Range Snobs

I don't know if this is snobbery so much as sexism. I took my student shooting once, an attractive young woman, to say the least. We were at the range during one of the M1 Garand matches, and all of the old Yooper bucks were there with their Garands and other pieces.

She and I set up at the 50 yard target slot and she shoots her .357 Magnum lever carbine. She's having trouble at first; she was unused to shooting at paper targets and that was longer ranged than much of her previous stuff.

We discovered that she was unable to get a cheek weld with her rifle. Combine that with the terrible spring-loaded trigger and crude sights, and she wasn't doing so well.

In any case, we were minding our own business, and a couple of these old guys come around.

"You don't seem to be hitting the target there, little lady!" accompanied with sarcastic chuckles. A few condescending comments later, and she was STEAMING.

Eventually, they went into the clubhouse to drink beer and we had the place to ourselves, and she cut her teeth on my CZ-97. Needless to say, if people like those "gentlemen" are representative of it's membership, it's no wonder the NRA has trouble recruiting women. And from what some TFLers told me after the incident, she wasn't the only female shooter to run into a little bias or obnoxious chuckles.

I don't ask for PC; in fact, I can't stand it. But there's a lot to be said for treating people with respect. All because she's an attractive blonde doesn't mean she's stupid. (On the contrary, she's a physics major and is easily the smartest person I've ever met. You don't realize it until she starts talking about what she studies, then it hits you..."wow, this stuff is WAY over my head"...)

We've been soooo lucky in this regard. We go and shoot at a good open, unsupervised public range in Arizona every month or so. Everyone we've met has either minded their own business or has been friendly.

Usually we take the collection (10 handguns, 4 rifles and shotgun) and spend a full day.

The one time I thought we were going to have trouble a gentleman approaches us and asks what kind of rifle I was shooting in a rather incredulous manner. Turns out he was a cop over at the police range about 400 yards away and they had all heard and took notice of my Russian M-44

Shot some rounds for him and his kids (big smiles all around).

We got to chatting and this cop was one of the most avid RKBA supporters I've ever encountered. When he found out we were from California, I got more sympathy than I could imagine. Several times he said "don't ever give up your guns. Never let them take them".

The sound you hear is me knocking on wood that we keep having good experiences at the range.

Fortunately Never

My current club is full of these bozos. It's in a wealthy suburb of Columbus, OH and if you aren't shooting an $1800 Wilson, they won't give you the time of day. I like walking in with a stock Glock, or God forbid, a Ruger P89 and out shoot them. Thing is, I'm not that great of a shot! Luckily, there are "normal" friendly shooters that frequent the range and they are a pleasure to shoot with. Thursday is a free night for members and the snobs usually stay away, it offends their delicate sensibility to rub elbows with the rabble. Just for fun I'll sometimes try to stike up conversation with one of the "better people" to see how they react. Most often, I get a roll of the eyes and a snide smile. Even better is the reaction I get when I ask if they want to shoot my $200 Argentine HP.

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I shoot at the range you are talking about. I must shoot at the right time, b/c I usually have the range to myself! I shoot during the week in the morning, usually as close to 10:00 am as possible. However, the few other shooters I have run into were not snobs. And I shoot a Ruger p89! Just lucky I guess.

Havent run into any Snobs at the range I shoot at. Most of the people are pretty friendly or keep to themselves which is okay.

A friend of mine works for an armored car company in Canada. They don't allow him to carry his own gun, they require him to check out one of their extremely poorly maintained .38 S&W wheel guns.

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Why not find a good gunsmith? Those S&W wheelguns can be tuned up really nice.

Thanks Jeremy,

I was wondering if that was the case. Do they really wear spurs on combat boots? If so, guess I was the snob!

Testosterone

My Shooting partner won't use my choice in ranges anymore.

Venting time again!

One day we had several Goobers walking around with loaded weapons behind the line. I agree on the goobers being out of line.

A loud argument between 2 shooters at the checkout counter over how many boxes of ammo each of them used is a bit too much. And I observed, what looked like, a straw man deal go down in the range while I was watching them shoot!

The Mall Ninjas in camo make me edgie.

The LEOs who can't shoot a pattern at 15 feet getting unhappy when he sees you watching thru the window on the store's floor is curious.

Being watched by store pesonnel as I shoot to lockback makes me un-nerved. Zippering the target off to the right 2" makes me unhappy.

