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

[Puerto Morelos]

Damnedest thing!

I was looking at a number of memos posted on websites and a surprising majority of them seem to concern a very close attachment to foreign made products seemingly out of stamped metal, pot metal castings, and plastic.

What's more, the people posting those messages seem to think that buying stamped, pot metal, or plastic accessories for their stuff will improve it!

Last I looked, no federal statute barred possession or trade in scrap unless it was radioactive. Maybe these guys are onto something!

PM

 

[kserg]

Not sure if this was posted before... It's not me but i like the story:

A uniformed officer was standing at the counter, having coffee before
work. Upon seeing the officer, the would-be robber announced a hold-up,
and fired a few wild shots from a target pistol.
The officer and a clerk promptly returned fire, the police officer with a
9mm GLOCK 17, the clerk with a 50 DESERT EAGLE, assisted by several
customers who also drew their guns, several of whom also drew and fired.
The robber was pronounced dead at the scene by Paramedics. Crime scene
investigators located 47 expended cartridge cases in the shop.The
subsequent autopsy revealed 23 gunshot wounds.
Ballistics identified rounds from 7 different weapons. No one else was
hurt in the exchange of fire.

 

[Happyshooter]

Kserg, in real life the counter guy was a retired Marine with a 10mm, and an IPSC shooter.

The cop, his friend, had his gun jam and fell down. The counter guy plowed his hits center mass and put the bad guy down.

 

[6_gunner]

I've got a couple:

One of my friends back in high school insisted that there was no such thing as a bolt-action shotgun. When I told him that I had one, he said it must be some kind of custom job. This guy was a hunter, too!

Another time, a prof told a story about how he let a friend borrow a revolver to shoot stray cats (which is pretty funny in itself ). Well, the guy's wife gets to looking at the gun while he's away and proceeds to seriously damage it by trying to force the cartridges in from the front of the cylinder

 

[Beerwolf]

about 15 years ago

I'll never forget this as long as I live. Sports authority, rockville md when they sold guns. I'm standing there waiting my turn, the fellow in front of me is looking over a remington 1100 or 11-87 autoloader. The guy behind the counter seems to know his stuff and explaines to the fellow that it is gas operated. The fellow stares at the gun for a bit turning it around, looking closely and asks "where do you put the gas in it" Swear to god!

 

[Lupinus]

actually considering how popular paintball is that honestly wouldnt surprise me. Scare me maybe, but not surprise me

 

[Avenger]

Got a couple. First: young guy walked into the shop, and wanted to exchange the Hi-Point he'd bought last month, it had started jamming on every round. The clerk took one look at the pistol, and asked why he hadn't cleaned it. The guy said he was told it didn't need cleaning, just oiling, so he'd been taking it all apart and spraying it with PAM cooking spray for a month.
At the range last month, the guy a few lanes down was trying to put .38 Special rounds into the magazine of his .380....Guess he thought they should go in at about a 60 degree angle....
At the range today, a gentleman was trying out a 12ga Mossie, one of the shorter barrel models. He fired his first round of small buck, and scored a dead center hit.....on the right side target holder strap. Blows it clean in half, pieces of old rubber tire EVERYWHERE, the paper target doesn't have a hole to be seen. Lots of laughter from everybody, he gets a sheepish grin, says something about having to correct his aim, and THIS round is going right in the x-ring. Big old BOOOOM......and the left side hanger strap suffers the same fate as its brother.
Supposedly the range had kicked somebody out earlier in the week after the RO spotted him trying to fire .45 in a .40.....apparently he attracted attention by hammering on the butt end of the slide!

 

[Wes Janson]

A few weeks ago, another employee asked me to pull out a Crimson Trace-equipped Glock from the display case to show a customer. I obliged (after checking it, of course), handing it over to the customer, who promptly extended his arm out, triggering the laser, and pointing it directly at the center of my chest, from a distance of about three to four feet. He then proceeded to turn the Glock on its side, gangsta style, and wave the dot around my chest, before I managed to turn and walk away. Later I found out the customer was a LEO. Nothing surprises me anymore, but it does still manage to make me feel sad for the state of current affairs if that's what academy training is producing.

 

[never_retreat]

You can only shoot our ammo here.:banghead:
Goodbye

 

[obxned]

Thanks to all of you for taking my mind off the mess at VT.

I don't have an interesting story to add, even after more than 1/2 a century around guns. Damn, I sure am lucky!!!!

