Ahhhh, a day at the range. Sunny, upper 60's here in NY, a cute girl in a tight sweater at the shooting point next to us, plenty of ammo, my AR and Wave's LEGP. What made it better was the range officer, who could care less about the stupid one-shot-every-five-seconds rule was running the pit today. It was bound to be a great day.

We were shooting at paint can lids at the 100 meter points. Ray was at the point to my right and I was doing my best to shower him with hot brass. That's because I'm a lefty and that's what we do best.

Sidebar...Mind you now, that Ray is spending his time in lower Manhattan, where he could be gassed, blown to bits, crushed by some truck driving or crane operating fool in the course of his everyday duties so what place could be safer than at the range with your friends? Hmmm?

We're shooting, loading, shooting, loading.. Chatting with a guy next to us who says he runs nothing but Wolf .223 through his PWA without so much as a hiccup since he's started buying Wold ammo.

Sidebar.... Literally, not two minutes after he tells us this his gun does a %100 string of FTEs. We pull apart his bolt carrier and sure as shit, the extractor is ground to nothing (I'm guessing the 500 rounds of steel cased ammo he put through it last weekend may have had something to do with it.) And he'd only run 30 rounds through the gun today and his gun was DIRTY as sin. I've never seen a firing pin so BLACK after so few rounds.

Anyways, we're popping away, and I hear a funny sounding BANG! (not a normal sounding one) and then a hearty HOLY SHIT! I quickly glance to my right and Ray is rubbing his face with one hand and holding an LEGP in the other with the mag spring and rounds falling out of the mag body.

I quickly race (okay, it was only one step) over and make sure the LEGP is OK. Hey! It's a low numbered one and I just wanted to make sure it wasn't damaged. Then I look at Ray. Not too long though, he's funny looking and I didn't want to stare. But I checked to see that he still had two eyes, a mouth and no extra nostrils. Aside from some debris specks on his face and glasses he was still just as funny looking as he was when he got to the range.

We look down and around, can't find the mag's floor plate, but we do find the offending piece of brass. It had split and ruptured from the midpoint of the case body straight down to the primer.

I'm not normally one to name companies but in this case I will because this shouldn't happen to anyone. (And if I name the wrong company upon Ray's perusal on this I WILL edit it.) This brass was Lake City and was from a lot of mixed head stamped dent/dinged ammo Ray had gotten from Southern Ammo.(if that's the right name?) It came loose, in an ammobox and Ray spent many hours lovingly loading it into magazines. I had run several mags worth of this through my weapon with no problems.

Ray's OK, but watch your ass(and face) and think twice when thinking of putting some cheap stuff through your gun!

Stay safe!

Sherm

Ummm...  so what about the cute girl in the tight sweater?



Glad you're OK, Ray!!!

Eye protection, it's all it's cracked up to be. Hard telling what may have impacted and bounced off his glasses.

I ordered some ammo from Southern Ammunition and madesure to inspect every round. The only problems I've had are a hard primer and a SMOKEY round. Stunk to high heaven.

But I;m glad to hear Waverunner is okay.
(Guess I need to go look the ammo over again....)

[smoke]

Your all right. THE most important thing here is that Wave is alrigh...

Anyways this girl in the tight sweater. She was about 18. And it was a gray sweater with vertical lines in it. The lines widened as they stretched over her breasts and it tapered down to a narrow waist and then BOOM! POW! HIPS! ASS! Round, but not too bubbly. EXCELLENT! In tight dark blue jeans. And she just sat on a log while the two moron guys she was with shot away with a .22. Poor bored girl. Oh, and long, straight, like down just below the shoulders light brown/dirty blonde hair. And a pretty round face to top it off.

Speaking of tops off.....Ray? Got a story to tell?

Sherm

your shooting at calverton; right? they *really* loosened up on the rules. dominic isn't there any more and the new guy doesn't run the place like a nazi. you can even shoot .50's now, I saw a guy w/ a semi auto barrett there last sunday.

Man, I don't believe you guys didn't offer to let her shoot your rifles! On second thought, perhaps it's better that you didn't.

Ouch!!! Goddamn that hurt!!! No more "bargain basement" ammo for me. The floorplate to the magazine was vaporized and the remaining 20 or so rounds ejected forthwith from the bottom of said now non-existant floorplate along with some very hot, smoky white gas. After screaming like a crazed bitch, I notice Sherm8404 casually walk over(hey don't hurry over...it's not like you're an EMT/medic or anything, did you at least bring a band-aid this time???)and all eyes at the range focused on me. Of course, like an idiot, I load up the previously ejected rounds into a new magazine and continue shooting...I just had to look cool for the girl in the sweater, I don't think she was impressed. What the hell do I have to do to get this girl's attention? Pull out my Glock 26 and hope for a KA-BOOM!!!???[pistol][heavy]

Great story guys.
I just love happy endings, nothing like a little R&R.
Ever think of just laying low for awhile Wave? [peep]
Glad all is well.

After hearing that all is well, the mental image of this is freakin' hilarious! I can just picture Wave in his "it's cool, I meant to do that" mode for the benefit of Ms. Hottie! [:D]

 I guess we need to try to get a group puchase on some good ammo before Wave blows his head off! [:)]

How about saying something like: "Can you check my eye?  I think there a pise of metal in it."   It would have been a great opening line and she would have been forced to get real close to you.

That or you can just say "Hi!".

Glad you are OK.

Cheap Brass sucks, I only trust reloads that I did myself.

sgtar15

Waverunner, Did you ever get out to Knights Range?

Knight's range is a bit overpriced @ $15.00/hr.
Whorterkill range in Hopewell Dutchess County, NY. has public days and a nice pistol range and a 200yard rifle range. The pistol range is $5.00/hr. not sure about the price on the rifle range. I belong to southern Dutchess & Putnam sportsman ass. in Fishkill that has a 100 yard rifle range that never has anyone there. No range officer, open everyday 10am-6pm. A inside pistol range 10am-10pm, and a trap range.
$200.00/year no meetings or work hours required.

15.00$ an [size=6]HOUR[/size=6]
[:o]
[size=4]You've gotta be joking...right...please say that your joking.[/size=4]

Alex[peep]

Well, I do have 4 battle packs of South African surplus left...let's see how that works shall we? Anyone wanna buy some "scratch&dent" ammo?[grenade] Shooting at the range is supposed to be relaxing right?[heavy]

Laying Low??? I thought thats what I was freakin' doing!!!I can't wait to go back to "Ground Zero" where it's safe...maybe I can get run over by a 100 ton crane or have a Sgt. or Lt. scream at me for always being on my cellphone!

I'm trying, I'm trying...given the current situation, 14+ hour tours a day at "Ground Zero" all I want to do is catch some zzzz's[|)][|)][|)] instead of shooting. Besides, the range Nazi seems to have dissapeared at Calverton!!!

Ray, Glad to hear that youre OK.   Better to blow the mag up than the upper reciever or the barrel, right?  BTW, what kinda mag was it?  Just curious.....

               Steven

We weren't sure of the mag type, because we couldn't find the mag's floor plate. It was blown clear of the shooting bench and we looked HARD!

Sherm

Awesome story! Very well written indeed. WaveRunner, sorry about your face. Glad it turned out ok. So what do you think happened? Overcharged, weak brass, what? Isn't it impossible to have an out of battery fire the way the bolt head is set up on an AR.
BTW- No pics? Yes, of the girl!

"It's always fun until somebody looses an eye!"

- Mom

lids at 100 meters ? Was that range officer "Ronnie" ? at Calverton ?????