I almost had to hand out a Darwin Award on the range today.

[Ragsbo]

I never worked at a public range but you would be surprised at some of the stuff we would see doing our departments training, especially the new hires and those who were going through the hiring process. The worse one was a "retired" prison guard who was hired. He was left handed, never shot a semi auto pistol before (they qualified with revolvers). He wasn't to bad with a rifle (they qualified with Ruger Mini 14 and we had M16s). His main problem was when he reloaded he wanted to turn sideways to the right and do it= with the pistol pointed to the rear of the line. I told him no, but he said that is the way the prison trained him and why he was always put on the right end of the shooting line. This was BS since my Dad worked there and never seen it. I told him keep it in front and reload. He continued to do it, showing me his muzzle every time! I started standing right behind him and when he tried to turn, I would slam him on the right shoulder forcing him to face forward. He gave me dirty looks when I told him if I ever saw him muzzle pointed in my direction that he would see mine and a bright flash! The union claimed I threatened him. I said I sure did and explained to HR what he was doing. He never stopped the habit! The best thing was he could NOT shoot worth a damn and he could never fire a qualifying score. He was offered a janitor job but quit.

The funniest thing was we had a young lady qualifying when a hot brass went down the back of her shirt. She started a nice little hoochie choochie dance! The round went down her shirt and into her PANTS! I almost rammed my hand down the back of her pants to get it out but grabbed her gun and told her to do what she needed to. More hoochie choochie and it finally fell out her pant leg. She took her gun back and kept on with the quals!

(and yes she was very nice looking and ----------)

[barnetmill]

All I can say is welcome to dealing with the public. Remember besides have the right to own and possess arms, they also have the right to procreate, drive cars and vote.

[Ghost1976]

Faramir2 wrote:

I didn't see this one, but the manager at that same store told me about this guy who showed up at the range with a drop-leg holster, showing off to his friends. In his drop-leg? A Sig P938. He talks all big and bad, and he and his buddies go out on the range. Few minutes later, drop-leg comes out and says, "Hey, man, I've got a Type 3 malfunction I can't tap, rack, and bang out." Manager tells him to relax and bring the gun to him. Reason drop-leg couldn't clear the pistol? He had chambered a round backward. In fact, he had loaded the entire magazine with backward rounds. (How was beyond the manager, or me, as I heard the story.) Drop-leg's solution to the clogged chamber was to put a cleaning rod down the muzzle and give it a good smack to dislodge the backward cartridge.

He would have gotten a Darwin award, had the manager not insisted on removing the round with a pair of pliers.

Good lord!

I'll do you one better though! We had a married couple come into the range the other day and the husband said "There's something wrong with my gun. It won't fire." Not only did he have his rounds in backwards like the guy in your example, but he was loading 40S&W rounds into a 9MM handgun! It would never have occurred to me nor do I understand how he got those rounds in, and backwards yet! Jammed in there real tight!

Then we had another genius who told me her gun was having problems and indeed it did. Very light primer strike, rounds won't go off. Then she showed us the casing of one that actually did manage to go off. The casing was expanded at the bullet end and cracked down the side. She was shooting 9MM ammo in a gun designed to fire 40 S&W. I had to learn to think stupid, really stupid, to figure out the problem for some of these people because they do things that are unthinkably stupid.

[Faramir2]

Faramir2 wrote:



Good lord!

I'll do you one better though! We had a married couple come into the range the other day and the husband said "There's something wrong with my gun. It won't fire." Not only did he have his rounds in backwards like the guy in your example, but he was loading 40S&W rounds into a 9MM handgun! It would never have occurred to me nor do I understand how he got those rounds in, and backwards yet! Jammed in there real tight!

Then we had another genius who told me her gun was having problems and indeed it did. Very light primer strike, rounds won't go off. Then she showed us the casing of one that actually did manage to go off. The casing was expanded at the bullet end and cracked down the side. She was shooting 9MM ammo in a gun designed to fire 40 S&W. I had to learn to think stupid, really stupid, to figure out the problem for some of these people because they do things that are unthinkably stupid.

Man, both of those do beat mine. You really gotta think like stupid sometimes, I tell you what. It's a wonder neither of those folks you dealt with injured themselves. It's actually better for the first guy that he got the rounds loaded backward, come to think of it; coulda been a real crapshow, had he gotten them in forward and tried to touch one off.