Ok - I have one good story: Years ago, I had a job running instruments down drill holes for a uranium exploration company. I had to be in the field all day while the rigs were drilling, but only actually worked about 2 hours a day. The rest of the time I shot prairie dogs. I used nearly every gun I owned on them. With hours of practice, I could hit them out to nearly 200 yards with my .45 Gold Cup.

Usually this entailed taking my best guess as to hold-over and wind, firing a shot, and then walking them in. There is a reason prairie dogs have developed no rocket science. About 1/2 the time the soon-to-be-no-more dog would just stand there and look at the puffs of dust. A good day was 2-3 hits out of 5 magazines.

One day one of the drillers was out with me and we were talking guns. I mentioned how much fun I had shooting the .45. He bet me a beer that I couldn't hit a prairie dog at even 100 yards with it. Well the worst that could happen is I would have a bad day, hit nothing, and buy a beer for a guy who I was going to buy a beer anyway, so the bet was on.

Shortly we found a colony about 175 yards off. As it had just rained and the ground was muddy, I figured to fire standing instead of my usual sitting position, and at least show him how close I could come.

I drew the pistol, took a guess at the range and hold-over, and squeezed the trigger. The dog disintegrated. I unloaded and holstered the pistol, and without cracking a smile, said 'I'll take that beer now'.

Back in town I enjoyed more free beer than any sensible person would want, while my friend told everyone in the place about the miraculous 250 yard one-shot kill on a prairie dog with a .45 pistol that he had witnessed.

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

 

[Poper]

Not mine, but...

Handloader friend tells of the fellow at the table next to him that complained about the poor accuracy of his reloads and how hard it was to open the bolt after each round.
He asked him caliber and powder.
"30-06, IMR4350."
How many grains is his charge?
"Grains? What's grains? I just dip 'em full!"

Friend packed up and left.

 

[kserg]

Happyshooter: Ya, i had a feeling that story was dressed up, still pretty dumb to try to rob a gun store with a cop there...

 

[akolleth]

My father in law once shot himself in the forehead with a richochet from a .357.

He was drilling holes in his hardened concrete wall in his basement with a standard drillbit with very limited success. So.... he decides to just pull out the .357 and shoot the wall (at an angle of course) to make the holes. Supposidly works great for I think he said around ten holes.

Last shot, he can't quite get the right angle, and is forced to go a little more straight on. He gets a ricochet and it whacks him in the forehead. The slug penetrated and got imbedded in the skin, but did not go through the bone (Obviously since he is still alive). Had to listen to my mother in law describe the elastic nature of the skin stretching as they pulled the slug out of his forehead and how much blood gushed when it finally popped free. It left a nice little scar on his forehead too.

 

[CannonFodder]

The other week, I watched the owner of my range and a pair of Philly cops chortle and drop N-bombs.

I found that to be pretty stupid.

 

[Gnarkill]

Stories

Alright I've got a couple of stories, some funny some not.

-I knew this kid in high school who lived in a semi-rural development. Apparentlly some idiot had been shooting .357 magnum in his backyard or something w/ no real backstop and the bullet bounced off the ground. What was left of the bullet hit this guy (about 8 at the time) in the back. Luckily most of the bullet had come off and it lost most of it's velocity. This still earned him his nickname of "bullet."
-I'm fairly young (22, but i look about 4-6 years younger when I've shaved.) I was at Cabelas when I was 19 looking at some guns because I was thinking about getting a rifle. I'm 6'2" and I was sighting the gun at one of the wood panels or dead elks on the wall about 15' above me and 40-50' away. The guy behind the counter gets really pissed off and tells me to not aim a gun at a person which I DID NOT! do. This is one of the many times the "old-timers" at Cabelas have given me a hard time. I've pretty sure unless shaq had darted 3" away from my face I wasn't aiming at anyone.
I have since cancelled my credit card there.
-In my college dorm a korean girl I knew told me a story about her dad buying a handgun in the '70s because it was "cool to protect your family" He evidently never bought ammo for it and recently (in the '90s) went to the gun store and bought got knows what rifle ammo for it. This thing was no handcannon and the rifle ammo was basically as long as the barrel. Kinda funny, kinda not.
-I was shooting at the big indoor handgun range in Toledo when some gangster wanna-bee(s) came in with pants around their ankles, chains, and the whole nine yards. I was just paying for a lane when they did the same. They rented a glock 9mm (big surprise) with a laser sight (again big surprise.) I was a lane or two to the left of these 3 guys and I watched them shoot. I couldn't tell if they were shooting with the guns horiz. or not, but they could barely hit the paper. I kinda laughed to myself and continued plinking away w/ my 1911. About a minute or 2 later I heard a weird noise a slinking sound. The idiots had shot the wire for the target, which was now laying downrange. They thought this was hilarious and proceeded to laugh like the idiots they were. Luckily they didn't wave their guns around or anything, but I definitely kept a close watch and a loaded mag.
-At the same indoor range on a different day I spotted another young guy with a desert eagle. I seemed to feel this aura of him not knowing what he was doing, so I stayed on my toes. I had not been indoors w/ someone shooting a large magnum before, but the blast from one booth over suprised the hell outa me. I could feel a crazy amount of pressure with a bit of heat. I looked down and picked up some hot brass to read .44 magnum. It gets better. After moving back to avoid constant rushes of strong gases I watched him shoot to see if he was as big of a poser as he looked. I watched him shoot 7 or 8 shots and get 3 of them on a standard 50 foot pistol target. Now I'm talking on the paper, just barely, one was 1" above the black and the other two hit the edges. I just tried to hide my laughter, had he been unable to hear me I would've manically laughed at his stupidity and lack of shooting skills. I just hope he watched enough movies and got a big enough gun to make him feel good about himself.
I really wanted to recommend he buy a S&W .500 magnum, a penis pump, and a porche. What a joke.

