Dumbest thing you heard/saw in a Gun Store or at the range.

[HippieCrusher]

One dumb on my part, and one joke on my kid bro.

My boss asked me to zero in his 7mm mag before he and I left for a deer hunt. Beautiful rifle with and old bushnell scope mounted too far back for a big nosed person like myself. I put the cross hairs on the dot, squeezed, felt the recoil and heard the muzzle blast, but couldn't see sh--. I split my nose wide open. He wasn't even close to zero, but I was done. The next day I told him he was good to go. I heard every wise crack in the book for the next week.

I took my kid brother to the range for some practice. He's not much of a firearm enthusiast and knows little about the subject to which I hold so dear. He was shooting .38's throuugh my .357, but I had indescrimenantly swapped a handful of .357's into the box before we left the house. He didn't notice the difference between the two until she went "BOOM." Palefaced he asked me "did I just break something?"

 

[Wheeler44]

Just Yesterday a fella in the local sporting goods store told me " Yep, them AK 47s can shoot the same ammo as our M-14s so they can just pick up ammo from our dead soldiers when they run out. Them Russians don't have much ammo so thats how they do it. I think them SKSs shoot somthin' different tho".
Since they didn't have what I was looking for, I beat a hasty retreat.

 

[fletcher]

This has to be one of my favorite threads.

 

[Old NFO]

Ya just gotta love some of these old boys that know everything... A friend and I were at the range last weekend with our daughters (three girls- mine 24, his 17 and 12), to get them some range time. We were discussing recoil and grip and stance, when one of the know-it-all's stuck his nose in. He said, "Well, the bigger the bullet the further off your shooting will be cause recoil will make the barrel rise." He went on to drop a few more 'pearls' of wisdom, and I just got tired of it. I happened to have my laptop in the car, so went and fired it up and showed him this picture, showing a .45 round exiting a perfectly level barrel- His immediate response was that was a fake picture, he knew what he was talking about, etc. At this point he got red in the face, the girls started laughing, and he finally left... The really sad point is people like that turn more people away from shooting than we will ever know...:banghead::banghead:

 

[MErl]

I took a new shooter to the range here. it is just an old dump on FS land known as a firing range.
we're set up around 75 yards from the berm and a group shows up, decides the other side is open (as it was) and proceeds to walk PAST us and sets up for pistol fun way downrange. we stop, I explain to them that they are past our firing point, they say they are cool with that! damn, guess it was time for pistol stuff

New shooter was very respectful of loaded firearms but not so of unloaded stuff. swept me with pistol after he had finished a mag. slide was locked back. had to explain why the the habit to develop is that a gun is always treated like it is loaded.

 

[41magsnub]

This year hunting is my best dumbass story. I have a buddy (age 32) who had never been successfull hunting and was kind of put out about it. I have a rancher buddy that as long as you are not concerned about getting a buck are pretty much guaranteed to shoot a muley doe on his land. I figure that I could take him out there and get him a nice easy shot at a deer.

I knew I was in trouble when we got out there and quiz him a little about his gear. He did not even bring a knife other than the micro leatherman on his keychain. I am not sure how he planned to dress anything. This ranch has a rudimentary firing range and since I had never seen him shoot before I diplomatically say I need to verify the zero on my rifle (which was perfectly fine) and he should pop off a couple of practice rounds. He fired 3 rounds that were all over the paper. I ask to try his rifle and got a nice group about 6" right and 9" high. I quickly adjusted his scope for him so it would be close.

I have at this point resigned myself to the role of dad with his 12 yo son hunting for the first time without the benefit of rifle practice first. I am going to stick close to him so I can quickly finish whatever he wounds.

We finally start hunting! Yay! We walk away from the truck and go up a draw that I had shot many deer in. We are about 50' away from the truck and he trips, drops the rifle and it goes off with the round hitting about 4' in front of me. With the safety on a M77 mk2 he had to have been carrying it with one in the chamber and the safety off for this to happen.

At this point I start screaming at him, take his rifle away, tell him to get into the truck and we leave. Never again.... ever.

 

[Rescue]

I was 19 years old, I had a friend whose father was a LEO. I had never shot a handgun before. I talked to this friend of mine about shooting, firearms, etc. This friend of mine said, well there is a small indoor range not far from here, let´s just go down there after work, rent a pistol, and take some shots. So we did.

I was pretty confortable. I thought hey, my friend is gonna teach me the basics, and I am finally going to shoot a handgun.

