further than that, I'm just lowballing since I haven't given a prefire brief in quite some time.

carry your paperwork. Our bording officers are actually trained in the ways of NFA.  Those (CG base)might actually be the guys you need to talk to and ask them where it would be legal for you to conduct such shenanigans. Hell, the GM's might even want to come play.

I routinely fish the Gulf out to about 60 miles. Have wanted to carry mainly b/c of how remote we are. I am glad I didn't last time as we got boarded by the Coast Guard. We are pretty aware of our surroundings, but I guess being tied up to a rig about 15 miles out made us lose our focus. That and we were catching some nice ones. Out of nowhere their Zodiac was within 200 yards of us and I looked behind them to see the Cutter or whatever the 140'+ boat is. I was surprised how fast they showed up. Luckily my buddy is adamant about his safety gear and we passed the inspection.

Its very rare for them to board small personal watercraft. It was a training session from what the boat forums are saying. The guy on the boat in charge was very knowledgeable but his sidekick was definitely learning. They were pretty nice but scuffed up our boat and cracked the swim platform fiberglass. They asked if we had any weapons and I said no, but later remembered I had a small pocketknife on me. After I said I apologized that I had forgotten (I don't consider a folding pocket knife a "weapon") they were a little more stern, telling us to keep our hands where they can see them. Meanwhile a 14" bait knife was on the stern, lol. They asked me to repeat my name for the call in, I wonder if it was because I am a CCW license holder or if its just because I have an odd last name, hard to spell.

Anyway, I would have been leery to know how they would have handled the situation if we were on our way to or from shooting an arsenal in international waters. With all the fishing gear, coolers, bait and beer on board, I think its a terrible idea to attempt an offshore shoot. Just go for the fishing and relaxation. The Gulf is NEVER calm enough to shoot stably from and can often go from flat to 5' seas in an hour or two. Trying to shoot in rough water is just asking for trouble. And I would never take any of my nice firearms in a salty wet environment like that. Very harsh.

Inflatable Boat Link

High Speed Cutter

My friend's boat

So you never practice shooting Pirates

How far were you off the coast?  If you were boarded it wasn't by that cutter, they don't exist, yet.  Our Bording Officers are usualy very amicable.  However, you must keep in mind that a lot of them are Junior Officers(ensigns) who have probably not done very many boardings and can be nervous.  Anyway, they should have called you over the radio first to ask some preliminary questions....they usually do.  Among those questions there should have been one about weapons. We do not mind if you have them.  Sometimes the Skippers on the bigger fishing boats will lie over the radio becaue they don't want other people knowing if they are packing.  They will tell us when we get on board or the Bording Officer will ask..."Without reaching for or touching, do you have any weapons on you or onboard?"  we take it, unload it, put ammo and weapon in a different hiding spot. When we leave we just tell you where you can find your things.  Officer safety and all that.

Sorry about your friends boat. I believe there is paperwork that you can file to get some sort of compensation. Tell him to call a local station or recruiting office, they should be able to point him in the right direction.

Not real sure on the Cutter but I know the Zodiac pops up in the back of it, pretty slick. That little tender is neat, the guy could do a 360 without moving forward. I think it was a training mission because one guy had a foam helmet on and was sipping Dr. Pepper on the small boat, lol. We were 15 miles out coming back from 35. They said you can't catch a Redfish in State waters and bring it into Federal. I never knew that and glad I do know, we used to do that all the time. Fish the jetties then head out offshore. We were all catch and release that day. Oh and they were all carrying Sigs, very nice. I believe we had the radio on but not very loud so if they called we didn't hear anything.

Cool, the 110's are the only ones that I know of off the top of my head that do the stern launch. It is quite nifty. Yeah, we constantly train and that includes boardings.  Pshh, Doctor pepper and a foam helmet? that's sop!

Hah, maybe he was the Captain's nephew! Damage to boat was minimal, but I'll let my friend know about the form. He is happy to have the "golden ticket" though. Copy of the passed safety inspection.

You mean where you cannot see to the range of your gun?

There are just enough accidents on record (I remember on on the Great Lakes that killed someone miles away) that you need to at least be aware.

When the Navy does live fire exercises they post picket boats with radar to make sure the impact area is clear and stays that way.

Free fish dinner too!

7.62 nato will skip quite a ways off as well.  The reasoning behind such a large amount of yardage is called a buffer zone because the waterways are full of fucking idiots too.

Very often actually.

Targets include ammo cans, with a couple of holes so they'll sink eventually even if you miss, plywood, and killer tomatoes.

in before chris

Surface tension. Bullets can and DO ricochet off water.
 

For a 9mm, you need about 2Kyds clear down range. For 5.56, figure on 4Kyds. If you're shooting .50 BMG, get yourself about 12Kyds to be safe.

I was referring to the common rounds. .223, .308, 762x39 and handgun rounds. Not the real big stuff. Yes I have fired several over water. Like another poster said. It's amusing to see what tracers do.




Edit. The Underlined above was the proublem for me!!

Naw, it is possible and fun.


Rock fish coming from 300 feet off the bottom of the ocean make for a nice floating target.   All the ones that are too small to keep and get thrown back are wonderful floating targets at 25-30 yards.    If you time it just right you can blow fish guts all over the seaguls that come in to try and grab the fish.   Kinda satisfying really, don't shoot the damned birds because they are a scavenger and what not(500+ dollar fine per bird if I recall correctly).   But man, loads of fun.

This was off a 22-25 foot boat.   Yeah, it was glassy out but it wasn't dead calm/smooth.


As for others commenting on ricochettes, yep they happen.   Watched 12 gauge slugs skip several times off the water on longer distance shots before finally going "kerplunk" some distance further out.   I know the 5.56/223 as well as 22lr. was doing it as well.   Fortunately we were many miles out beyond the coast and given the fact that it was several more miles to the horizon, with NOTHING between us and the horizon, it was a hell of a lot of fun.


Like others have said, just don't shoot the boat.

Sorry to correct you, but those would be the 87's and the short-lived 123's. 110's use a single point davit to lower the boat over the side, with 4 tag lines. Supposedly the new FRC's will too though. They look like they'll be a badass boat, and I might try to get on the commissioning crew of one.

That's fine. I've never been around them to be honest.  Well, I'm around two 87's but have never bothered to look at them to be perfectly honest. I knew it wouldn't be the 123, which, I knew had that capability but they're all layed up because it was a bad idea.  Thanks for the clarification.

Who's Navy?  In my Navy we never did.

And in any case he was talking about small arms, not anything that you can't shoot with one hand if you felt like it.

oh you can do it, but with much movement the closer to the water you get, the more of the now you see it, now you don't, now you see it, now you don't.. If it's too close, it isn't that much of a challenge.

Just an anecdote, not looking to start an in depth discussion on anatomy, automobile design, external ballistics, or probability theory.  

Many years ago, I read of an incident in which an LEO was driving on US Route 90 along the Gulf coast when a car in front of him drifted slowly off the road and came to a stop.  He found a women, unresponsive, slumped over the steering wheel.  DOA, GSW behind the right ear.  Turns out a guy at least a mile (maybe more, don't remember) out in the gulf was plinking at something with his old shot out .303 shark rifle.  Oops.

Jane

Distance To Horizon

Actually, your Navy has and continues to post picket boats for gunnery exercises. This is true in Dahlgren when the shore-based guns fire down the Potomac River.

Small arms, we just did a check with the SPS-10 and Raytheon, and then kept a weather eye open.  For 5" there would be a Local Notice out and we just did radar checks.  Then again, there isn't much in the way of coastwise traffic once you get too far off San Diego.