The neighboring guy makes a comment about not being outdone by my 12ga before he pulls the .44 mag out of his carrier was macho (read rude)!

My shooting partner complains that one guy next to me was too loud as he was shooting a .44 mag as well as making issue with my 12ga. He can't focus? Descipline and practice makes one imune to noise and it is part of being at an indoor range. Maybe he should take up orgami.

Rude and obnoxious people are part of life but I don't have to like it.

I can relate to people getting upset at the calibers you shoot next to them.

I reloaded a bunch of 240 LSWC behind 15 grains of blue dot for my 629 .44mag

To me this is not a full on load but a stiff yet
manageble factory type loading.

The range is one long table and I'm next to
a guy with a Browning HP and some 1911s.

I begin shooting the .44 but I wait until the guy next to me is finished with his string.

All I get is eye rolling and whispers to his shooting buddies (which aren't whispers because we are all wearing hearing protection)"sheesh who needs a monster gun like that" "He must think he is dirty harry or something"

I try to blow it off and still be considerate so I give the guy another chance and I comment on what nice pistols he brought and if he would like to try the .44 because I noticed him commenting on it.

The guy rolls his eyes again and says " I have no use for those kind of guns they are just way too much in my opinion"

Then the guy starts making fun of me for picking up brass.......

So I flip around load a cylinder and rapid fire double action all 6 rounds one handed into a shoot n see at 15 yards. I guess luck was with me..
All the rounds were in a 4 inch circle with 2 holes touching.

The guy muttered something about a whacko picked up his stuff and left.

If you looked up gun-snob in webster there would be a picture of that dude.

Braz,
Like the horses, the spurs are also ceremonial. Cav guys usually have to go through some kind of initiation/field exercise thing, uaually a long road march and lane stakes. They are then presented in front of the unit. That's how it worked in 1/10 Cav at Ft. Hood. I couldn't tell you if that's a standard thing.

I've had some people ridicule my Hi-Point,that is until it out shoots their $500.00+ handgun and then they get pissed and leave me alone.

Not many snobs at my range. Mostly just people trying to have fun and maybe hit the target a few times. The shotgunners are funny though. I watched a trap guy practicing "difficult angles" one day. Geez!

No offense intended to trap shooters, and I will say that I have never have shot true trap, but what is so difficult about it? I can powder 24 of 25 handthrown clays with my little 20ga 870 and not even think about it. A multi-thousand dollar 12ga trap gun and nice predictable targets, I should be able to hit most of those too!

No snobs at the range I go to ... everyone there is great.
The only time there is a "problem" is when any cops come in to shoot. Range rules do not apply to them (or so they think).
Rapid fire, double taps and shooting closer than 10 yards are not allowed yet they always ignore those rules.
Thankfully the range officer gets on them like ugly on an ape and if they argue, they are asked to leave.
A side note here ... the ones I've been able to identify as cops are some of the worst shots I've ever seen. Most of them couldn't hit a cow in the *** with a banjo. I can only hope they have desk jobs. It's scary to know theyre allowed to carry and use firearms, but thats NJ for you.

Sometimes the guys with the shotguns that cost more than your car are fairly nice and sometimes they are not. I have met one or two yo-yos but most shooters I have met are fairly decent.

What about the guy who asks all kinds of questions and talks to everyone and wants to shoot YOUR gun and...............
that would be me !

I've never been hasseled by a range snob. I lived in the PRK most of my life too. I have some of those evil short pistols good only for killing people and have never had word one said to me except when this LEO next to me asked to try my Kahr. He let me shoot his Glock in exchange. The only time I ever gave anyone the evil eye at a range was when his hot .308 FAL kept bouncing off of me. He just moved down and we were fine.

Not a specific tale, but...

I don't have a specific tale pertaining to species Snobicus Firearm Idiotus. I CAN remember several times going to the rifle range and seeing a couple of multi-thousand-dollar-custom-rifle-totin' snobs get their fannies thoroughly and truly kicked by some grizzled old farm hand shooting a beat-up generic department store rifle.

Ahhh, the memories that warm the heart.

Brad

Range rules do not apply to them (or so they think).

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Nor do any other rules that must be obeyed by ordinary citizens, or so they think (rightfully so, most of the time).


I've never met any range snobs pertaining to guns, really. Some were know-it-alls in other respects--probably didn't get near them enough to notice their snobish tendencies specific to firearms.

Really only once....

