About a month ago I was at my local range with my dad, who had rented a .357 Taurus.  While he was shooting that, I noticed a man to the right of me sitting in a chair, with tears rolling down his face, shaking, holding a Beretta Elite with the hammer back and his finger on the trigger.  At the time it was pointed at the gound.  I reached for my Beretta 92 and placed it in the holster in the small of my back, not knowing what the man was going to do.  My dad told me not to look at him, then we made eye contact.  I placed my hand on my beretta figuring he was either going to shoot himself, or start shooting other people in the range.  As he looked at me, for what seemed for an un-ending time period, he stopped crying and stared at me.  He moved his gun up in a manner as if he were moving it towards his head.  I made eye contact again and shook my head left to right signaling "no" with my beretta now at my side in my hand.  At that moment he stood up, looked at me and hit the decocker on the gun and left the range.  

I about passed out, I thought I was going to have to take him down, be it a leg shot to stop him from killing himself or a fatal shot to stop him from killing the others in the range.  The look in his eyes almost had me convinced he was going to do something, and I will never forget it.  I wasnt sure how to react, knowing that being in a range where people having guns was normal (hard to justify had he decided to change his "story"), the only other person who saw what was going on was my dad, who only glanced at him while he was telling me to ignore him, but I couldnt just ignore it.

What would you have done, and what have you witnessed at the range?

There is this one idiot I used to know who would do stupidly dangerous things like asking to see your guns, chamber a round and laugh while he had his finger on the trigger. Anyway I went shooting with a group of people and Mr. Idiot came along. Things where going fine until during a reload/target setup break someone starts screaming at Mr. Idiot. I look to my right and see Mr. Idiot with a Jennings .22 mag in his right hand and loading the mag with his left hand while holding the gun with a finger on the trigger, round chambered and muzzle angled up at my head! He tries to downplay it by saying: "but the safety is on!" and then it was told to him by the screaming guy (who owned the gun) that the safety never worked!

The weird thing was that it didn't even really bother me.

that would be freaky to be there.
scariest thing was a guy was sighting in a bolt action 7 mag with some other people,he chambered a round someone stopped and asked him a question and without second thought he handed the rifle to a kid who looked about 9-10 years old,grabbed the other guys weapon and starts to shoot it.
in the mean time kid is sweeping the line as he is putting up the weapon,walked over to a case on the ground and put it up.
i was waiting on a cease fire while all this was happening,i always watch others when i am waiting.
kids dad tells kid to bring weapon back,kids retreives weapon sweeps line again dad grabs it sights in and fires.
no one else knew what was going on.
yea i was covering my ass behind a wall
boxer

This is hearsay, but I remember an old thread from AK-47.net that was pretty weird.  A guy shows up at the range, sets up his guns.  When cease fire is called, he goes out with his target: a black kevlar vest with the letters ATF printed on it in yellow.  He goes back to the bench and begins shooting it with his HK-91.

2 things;

1st was about a week and a half ago while i was at the 50yd range Will, the guy who supervises everything had called a cease fire to go put up more targets at the 10,25 yd ranges to my left.  on my right was the 100yd range and the guy who was there had left to go to the bathroom in the woods...guy came back, didn't look around to see someone was downrange and took a shot and then all hell broke loose with a couple of guys yelling at him.  soon after that the guy left..i felt sorry for him cuz he must have felt like an ass, but at the same time i would never go hunting with him.

2nd time was when i brought my girlfriend there and when she was done shooting the ak she promptly turned the muzzle toward me and said 'now what?'.  she got a lesson about gun safety from me after that one.  i still bring it up on occassion just to make her uncomfortable.

Seen it too many times . . .

The idiots who take the kids to the "gravel pit" and then set up the lawn chairs and bust open a case of beer while they're shooting.

I'm betting most of them learned this from their dad's taking them out to the pit for a  day of drinking and shooting.

My tack on the situation is to tell them, "You do what you think is right, but mixing alcohol and guns together is a big no no in ALL the books on gun safety."