We arrived at the indoor range, and asked the man in the counter about the possibility of renting a pistol and using the range. The man didn´t even blink. He said "Yes, I have a rental 92, but the range is full, you will have to wait a little bit." We waited until one of the shooters left. Then the man in the counter gave us the unloaded gun, slide locked open, a couple of mags, a box of ammo, a pair of muffs and safety glasses, and pointed the door to the range. Just like that.

We got to the indoor range and loaded the magazines. My "experienced" buddy simply did not know how to close the slide. It turns out he had never shot a handgun either, much less a semi-auto. There were no ROs around, and the other shooters did not even glance at us. Yet the man in the counter just assumed that we knew our way around the pistol. Bear in mind we were both 19, even though we looked older.

We ended up compensating the absolute lack of experience by being dead serious handling the gun. Looking back, I think the utter lack of knowledge made us be extra careful. We managed to shoot an entire box of ammo, without any accidents.

Edit: We are still friends and when we look back at it, we agree it was as dumb as it gets. The man in the counter was dumb for assuming we knew what we were doing, and we were dumber for actually doing it.

 

[heypete]

1. I was at the local range one night, teaching one of my female friends how to shoot a 10/22. We were having a grand old time, and she was outshooting everyone except for the competition shooters who were practicing. I was quite impressed. Anyway, a 40-something man and his son arrive on the range and at the ceasefire take their targets (which are clothespinned to cardboard backing) downrange. They decide to only put up one of the targets, and so they set the other target down, then return. Well, it turns out that they placed the target one one of the lamps illuminating the firing line (the range is open from 7-10pm, and so uses artificial lights). The 100W floodlamp burned a hole through the cardboard and set the cardboard alight. Since the lamps and this particular target were lying behind the metal shield used to protect the lights, it wasn't immediately obvious until I smelled something burning (I didn't see the flames at first, as I was observing my friend's technique). I looked around, saw the smoke and flames, immediately yelled "CEASE FIRE!" and ran to the RSO booth. I quickly explained that there was a fire on the range, that they should immediately call a ceasefire for the whole range (there's two "wings" to the range on either side of the central booth), and once the side with the fire was clear I would go downrange with the fire extinguisher (the RSOs were elderly chaps, and not very quick on their feet) to put out the fire.

Everyone was confused when they heard "Cease fire! There's a fire on the range. Fire! Cease fire! Fire! Cease fire!" over the loudspeakers. Eventually, the shooters understood, and all was made safe. I ran downrange with the extinguisher, only to be beaten by the man and his son, who stomped up and down on the flaming cardboard to extinguish it. Fortunately, no damage was done to the range. The RSO spoke quietly and privately to the man, understood what caused the fire, and graciously allowed the man to shoot as it was his son's first time out. The remainder of the evening was completely safe and excitement-free.

2. My Class III dealer friend and I were in the Coronado National Forest shooting machineguns (I'm the one in the green shirt and ballcap, my dealer's the skinny guy with the green shirt, and our Class II manufacturer friend [who later left, but is the owner of several M16s and the auto-switch for the Glock] is in the white shirt). We shooting both suppressed and unsuppressed M16s and Uzis, suppressed 10/22s (including an 8" barreled "pocket rifle" 10/22 with a suppressor attached), and unsuppressed semi-auto pistols.

When we were pretty much done for the day, a National Forest Ranger pulls up. Before she stopped her vehicle, we had rendered the guns safe, left the actions open, placed them in the bed of the pickup truck, stepped away from the truck with our hands in plain view, and awaited instruction. She was very friendly, chatted for a few minutes, asked about the machineguns (which we offered to let her shoot, but she declined as she had to get back to patrolling -- she was the only one on duty that day in the whole forest), and gave us some Smokey The Bear keychains.

Ok, nothing stupid quite yet. After she left, we picked up our brass and headed toward the road out of the forest. We were curious how far away she heard to automatic fire, so when we saw her vehicle stop at another shooty area, we pulled off to the side so we could ask her once she was done. The knuckleheads who were shooting didn't pay attention to her vehicle, and finally noticed her when she yelled "HEY!" at them. The three of them, all armed with rifles and holstered pistols, turn towards her and start walking casually toward her with their rifles still in their hands (though not aiming at her). Her hand went for her sidearm but didn't draw. She barked for them to safe their weapons, place them in the trunk of their car, and then approach so she could speak to them. Definitely not the right way for them to approach a police officer.

