EVERYONE at the gun range is STARING at ME!! (if so, how to ignore)

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I had everyone at a range staring at me once. It was a nice spring day with a gentle breeze blowing across the benches. I was assigned the most windward lane.

I pulled out my container of GoEX fffg, my 1860, and my Ruger Old Army, set everything up, and proceed to unload three or four cylinders downrange, off on my own little world and reloading fast.

Then I noticed it was...quiet. Too quiet. I looked to the side, downwind, to see that the wind had pushed my smoke between the benches and targets so none of the other shooters could see. Instead, all those heads were turned to look at me.
 
Post 24 nails it for me.

Rented a .460 S&W and after a few shots had a crowd around me.

Old man breathing down my neck compliments my sweet group and asks me about the gun.

Told him it was a rental at the very range we are in and he can rent it in about 5 minutes.

"Their rental, their ammo" is the rule so shooting it is rather cost prohibitive. It was like 20 dollars for 10 shots.
 
I don't care whether people watch or even if they come up and ask questions.
As long as people are being safe, I don't mind.
 
While I'm firing, hot brass and links could be raining down on me, and while I subconciously notice, it doesn't affect my firing.

When done firing, I observe the other shooters for safety regimens, and offer tips when necessary. (And learn things from other shooters often, too.)

Often they are staring at me while I fix somone's minor problems; I bring a small Armorer kit to the range with me.

Everyone at the gun range is often staring at me; I teach 4-H Shooting Sports. :p

I usually end up being the de facto RO when shooting, unless someone else there who has at least thelevel of training I do steps in. I'm perfectly content to let them.

If any yahoos show up, (fortunately, our gun club has very few) I usually call it a day. They generally are resistant to safety suggestions, or shooting tips in general.
 
climbnjump said:
Ok, I will admit it...

At the range, I WILL be "one-of-those-guys" who is looking at you. Especially if I don't know you.

I don't care about your technique, I don't care about your score, but I sure the heck DO care about whether or not you are being SAFE, because my safety is tied to yours.
Click to expand...
^^^

This.
 
When I used to hit the indoor range I knew I was gonna draw a crowd. .44 magnum w 180's on 31.5gr of WW296.

I'd always take a lane away from others, at the side. Keep an empty lane between me and the next shooter.

All that roar and flash...........they wanted to see me miss.

Sweat drops would run down my sides..........and I'd lay 'em right in there. Because with an audience there's no room for screw-ups :)

Learn to shoot that crap indoors, with people on the range and observation area watching................outdoors in better light, hitting stuff was way easier.

Helped develop finer focus.

Some folks go to pieces with just a little pressure...........somebody watching, a timer beep..............kinda funny.
 
The only time I have really had an audience at the range, besides shooting in a match, was when I was shooting a Ruger Super Redhawk in .454 Casull...on the 100 yard rifle range :).

The guy on the bench next to me asked what I was shooting, and I proudly said a .454 Casull. He then said, "Every time you shot that thing I felt like my nose was gonna start bleeding from the muzzle blast".

:)

Just my .02,
LeonCarr
 
Shoot some practical pistol (USPSA/IPSC/IDPA) matches... only one person is shooting at a time, so, yeah, your whole squad actually will be watching (particularly if you're new and/or any competitive threat to them). Do it a few times, and your attitude becomes "so what?" Or even "yeah, watch this run where I take the lead!"
 
Doesn't everyone take several blondes in bikinis along to the range? How else do you get your magazines loaded?

Jim
 
i'm with lotsa posters here. i have no situational awareness. my world narrows to the sight n the target.
when that happens groups shrink as if by magic.
 
I sometimes notice if lots of people are staring at someone on a range.

They are doing something terribly wrong, or really unsafe.

I tend to watch then very closely myself, for no other reason.