I posted this in another thread a while back:
The President of my old club got a call one night that someone was shooting on the range in the dark.
He drove over and found two non-member clowns who were leaving the next morning for Idaho to go elk hunting.  
They had climbed over the fence, and were "sighting in" two .338 Winchester Mag rifles.
One was at the 25 yard line shooting, while the other was standing beside the target HOLDING A FLASHLIGHT ON THE BULLSEYE.

Another time, I drove up to the gate and heard: BOOM,BOOM,BOOM,BOOM,BOOM,CRACK,CRACK,CRACK,.....
I found a Police Captain, running up and down in front of our 50 foot smallbore range, firing a Remington 870 with 00 buck into the backstop, dropping to the ground, drawing his new high-cap 9mm and emptying it as he rolled across the ground.  This of course blew our range to bits.
I asked what in hell he was doing, to which he replyed that he was "practicing combat shooting"
I asked what kind of "Combat" a policeman would be engaged in that required rolling around on the ground and destroying our range in the process.  Got a red-faced non answer.

This bozo later was made Police Chief.  When he retired, the officers in the department said that, "It was the end of an error".

I used to go to a local indoor range for a weekly pin shoot. Lots of guys had thier tricked out raceguns and most of them reloaded with light charges for lower recoil/faster times. Some were too light, especially the guys with target revolvers. you could actually see the bullets leaving the barrel and travelling, in an arc, downrange. Well, one night we were shooting, and a guy steps up with his underpowered wheelgun.

Bang!... we all watch the bullet fly and knock down pin #1

Bang!... #2 goes down in the same fashion

this one is funny and kinda scary... the third bang! is fine, bullet flies to pin #3, bounces off straight backwards and hit's ol' boy square between the eyes. He had a nice cut and got a helluva bruise, but no worse for wear. And at least 15 of us saw the flight of the cast lead bullet.  

Which one is the stupid one here?
a) the two tresspassers?
b) the guy standing next to a target that is being shot at?
c) the guy that goes alone to confront two armed trespassers at night?

have to say it
D all of the above,though c was pretty dumb.
hey sweep that guy still work for you?

I have two different "wierdest/scariest ones."

 1st one was my little brother who had a crank activator on his 10/22 along with several 50 round mags.
 It was lots of fun, till we got a jam or hangup of some kind.  He was in a sitting position, with the gun- butt on the ground, muzzle skyward, (hair-trigger) crank sticking way out.  I walked up from behind him, bent down over him and said, "Whats going on.." at which time he bumped the crank, accidentally cranking off a shot that missed my (empty) head by at least a couple of inches.  

 Got our attention, also, got rid of that fricken crank.

 2nd most scary/wierd incident was when I went to the old 600 yard highpower range out in the Mojave Desert, near my small town.  Half a dozen cars were there already with a bunch of fit, shorthaired, young men wearing baseball hats and firing AR-15's.  They were equipped with well trained girlfriends who were running around picking up all their brass :)  
 I more or less ignored them and hauled out my totally shot out '03 springfield and started shooting corrosive(cheap-skate) surplus M2 ball down range.
 These guys were firing strangely...  The only way they would shoot was they would all cut loose at once(half a dozen AR-15's) with some of those guys emptying their mags pretty fast.  Well, one of em saunters up to me, oh-so-casually, and makes small talk in order to sound out my attitudes.  By this time, I have figured out that one of their guns is illegally full auto, and all the other shooters are trying to fire at the same time to mask the "machinegun" noise of full auto.

 I let this guy know that *I* didn't care if they had full auto, but that some one in a house a half mile away will figure out that they have full auto, phone the nearby navy base, and the Fed-Gov will descend on them with jeeps, helicopters and tommy-guns.  And just because they were in the middle of the desert doesn't mean that they can just get away with anything. "Don't you guys know that when They catch you, it's a mandatory 10 year prison sentence?"

 By this time in the conversation, I cleverly saw through all their disguises.  They had almost succeeded in hiding their identities, till my discerning eye caught the one clue they hadn't hidden--their baseball caps, wich said ####### P. D.