Anyway, we found out that you can hear automatic, unsuppressed M16s firing from about half a mile away with the windows closed on a vehicle bouncing on a dirt road.

 

[Regolith]

Just Yesterday a fella in the local sporting goods store told me " Yep, them AK 47s can shoot the same ammo as our M-14s so they can just pick up ammo from our dead soldiers when they run out. Them Russians don't have much ammo so thats how they do it. I think them SKSs shoot somthin' different tho".
Since they didn't have what I was looking for, I beat a hasty retreat.

I remember hearing something similar about why the Russians switched to the 5.45x39 round. Can't remember where the hell I heard that though.

 

[mrmeval]

I've got a tagline

"Their wetware ran Darwin version 0.001beta"
--mrmeval

 

[rockinrussky]

speaking of range fires...

One of my friends was at a shooting range in Texas not too far from where he lives. I can't remember the exact location but he described the area as very hot and dry, almost a desert. He was shooting his M38 Nagant at a range that used wooden boards as support beams for the targets. Earlier in the day he had found some really cheap ammo, appearently they were tracer rounds (which I'm not even sure if it would be legal to shoot there). To make a long story short he sets 'the range' on fire with one round, having to run a quarter mile to the nearest area for an extinguisher. The rangemaster was surprisingly nice about it and didn't even yell at him

What made this so interesting is that halfway through this ordeal he decides to call me on his cell to let me know about his awesome trip... right as the fire was still raging. Either way, I felt rather privilaged. Still though... those crazy texans

 

[UKarmourer]

Hmm, a couple of pearlers from this weeks range
1. Did you check that rifle today, Yes, ok so why do you have no springs whatsoever on your sight mount?

2. (brings weapon to me with pull through stuck) what size flannelette did you use? 45mmx45mm (correct), ok says I, remove blockage, measure flannelette, 95x35, well i tried to burn it out............................ treeline and back, GO

 

[M1 Shooter]

Where do I begin. I could write a novel about all the stupid things I have seen or heard at gunshops and at shooting ranges.

#1. Guy walks into gunshop with a pistol he wants to sell. He hands it over to the clerk muzzle first, pointing it right at the clerks chest!! Clerk grabs the pistol away, and when he drops the mag and racks the slide, he discovers the gun is fully loaded!! The clerk then tears the guy a new one, and rightfully so.

#2. I observe a guy at the range a couple lanes down from me who is having trouble with his rifle. I come over and offer to help. He says he can't get the "bullets" to fit in his rifle. I look and see that his rifle is a .270 but the ammo he has is .30-06. I then explain to him that he has the wrong ammo, and he says, "There's a difference?"

#3. I'm looking around at a gunshop when I hear the sound of a shotgun racking and a voice behind me say, "Man, you could really blow someone away with this thing!" I turn around and this guy is pointing the shotgun right at my head! I grab the muzzle and pull the shotgun away from him, and he says, "Hey man, what are you doing?!" I ask the gunshop owner if he saw what just happened, and he says he saw the whole thing and he tells the idiot to leave his shop. The moron mutters a few colorful phrases and walks out.

#4 I'm out shooting with my uncle on some state land that a lot of people shoot at. An informal plinking range really. Anyway, these 3 guys show up and ask if they can shoot there too. We say sure. They have a couple shotguns and one of those 100 round value packs of 12ga from Wal-Mart. They start shooting at junk laying around like pop cans etc. They ask us what we're shooting. I tell them we're shooting an SKS, a M44 Mosin-Nagant, 10/22's, and a couple Glock 9mm's. They look all confused, like they don't know what the heck we're talking about. Then one of them takes his shirt off, hangs it from a tree and shoots it with his shotgun. My uncle and I look at each other with a confused look, while these guys are laughing at each other, pointing their shotguns at each other, and just being stupid. They each start taking off various items of clothing and shooting them full of holes with birdshot. Thats when my uncle and I decide its time to go. I don't know if those guys were drunk, stoned, or just stupid, but I never have seen them again, and I hope I never do. To this day my uncle and I still get a laugh out of these guys who we refer to as "The Shirt Shooters".

There are many more, but these are the ones that stand out in my mind at the moment.

 

[Ethereal]

Wow this has gone on forever..