Check your six!!

rc
 
mikemyers said:
MrBorland posted something in a different thread, that I think is worth its own discussion. It had to do with why new, inexperienced shooters sometimes do better than those with lots of experience behind them:




I've noticed that when I go to a local range where I don't know anyone, unless the person next to me is sending his empty shells bouncing off me, I can blank out everything except what *I* am doing. The person next to me could have a heart attack and drop to the ground, but I'm so focused on what I'm doing, I'd never know. .........but, if I go to a range where I know the people around me, or if they know me, I feel like every pair of eyes at the place are all staring at me and my target!!! That feeling is re-enforced when one of them says something about what I did or didn't do right or wrong.


I'm a nobody. But, a lot of you are out there competing in matches, where it's reasonable to assume that lots of people really ARE looking at you and what you do. Or, "famous" shooters, who can assume they are being video taped, for the entire population of planet earth to look at the next day.


The only answer I've found so far, which sometimes works, is to concentrate fully on whatever I am doing at that very moment in time, not what I did before, or might do later, or if one, none, or 100 people are staring at me. Then everything else seems to become just background static, that I can (try to) ignore. Even then, for me, it's still an annoyance......... and blanking it out from my mind is so durn difficult.
Click to expand...

"I feel your pain". - Bill (what's his name?)
 
When I'm at the range, I'm in the zone. Others around me have to tap me on the shoulder to let me know the range is going cold / cease fire. If I was constantly focused on all the expert class shooters around me, I would probably hear them criticizing me also. I'm there for my enjoyment, not to entertain or impress anyone else, nor do I care what they are doing right or wrong.

Now I have had someone ask for help, and in those instances I'm usually more than happy to offer tips.

GS
 
I generally mostly ignore other shooters at the range. Probably helps that I've been a skeet shooter for a number of years, so there is always four other shooters, plus the puller watching you. And oftentimes the other shooters are razzing you, all in good fun, of course. And then there are usually a number of other people watching on the sidelines. EEK!!! Someone is WATCHING ME! Does not apply. YMMV
 
I have safely been shooting for about 68 years (that is not my age).
I'm not perfect, but neither am I stupid.
When you say "I was in the zone", I can identify with you.
I once got in trouble with a range master for ignoring the ambiguous "Sir...".
He couldn't have been talking to me, since I wasn't doing anything wrong.
Next thing I know, he's blessing me out for my non-responsiveness to the unidentifiable "Sir". That was about 15 years ago.
Never went there again.
Now I usually take my sweetie along, to let me know if I'm in or out of "the zone".
 
I don't seem to get much attention at the range, never have, except when I've shot several past and present guns, like:

1. Star Megastar-I don't know how many people shot it, but it had to be over 10. Most were just amused by the giant size of the thing, I guess.
2. S&W 4506- I have no idea why it seemed to mesmerize so many people. It's not exactly an uncommon gun.
3. Astra A75-Another mystery, I guess it's the heft of an all steel compact pistol that struck a chord with them. The 2 guys that shot it loved it.
4. Dan Wesson 44- A couple of people asked about it before I fired a shot. After I shot a couple of cylinders, I got all kinds of guys asking me about it, and a couple of them shot it. I had a feeling a couple of DW 44's would be soon bought off Gunbroker.
5. Kel-Tec SUB2000- Nothing got attention like when I unfolded it and went through Beretta 92 mag after mag. A couple of people shot it and they all were amused by it. It's got some weirdness to it, but it shoots very well.
 
A few months ago, I had an interesting thing happen at our gun club. The pistol range was mostly empty with the exception of a group of five new shooters at the far right end of the range. My wife and I situated ourselves at the opposite end of the range away from the new shooters as to not interfere with them in any way. The instructor was in effect acting as RSO and we were fine with that.

As I was arranging my stuff on the bench, the class instructor approached me and asked that I move closer to the group. For some reason she was uncomfortable with our being at the opposite end of the range. I protested a time or two trying to explain why I moved away from her group but then decided she knew best and we moved.

All was fine for the first two cylinders of my Ruger Super Redhawk in .454 Casull. Then things went a little sideways. I got a lot of looks from the new shooters with their .380s and 9mms and after twenty rounds the instructor told me it was fine with her if if I moved back to the other end. It seemed the new shooters, adults not children, were just not dealing very well with the concussion of a .454 Casull. The range has a concrete floor and is covered by a full roof.