 Casual Baseball hat man bids me goodbye, saunters back hastily to his buddies, tells them quickly the gist of the local situation, and they pack up and split so fast, I filled my (Non-police) baseball cap with almost all of their casings.

Hope they were patriots, glad they didn't shoot me.

That wouldn't happen to be China Lake Naval Weapons Center would it?  The small town of Inyokern perhaps?  I have relatives in Ridgecrest.

the scarest things ive ever witnessed was a good friend who had a KABOOM with a cheap italian Single Action army clone  when fragments of metal went wizzing by my head barely missing my ear. and the second scariest thing was when me and my dad where shooting at a outdoor range, I had just finished loading a mag in my glock and was about to start shooting and this MORON starts walking down the range to check his target so i SCREAM to my dad CEASE FIRE CEASE FIRE. then i procede to yell at the MORON. WHAT THE F*CK DO U THINK YOUR DOING! ARE U TRYING TO GET KILLED! and hes like well i was just cheking my target. anyway the range master muct of heard me yelling at the guy so he comes by i explain what happened and he kicks the MORON out. oh yeah it was just me my dad and the MORON at the range that day

Why are you hiding the name of the police department?

Wasn't at the range, was out plinking with a firend. Pointed out to my friend he wasn't being as safe as he should be with the 870. His repsonse, it's not loaded, see, BOOM, as the grass 6" in front of my feet takes a shotgun blast.....

I was whatching one frend tell another how to operate his 30/30 he told him how to load a round, work the lever, and the guy then put a round right between the guys legs. it hit apx three feet behind the guy which put it apx an inch or two below his nut sack. Jimmy if you're out there, you're a [puke]

In 1985, US Army Europe, my company acquired some MILES gear. They decided to have all the company NCO's train against each other before lower enlisted participated.

They issued 30 roung mags with live ammo, in case the Russians hit the border. They issued 20 round mags with blanks. They ran multiple full speed tactical drills, "I"m up they see me I'm down" stuff.

My asst. squad leader was a "terrorist". Terrorists don't wear helmets so he was not allowed to either.

After multiple, exhausting drills another drill was started, 2 corporals ended up near one another. Cpl 1 firing, Cpl 2 says you don't have a blank adapter on your rifle. Cpl 1 puts on another blank adapter returns to same spot and starts firing again. Cpl 2 your blank adapter is gone again. Cpl 1 fires the rifle again, gee its cycling ok.

Ssgt in a secure position, thinks he hears live rounds going by/impacting his position, calls cease fire.

Ssgt looks along possible line of fire, sees my asst. squad leader with an entrance wound in his forehead and a large exit wound in the back of his head, still alive. Capt. walks over to fallen soldier looks around and leaves.

Soldier dies shortly after. I had borrowed money for dead soldier the night before to get T-shirts at a Scorpion concert. I was supposed to buy 2 shirts, 1 for him 1 for me. He never got to wear his. Company goes on alert after he is shot, my new shirt in laundry as alert is called. When we stand down I go check my laundry, the shirt is gone.

I'm shooting w/about 10 other guys at a gravel pit in Oregon.  Old, mean fart shows up with a brand new single shot .475 (or something like that) with a Leupold scope.  Starts cussing out one of our guys and demands he help sight-in the rifle.

We all got bad vibes off this gruff old man and decided to help him sight-in the gun - and use up all his ammo in the process.  Well, I don't know who mounted the scope, but we used up all the windage and were still 8 feet off at about 100 yards.  So we did a 8 feet to the right hold over and hit the target.  Old guy ASSURES us he has no more ammo.  He than pisses an moans about something, chews one of our guys out some more and leaves.

Some of the guys want to call the cops on him, but I defend him pointing out that he hadn't done anything illegal.  At this point, one of the French students shooting with us tells us how this guy told him he wanted the gun sighted-in to "kill someone".  Holy crap!  Our prints are on the gun!  

We're just ready to walk out to the cars and call the cops when angry old guy walks back with the rifle and more ammo!