That reminds me of one incident I had to deal with myself, where a guy shot the slide off an HK VP9. He came out and told me a piece on top had come off. I thought he meant a sight and told him I would be out there in a minute. He says, "Yeah, this piece right here" and points to the slide, on an advertising mat thing we had on the counter. I dashed out there, afraid he had wrecked the thing. Turns out the numbskull assumed that the slide lock lever was the safety, and he had to rotate the lever down to take the safety off. Why he thought that is beyond me. I pulled the slide back under the lane table; he reaches out to take it, as though he thinks he can put it back together! I told him I had to give it a cleaning and once-over to make sure it wasn't damaged (didn't seem to sink into his thick head that I had to make sure he hadn't broken the freaking thing). The slide was fine, so I put it back together, explained as patiently as I could how the safeties in striker-fired guns work, there isn't a thumb safety on this one, and DON'T TOUCH THE LEVER.

[JLE]

I had a moron do just the opposite. I was working the range counter on day and guy comes in and rents a lane and I ask do you need any ammunition? He replies "a box of 9's" so I sell him the ammo, target, 1/2 hour of range time and send him on his way.


Several minutes later, he comes back in and tells me there is something wrong with the ammo I sold him because the bullets are not even making it to the target!
I was ringing out someone else so I told him I would be right out to help him. I figured, he was just missing his target, seeing the empty cases land on the floor, and thinking those were the bullets "not making it to the target"


After a few minutes, I went out to the range and stood behind him as he inserted another magazine into his Hi-Point. I then watched as the cartridge exited the barrel of his firearm and sure enough, dropped about 2 foot in front of him. I then looked at the floor and noticed about a dozen other COMPLETE cartridges laying on the floor in front of him.


Because it was a semi-auto this joker knew it had to be a '9' when actually it was a .45. The firing pin/and-or/his flinching was pushing the entire cartridge down the barrel of his firearm and onto the floor. How he ever was able to get 9mm to stay in a .45 magazine is still a mystery to me. I grabbed his ammo and told him he was not welcome back to shoot until he brought someone with him that had a clue.


At least, he wasn't using the sideways one-handed grip by the time I got out there!

JLE

Faramir2 wrote:



Good lord!

I'll do you one better though! We had a married couple come into the range the other day and the husband said "There's something wrong with my gun. It won't fire." Not only did he have his rounds in backwards like the guy in your example, but he was loading 40S&W rounds into a 9MM handgun! It would never have occurred to me nor do I understand how he got those rounds in, and backwards yet! Jammed in there real tight!

Then we had another genius who told me her gun was having problems and indeed it did. Very light primer strike, rounds won't go off. Then she showed us the casing of one that actually did manage to go off. The casing was expanded at the bullet end and cracked down the side. She was shooting 9MM ammo in a gun designed to fire 40 S&W. I had to learn to think stupid, really stupid, to figure out the problem for some of these people because they do things that are unthinkably stupid.

[Faramir2]

I had a moron do just the opposite. I was working the range counter on day and guy comes in and rents a lane and I ask do you need any ammunition? He replies "a box of 9's" so I sell him the ammo, target, 1/2 hour of range time and send him on his way.


Several minutes later, he comes back in and tells me there is something wrong with the ammo I sold him because the bullets are not even making it to the target!
I was ringing out someone else so I told him I would be right out to help him. I figured, he was just missing his target, seeing the empty cases land on the floor, and thinking those were the bullets "not making it to the target"


After a few minutes, I went out to the range and stood behind him as he inserted another magazine into his Hi-Point. I then watched as the cartridge exited the barrel of his firearm and sure enough, dropped about 2 foot in front of him. I then looked at the floor and noticed about a dozen other COMPLETE cartridges laying on the floor in front of him.


Because it was a semi-auto this joker knew it had to be a '9' when actually it was a .45. The firing pin/and-or/his flinching was pushing the entire cartridge down the barrel of his firearm and onto the floor. How he ever was able to get 9mm to stay in a .45 magazine is still a mystery to me. I grabbed his ammo and told him he was not welcome back to shoot until he brought someone with him that had a clue.


At least, he wasn't using the sideways one-handed grip by the time I got out there!

JLE

.....wow.