OK here's the things I've heard/seen...
THINGS SAID:
1.) Anyone can make their own armor piercing rounds, all you need is a HP bullet, the tip of a paperclip, and some candle wax.
2.) This 1911 is made of ALL STEEL, something you NEVER see these days.
3.) We don't carry AK's or any other assault weapon here, when the other stores get shut down after the demis get into office we'll still be here selling hunting rifles.

THINGS SEEN:
4.) The gunstore clerk selling a used DW1911, complete with idiot mark on the frame and many scratches on the slide, as a NEW pistol for more than an actual NEW price. BTW it also had a pair of those rattlesnake grips on it.
5.) Another store employee pulling out a J-frame with Crimson Trace grips FROM HIS HOLSTER and pointing the laser at people while he was having a conversation with another idiot, all the while laughing like a dumbass because he kept pointing it at people's chest saying in a high pitched voice "niiiiiiple"!! Needless to say he didn't point it at me, but man if he had I'm not sure where it would have gone, I mean who does this?

 

[NDGeek]

Ok, my buddy told me about this and if anyone has an opinion, by all means.

He's at the local outdoor public range the other day and all the benches are full.
Everyone calls a clear and they get up to retrieve/place targets. Right about then a guy pulls up in his truck, grabs some targets and proceeds to run all the way down to the 300 burm (the furthest one at this range). He doesn't say anything to anyone and strangely nobody sees him do it.

My buddy gets back to the bench, looks around and sees that everyone is back, calls for the hot and gets a row of thumbs up. He looks down the range and slowly fires off a full mag into the first burm (25 yards). About 30 seconds later the 300 yard guy comes walking up from the range, like nothing is going on. Didn't even know anyone had fired

My friend, about to soil himself, asks the guy if he is ok, he says yes. My friend proceeds to pack up his stuff and leave.

So.. Nobody saw this guy go down, he didn't tell anyone he was going to 300 (customary at that place) and no one stopped him when he called for the hot (seriously not one guy out of 5 saw him). My buddy felt horrible afterwards

No, this "friend" was not me. But I can see myself doing this as I believe he followed the right rules.

Anyone have any thoughts? Pretty close call if you ask me. The friend said he was shooting at the bottom of the burm (stack of tires about 4 or 5 high) and was damn glad he wasn't shooting at the top!

 

[CPerdue]

OBXNED wrote,

I never did tell him it wasn't the same one I was aiming at.

That story sir, is art. Thank you.

 

[Geno]

Well, in 47 years of life, and about 40 years of shooting, I have seen some funny, some horrid. Recently, while at Target Sports in Royal Oak, MI, two of the employees where yuck-yucking it up. The younger one grabbed a pistol with laser sight off the rental shelf and pointed it direct at me as I walked into the main room.

I never went back. I allowed my range membership to simply lapse and started buying at another local range...Double Action.

 

[REOIV]

Customer: What kind of slug should I get for my SMOOTHBORE shotgun?

Clerk: Sabot slugs are the only one you should be using. Rifled slugs are for rifled barrels.

Customer: Oh-ok.

I look at the sabot package "For use in rifled barrels or with a rifled choke tube."

 

[Christian for Israel]

i visited a gun shop in a nearby town in search of ammo for my mauser. at the counter was a kid who looked no more than nineteen. i asked him if they had any mil surp 8x57 and he promptly informed me that the US gvmt had sent it all to iraq for use by our troops.

at the range this past weekend i had just set up my target at 200 yards when i saw an older guy in khaki and wearing a DI looking smokey the bear hat. i asked him if he was a marine and he said no, he bought the hat at a yard sale. uh...ok. so he proceeds to set a target at the hundred line and, upon his return, decides he want's to discuss long range shooting (around here, 100 yards is considered pistol range). first on his mind was to inquire as to what rifle i was shooting. i told him it was a K-31, which brought a puzzled look to his face. i explained it was a swiss rifle and at this he proclaimed that the swiss were neutral and DIDN'T HAVE RIFLES!

next he informed me that all serious sharpshooters used only garands. now, i love the garand as a combat rifle but let's face it, there are any number of precision rifles that group better at long range. next he tells me that you have to replace the regular sights with peeps as it's impossible to hit anything with open sights. i didn't say anything but instead got set to shoot.

after i'd fired 5 rounds and he'd put 20 or more through his gun we checked targets. at 100 yards he had a group about 8 inches across. the funny thing was, he seemed to think this was good! well, he walked out with me to the 200 yard line, all the time saying that he didn't see the value in shooting at such a distance as you couldn't hope to hit the target when we arrived to find that all five of my shots were touching and took up an area of less than an inch.

after that he never said another word.