This one is more a pickle:
-I was teaching someone how to shoot. Before I do this, using snap-caps, I give them a safety demo and make them go through all the motions and safety drills before we even leave for the range. She picks it up and (cautiously) goes through the motions of loading, unloading, clearing, safeties... etc. The problem came later. While on range, while I was closely watching her, she emptied the gun. No problem yet. Then, in one motion she pointed the gun about 60 degrees left and 60 degrees up of "down-range" while sliding in a fresh mag. During the reload she slipped her finger inside the trigger guard. I managed to stop her before she got the mag all the way in, but I really didn't like the thought of a .45 going through the roof or into the concrete wall. I again explained to her that she must keep her finger off the trigger until ready to shoot. She immediately learned and fixed her problem.

My question is this, if you see someone doing something bad or REALLY bad, what do you do? I mean you can always try to get their attention, but I just don't think I'm comfortable pushing their hands down or grabbing them or whatever. I mean if someone had pointed a gun at me, loaded or not I would flip the f*#k out and probably hit them. If it was on range I would probably dive out of the way since I'm a safety nut. Seriously though, how do you fix a bad situation on a gun range without shooting the idiot? I would like some input to keep the world safe from morons.

 

[Cliff47]

Used to frequent a 7-11 in the morning for coffee for the commute to the office. This place had a run of attempted robberies that went as follows:
1) The perpetrator comes in the front door, walks up to the counter and pulls his weapon of choice. Did not notice the city patrol car parked around the corner of the building, nor the officer in the back getting his coffee. Officer comes up behind the perp, places the muzzle of his Beretta behind perp's right ear, and then cocks the pistol.
2) Same store, perp pulls up, leaves his car idling as he goes in to conduct his business. City patrol unit pulls up behind the idling car, sees what is going on inside, and waits for the perp to leave, with shotgun at the ready.
In addition to being arrested, got a ticket for leaving a car idling unattended.
3) Same store, this perp gets out of the store and into his car (must have learned from the previous perp), and backs into a city patrol car pulling into the parking lot.

The convenience store has been closed.

 

[texgunner]

Last year about this time I was at an outdoor range west of Houston when I saw a guy bring his new girlfriend to shoot. They showed up at the ceasefire and she said that she had never shot a gun of any type before. Well, the range is called hot and the boyfriend walks up to the bench and out of his range bag comes a Glock .45 and a S&W .460 Magnum. Some beginners guns. It didn't work out.

Tex

 

[kellyj00]

It took me 90 minutes to read this entire thread. I'm still laughing!

I've only been into this for about 6 years or so, never had a single problem at the range. *knock on wood*

 

[Nil]

The gun guy at Dunham's told me that the SKS holds 7 rounds. I looked at him strangely for a moment then decided against saying anything and just purchased it since it was a good price.

 

[MudPuppy]

The dumbest thing I heard from a range owner was in reply to my comment on my eyesight fading a bit as I'm getting older. "It's all that damn jew food they sell at the grocery store."

Uhm, like the bacon I just had for breakfast???


And Charleston Heston most certainly did say that people didn't need AK-47s on a morning radio show. Major NRA damage control after that stupid comment. I'll dig up a link.

 

[boomer1911a1]

OK, I'll fess up.