I go into Condition Red and pop a full 20 round mag into my AR, chamber a round and take it off SAFE.  Angry old guy walks right up to our group and says something about "taking a sighting shot".  As he loads up a round into the chamber, I position my AR pointed right in front of his feet, ready to raise the gun and drop the guy if points the gun menacingly at anyone in our party.  Luckily, he just fires one into the hill and leaves.  We get a vehicle description and plate number.

We drive out and call the cops.  Apparantly they were already looking for him.  They had confiscated one gun already that morning.

Never did hear what happened to him.  What really amazed me is that I was the ONLY PERSON to have a gun loaded, off safe and ready to go when he came back.  We had all just heard that he wanted to kill someone, I guess I was the only one there prepared to deal with a legitimate threat.  It was an adrenaline rush.  I wasn't afraid, but it was spooky being that close to having to drop someone.

MY HERO!!!

Captain Obvious -  FYI - If you are in Southern Oregon, it was the gravel pit just before the Sportsmans Park in Grants Pass.

I was at a indoor range in Florida.Lady walks in and pulls out a Smith 36,with the hammer cocked.She is waving it around with her finger on the trigger. The people behind the counter get her to sit it down on the counter.It was loaded.After they chew her out, she gets a aditude and says theres something wrong with the gun.Looking between the frame and hammer there was a penny or dime stuck in there!She couldnt get it out or unload it.She was then informed that she needed a permit to carry it.She said she didnt ,her husband was a police cheif.

The incident of the two trespassers happened back in the mid 60's.  Different time, different people. Nobody would think of getting shot at in a small town back in those days.

I didn't give a name or department for the police captain, since this happened some years ago, and I don't think anything would be served by naming names.

I came out of the pits, to find my ex-wife and my (now ex) girlfriend chatting and laughing behind the 600 yd line. When I strolled up, the girlfriend jumps up and kisses me, then proceeded to introduce me to my ex-wife.

Turok, yeah. China Lake Navel Weapons Center.  This happened 15 years ago, I was a teenager at the time.  In my opinion, the only real crime that occurred their was when some developer covered up that old 600 yard range with houses ( in the past few years).

Sweep: The problem is, they were guilty of a feloney with mandatory prison terms, and, in hind sight, they *looked and acted* guilty. A crime is a crime. Doesn't matter who you are, you can be punished if caught. I am just glad they didn't panic and do something stupid, as in: "AP News, dateline Ridgecrest CA. Erasmus commits suicide by shooting himself 10 times in the back with an M16, while running..."  I understand cops don't like prison.

Imbroglio: Hiding their name on the off chance they were just another bunch of California gunowners who don't give a d@mn about our lousey gun laws.  I never fault California gunowners for breaking our gun laws, but I do feel free to inform them of the risks they run by breaking them.  Chalk it up to "conservative sympathy for fellow gun owners."  

I only with I had legal full auto.  If gunowners seem "responsible" and are a threat  to no one, then I don't care what they do.  As a beleagured California gunowner myself, I actually sympathised with them.

Good point. Even here in MA, of all places, I have seen some VERY odd people whom I have never seen before (or since...) coming out of the woods or dropping off trash at dumpsters at the private club ranges I use. At my former club, I told the club officers about it, but they didn't want to deal with it. So, I left for safer pastures.

As I am often there during the day, there is usually no range officer, and I am often the only one shooting, unless one of my kids is with me.

About two weeks ago, some old geezer with his scoped 25.-'06 suddenly showed up in my line of sight at one range I am at, while I was shooting my AR- scared the living daylights out of me, and I cussed him out for not following the club rule of honking the horn of your car as you're driving up to the range. He didn't seem to care. It turns out he's a retired cop who thinks he knows everything about guns. Yikes! He also almost became a statistic.....

Maybe I will start carrying a sidearm, at least when I'm at the range. (I can't do it anywhere else in MA, due to the licence restrictions.)