I went to a friends private range. His brother and a bunch of his friends were there also. They all had high dollar rifles with higher dollar scopes. They started bragging and boasting (some of them could do it too....) but I had just aquired my N.E.F 45-70.

I got it out and wanted to shoot it. I went to a bench and one of the guys looked at it and said "it has to be $2000.oo and up to shoot from this bench".

I ignored him and settled in on a sign at 225 yards. Hit it three times in a row and the 3rd shot knocked it over.

Everybody wanted to shoot my $200 gun after that. We ended up having a good time.


On a sperate note:

A guy I work with an have been instructing went to get his CHL this past weekend. He shot a 247 out of a possible 250. WIth a cheap Firestorm 1911. 2nd place out of a group of 15.

He said there were 2 Kimbers, a Wilson, 3 Glocks and some other stuff he couldn't identify. My friend said everybody asked him what he was shooting after the run and nobody could beleive it.

I always said it aint the arrow, its the indian.

I've had encounters with the "homeys" and their sideways shooting, the "tactical" 50 year old with combover and cokebottleglasses (for some reason they all have FALs), and generally careless people but those are rare occurences. Most every range trip I make a new friend and get to shoot tons of guns I would never be able to own(read:high dollar rigs).

What steams me are the IPSC guys who MAKE me shoot with them and I go home ammoless

Seriously, my shooting buddy and I went to our private range on a "match day"(IPSC) to watch a match. Here are all these guys in their "tactical" gear and range bags worth twice what my pistol is and I thought before the match started some of the guys came up to us and asked if we were shooting, we told them no, and they proceeded to tell us YES we were. Just a hell of a bunch of nice guys who taught me more about "practical" shooting in one day than I'd ever learned in my shooting career.

People that are new to shooting who take my CHL classes are sometimes nervous about going to the range because they don't want to look "stupid" for not knowing much. I explain to them that 99% of other shooters will be friendly and try to help them learn(provided they are being safe) techniques and so forth. I haven't been proven wrong yet. Now, I see those same people that didn't know &$(@ about shooting trying to help new shooters at the range. Makes me feel proud

I havn't ment any range snobs or just misserable jerks. I guess I am lucky I belong to a private club that is full of working folk and retired working folk. I hope I continue my good luck.

I've run into the same thing several times. Distributing literature for CCW last year, one club (shotgun only) asked me to leave when they found out what I wanted to leave there. I'll not step across their threshold again.

We also have several sporting clays courses around here, and you I've occasionally run across people that harumphed when I brought out the Rem 870 express. Once when one of the snobs was keeping score on the last station, he made another comment under his breath about cheap pump guns not being able to hit anything. When he wasn't watching I dropped one in the chamber and filled the tube (no plug). I hit both birds on the first two shots, kept shooting until it was empty and hit several more pieces. The look on his face was priceless, and the crew I came with was still ROTFL when he missed those same two birds.

So we have our (fortunately small) share of range snobs - like the "serious" bullseye snobs who can shoot a .22LR Hammerli 280 only two handed and always bitch about "problems" with the 2000$+ pistol and the ammo. I just love to outshoot them with a sub 100$ russian MCM/Margolin.

The IPSC snobs are even worse with their 3000-5000$ STI/SVI raceguns. They are constantly in need of new supercustom spaceage parts, magic compensators, the latest multi-colored optic, and a "better" gunsmith, of course. I just love to see when the National Open Champion (young, but poor guy) outshoots them by 8-10% with his really crappy (most of the rifling is gone, chunks missing from the muzzle crown!), open CZ-75.

I've been pretty lucky (then again, I hven't been shooting all that long or at that many places), but I have run into some inconsiderate/careless people and a few arogant folks, but mostly I've met nice people.

I figure those who only shoot one type of gun or limit themselves to one kind of shooting lack imagination. Why limit your fun? I only own handguns at the moment, but I haven't met a gun that I didn't learn something from (and have some fun with) and in my lifetime, I'd like to become proficient at all kinds of shooting sports (I do have some preferences, though). To each their own, but variety is the spice of life.

I figure those who only shoot one type of gun or limit themselves to one kind of shooting lack imagination.

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Or maybe some people want to specialize to see how far they can go in a single discipline.

Personally, I would prefer few, better guns and more practice time and ammo than adding to my collection. A good 1911 or two and a few good revolvers seems like all I really need. I suppose some would call you snobby for thinking we need variety and I would be a snob for thinking it is better to develop competence with fewer guns.