I have three stories:

The annoying one:

Several years ago, I was in the market for a .45 ACP, and I told the guy behind the counter of an unnamed Carrollton, TX, pawnshop that I was looking for "a forty-five automatic." In a voice better suited for teaching 5-year-olds the letters of the alphabet, I was "informed" that the precise term for the weapon I sought was semi-automatic. I rolled my eyes and left without another word. Okay, okay, technically he was correct, but I'm not going to be schooled by a 10th-grade dropout wearing a greasy T-shirt and a Skoal cap.

My Dumb:

Two days after I turned 21, I took my very first pistol purchase out into the country, set up a target off the road, and touched off the very first round out of my brand-new Ruger Mk. II. Whatever my target was, I remember hitting it perfectly. I was grinning with pleasure as I lowered the gun to my side and promptly sent the second bullet in the magazine into the asphalt an inch to the right of my foot (peppering my sneaker with chips.) Yep, finger still on the trigger. I knew the rules. In the flush of excitment, I forgot them. Good object lesson, though, especially with the conspicuous lack of injury.

My Dumber:

Indoor range maybe a decade ago. The guy beside me and I got into a pleasant conversation about our guns, and I offered to let him try my Ruger P-90. I had already boxed the thing, preparing to leave, but I brought it back out and handed it to him. "It's empty," I announced smugly. He handled it for a few seconds, then -- with my encouragement -- decided to try the trigger. To his credit, he kept the thing pointed downrange the whole time, and better still, racked the slide to make sure it was clear.
I swear I don't know how that round got in there, but when it popped out of the chamber onto the bench, I nearly vomited. I couldn't apologize enough.

These days, I take nothing for granted. It's Cooper's Four Rules all the way, with no exceptions.

 

[Afy]

Growing up I used to have a Brno Model 2 with a very very light trigger.

One day we were out plinking and I had a round in the chamber, and was tapping my heel with the muzzle. It went off and I still have the scar 30 years on... taught me safety or so I thought very quickly.

I have had dumb moments, but thankfully not for a long period of time now.

Dumbest one I know... A childhood friend of mine came from what can only be classified as a very wealthy family.

We must've been about 16 or 17 at the time, and had gone after some deer. He had one of his Dad's beautiful Purdy shot guns. We chanced upon a deer and he let go... complete destroying the final 1/3 rd of the right barrell.
You guessed it... a slug through a choke barrell.

 

[Big Calhoun]

Not so much dumb, but funny.

Took the wife to a gunstore for the first time. Was before I got her to settle down and quit with calling them, "those evil things." So in we went and I'm trying to give her a mini-lesson on calibers vs chamberings, semiautos vs revolvers, etc...simple, basic stuff. IIRC, we had made our way to the used gun cases and a small revolver caught her eye. Quicker than I could say anything, she remarks, "Ohhhh, this one is cute!"

I smacked my forehead with my hand. An older gent who was talking to a salesperson turns around and jokes, "CUTE! CUTE! Guns aren't supposed to be cuuuute!!!" We all had a good laugh at that one and it definately helped to make my wife feel more comfortable in the store.

Everyonce in a while, she'll duck in with me if I'm picking up supplies or ammo and I always preface, "They can look nice...but you will not call them 'Cute'" Was a good time, and a good laugh! I have to thank that guy next time I see him at the store because he probably didn't realize how positive that was for her overall experience.

 

[CCMO]

Last January, my spouse and I were at a gun show. I was walking the aisles, when I look across one of the vendors areas. You know the type, a hollow rectangle inside a perimeter of folding tables. There at the opposite table (maybe twenty feet away) stood a freaking uniformed police officer, looking at the sight picture of the handgun he was pointing directly at my face!

 

[Lonestar]

I got to vent. The other day I seen a couple shopping for a new handgun with a 4 year old child in toe. It is not uncommon in these parts to see an occasional kid in a gun store with a responsible adult. The clerk is a real tactical nut. He had a few handguns on the counter, all the actions opened, and is explaining the merits of each. While all the adults are talking the boy reaches up and grabs one of the guns, and almost started running with it, but mom quickly stopped him, yelled at the boy, and put the gun back on the counter. The clerk asked the family to leave.

Meanwhile while I think the family did not notice, I saw that the clerk put his hand on the Sig at his waist and drew his weapon during the commotion. He kept the gun by his side until the family left, then as he reholster and looked at me, and said, "do you believe the nerve of these people!"

At which point I said, "Yea...ummm how far would that kid have gotten before you shot him?" , before the guy could get a word out I walked out. Will never buy another gun from that store again.