My wife did the same thing. I let her shoot my 1911, tod her "It kicks kinda hard honey so be careful" she starts shooting and a soda can (on its side so we were shooting into the bottom, for a small round target) at about 7 or 8 yards and grouped all 8 shots into about an inch & a half, with pretty rapid shooting too! Needless to say, I got scared. I'm real nice to her now.

[owned]

I started carrying a concealed sidearm out to the range for the sole purpose of protection from two-legged predators.  It is not used for practice, but kept in a constant state of readiness for those "unscheduled social disagreements".  This started back when my faith in my fellow man was crushed (which coincided with my leaving mommy and daddy and entered the real world), and I learned to my amazement and horror that many people in this country do not love Jesus and were raised by thieves and other lowlifes.  

Haven't seen anything too wierd, but I agree with the philosophy of keeping something "on hand" to deal with potential confrontations.  One place I've been to a few times (clearing w/backstop up in the mountains off a fire road) you'll see an occasional car rip by on the road behind you with a couple of suspicious people, probably going up there to get high or whatever.  I would hope the sight of a couple-three heavily-armed individuals would be a deterrant to ill-reputes, but it doesn't hurt to leave the location with a couple of loaded rifle mags still with you, or at least your sidearm within reach.

The [newbie]s

scariest moment ever encontered at the range was when I went shooting with my uncle who was an army ranger. he was on leave and down in our state for a visit. while he was hear he wanted to take me to the range. after emptying 5 thirty rounders from my ar we were on the last and about to pull out and go home when the guy I noticed the guy who was right down range from me was loading a glock 9mm handgun. he was loading it with the muzzle pointing to the right. which just happens to be where I was. I started to alert my uncle who was loading his berretta when I heard crack and instantly saw a spray of red. the bullet had narrowly missed my uncles chest and hit me in the arm. I just stood their until the pain set in, but luckily the bullet was an in and out and just hit flesh. it however did hurt like a mother. ran over and collected all are weapons and me and threw them in the back of the car and drove me to the hospital. the hardest part of the day was trying to keep my mom from selling both my ar's and never letting me shoot again.

you should have had a sidearm and wasted the motherfucker before going to the hospital, or atleast sue for all the guy is worth.

well technically the ar is owned buy my father (even thought I paid for it out of pocket) because I am not legally old enough to possess it(not 18). however my uncle was shootin a 92f and just about did. besides not the first time, I was shot at once by a dumb kid who was on my jroct rifle team before I kicked him off for un safe firearms handling (sweeping and pointing intentionally). when I kicked him off he stormed off with the bolt action 22 and when I followed him (stupid as it was unarmed) he started swearing and took a shot that he said was just to scare me, however he was a bad shot and accidentally nicked me in the stomach just enough to peal of the skin. while re loaded the single shot rifle, myself and the whole team proceeded to aprehend him. I drug into the sai's (senior army officers office)but his shirt because he was only half conciese and requested that he call the student resource officer. I seem to have more trouble that way

I haven't had anything strange happen at a range, but on once occasion I nearly shot a cop.  My dad had recently passed away, and my friend at work thought I might be suicidal.  He also knew I owned guns.  Anyway, he calls me from work, but I'm out eating with friends.  He stops by after work around 1:15 a.m., and sees my truck at the house along with my friends, but we were in the back of the house and had the T.V. on.  We didn't hear him knock. He gets really scared then, and heads to the police station.  He informs them of what he believed, and they came back to the house with him. In the meantime, my other friend had gone home, and I was now alone in the house.  My backdoor had no locks on it, so I used nails to keep it shut. About 2 a.m., I was cleaning in the back of the house and I hear the door being moved.  Both of my cats were in the house, so I knew it wasn't them.  Then the door gets a firm push, but catches on the nails.  I grabbed my Kimber ultra carry and walked to the door peeking out of the curtains.  I only saw my friend.  I open the door for him, and then I see the cop.  The cop got all tense when he saw my Kimber, but he didn't say anything.  They explained the situation, and then the cops left.  Scared the crap out of me.  If the cop had kept pushing on the door, or even broke it down, I might have cut loose on him.