I tried, I really tried .......
 
My first question to you would be is the range supervised. If the answer is NO then there could be legitimate reasons for folk's "staring".
Just a few possibilities;
The first an MOST important could be that you are handling your firearms in an unsafe matter, ie; poor muzzle discipline, handling guns while people are down, range etc. When I'm at the range my "spydie sense" is always alert for this type of behavior ESPECIALLY where newbies are concerned. Many are simply not aware of proper range safety/etiquette.

Another possibility is that others may be through with a course of fire and are simply waiting for the range to go "cold" in order to go down range to check or hang new targets. It's very easy to get into a "zone" while shooting and completely loose track of time. It's always a good practice to keep check on shooters on either side to get a feel for whether other shooters need to go down range.
 
Actually, all of those are good concerns, but when I first posted the thread, I wrote "....if I go to a range where I know the people around me, or if they know me, I feel like every pair of eyes at the place are all staring at me and my target!!!.... "

Lots of interpretations to the topic are good, and everything said up above is worth considering. My own question (maybe I should have worded it more clearly) is that regardless of what others are doing or are not doing, I feel they're watching me, and that can prevent me from concentrating 100% on what I'm doing.

(You're right though - if the person next to me is waving a gun around as if he was drunk, I'd never know it....)

I've learned a lot from this discussion, and my best answer to my own question so far seems to be to wear ear plugs inside ear muffs, and concentrate so hard on shooting, that there isn't any "brain space" left to think about anything else. A UFO could be landing behind me, and I'd be oblivious to it. (Actually, there is a little space left, filtering out everything but what the Range Officer says, as the line goes 'hot' and 'cold'.... but I pretty much know when that's coming, so that doesn't really count.


..........and I should add that if I ever get so good that I can shoot bullseyes behind my back, blindfolded, while reading a gun magazine, ---or like MrBorland shooting multiple targets, and he's so fast I can't even watch everything he's doing --- none of this will be relevant, but I'm pretty sure right now I don't do my best unless I block everything else out of my mind. ....also, that I'm at the range to practice, not to socialize. I guess other people just go there for the fun of shooting their guns. They probably go home happy. I usually go home thinking about how I can do better next time. Oh well.....
 
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The handgun range I use has solid dividers, and seldom has a cease fire. I wear plugs and muffs, so I can't hear someone talking unless they yell into my ear, or the r.o. uses a bull horn to call a cease fire. I might watch somebody shooting if they shoot way beyond the capabilities of everybody else. But that has only happened a few times.

The rifle range is different. I will watch the other shooters results while I wait for the shooters close to me to finish their groups. Everybody else does pretty much the same thing most of the time.
 
This last spring I did well in an International style pistol event in qualification, and moved up to the final. We were shooting at electronic scoring targets, where each competitor station had a scoring monitor and there were bigger screens above our shooting stations so the audience in the bleachers could follow our shots, overall position and score. There were about sixty folks watching the finalists.

I thought about my situation, lost my composure and parked a few shots in the white. Aargh! Gave me some great insight into the nerves of the World Cup shooters.
 
I only read your post and no others and I am responding... I've been a senior member of my gun club since 1977... I shoot every week... unless you are chatting with a friend next to you on line.. it is considered very rude to approach someone across the safety line to discuss anything... IM 70 years old and have on occasion told people to that very effect... as far as eyes on me, I could care less...I wear plugs and muffs... and would have to go out of my way to hear someone while on the firing line... IM not self conscious..so I don't care who watches me... in my mind. maybe they want to learn something...
Bill aka ET
 
If they are staring...........and I say, if. They must be looking at my Sav 99F,
pre -million , Savage 250 cal.

Most folks today have some kind of AR . Most never even heard of the a Sav
99.

Older guys are more aware of the older weapons / history.

To day most guys want a weapon that holds more rounds than a Gatlin gun.
Or so it seems.

Were as the Sav only holds 5-6 rounds. Maybe that`s why they are
staring. How could anybody get anything done with a couple of rounds. :)
 
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