 

[BBQJOE]

Not gunshop, but still scary stupidity.

A friend of mine came into our business with a friend.
Guns are not legal in our business for patrons, but AZ law says ok on owners.

This friend of mine's friend goes around the country impersonating a famous musician in a big review show. Also claiming to be ex LEO.

Anyways I decided to show my CCW carrying friend a new pistol I had just purchased.

Upon seeing the pistol his friend reaches into the top of his jacket and produces a semi auto of some sort to show off.

I am sitting at the table directly across from him.
I look at my friend with a questioning look, he looks at his friend places his hand on his forehead in embarrassment utters a profanity.

The guy continues with his pistol. He drops the magazine and places the firearm on the table with the business end pointed right at me, and racks the slide to remove the one in the chamber.

I duck and dive out of the way.
He he tries to relieve me by telling me not to worry, he used to be in law enforcement.

 

[Happyshooter]

The instructors when I was in the Marines who used to make the M-16 sound like some kind of combination of a howitzer and Klingon disintigrator pistol. I partially think it was to keep the non-savvy from getting lax about their safety.
"Dude, don't point that thing at me...all that would be left was a pair of boots!"

No kidding. I was a winger in the late 80s/early 90s and they kept saying it wasn't enough rifle for a rabbit.

How times change.

 

[supraneurotoxin]

oh, this is the best thread ever.

it's probably for the best, but I don't have any horror stories to relate.
here's a joke though:
A telephone repair man enlists in the army, and while on the shooting range can't seem to hit the target. Instructor comes over and asks, "what seems to be the trouble soldier?" the recruit puts his finger over the muzzle, pulls the trigger and blows the tip of his finger off. he turns to the DI and states, "it's ok here, the problem must be on the other end."

 

[CNate]

Our local range is indoors, downstairs. The upstairs is a fun shop/smithy/place to sit and avoid going home for a few hours. The only stairs down to the range are located slightly behind and to the left of the cash register counter. Behind the counter are three CC Tv's with cameras on the range, split screens so each screen is always showing you at least three lanes.

Last week I'm sitting at the counter jawing with the owner, out of habit I glance up at the monitors and see a kid (19 I'm assuming since you have to be at least 18 to use the facility) ducking under the partition to retrieve a target that fell off his counter. I nod up to the monitors to turn the owners attention to what this idiot is doing...just in time to see the girl in the lane next to him (I was later informed that this was his girlfriend) rack her .22 and pop off three shots at the target hanging at most two feet from the kids head. The owner hops on the intercom system and tells the kid to stay on the safe side of the partitions. He gives the camera a thumbs up. I knew instantly that this kid was proof of a failure in the gene pool.

Another regular comes in and the three of us are talking about god knows what when out of know where the kid is standing behnid the owner with the go boom end of his .22 pointed right at us. Finger in trigger guard. The kid realized he had screwed up when he saw the three of us with our hands on our .45's about to draw down on him. "Oh! Oh, sorry ummm man can you un-jam this thing? I stuck an empty case-thing in it to show my girl how to un-jam it but I can't get it out. You got a screwdriver or something?"

I had to go to the other room I was laughing so hard.

-Nate

 

[the naked prophet]

When I had only been shooting for maybe a year and my wife had just gotten her first pistol, we went shooting and found some other people there. One guy had custom built an accurized sporterized mauser of some sort, don't recall the caliber. He had placed some targets at 50 yards (the max at this range) and we asked if we could shoot pistols next to him. The area we were using was just about 20 feet off to the side, and about 15 degrees pointed away from him. My wife is shooting her .32 and finishes a magazine. She goes to reload, and when she's reloaded, she starts shooting again.

Then, while she's shooting, we hear screaming. The supposedly experienced guy who built his own rifle had run downrange to check his targets without telling anyone in the five seconds while my wife was changing magazines. He then proceeds to chew her out, even though NOBODY (there were over half a dozen people there, including his friend who was shooting with him) saw him go or knew he was out there.

I'm still mad at him because he made my wife feel like crap when he was the one who did something stupid.

 

[Poper]

Christian for Israel:
This is a classic!

i asked him if they had any mil surp 8x57 and he promptly informed me that the US gvmt had sent it all to iraq for use by our troops.

Considering the way our Government operates and their track record for accuracy and efficiency, this could be closer to the truth than we would like to believe....

Poper