I just wanted to start a thread of stories about idiots who shouldn't come NEAR a gun, much less shoot one. Here is my story:

I knew a character once, he used to shoot at our range. He reloaded everything he shot, and he always started his loads "a few grains above maximum" because "his rifles were really strong"!

He once complained about a certain revolver being "cheap", because he blew up TWO of them, with the same load! (now doesn't that say something about his IQ...)

Anyways, whenever he came to our range, we all moved about 3 lanes away, just in case... I haven't seen him for a few years, but he probably has a few non-organic metallic parts in his body now.

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The police recruit that got frustrated with the rangemaster's instructions and threw her loaded and cocked pistol at him. She was fired on the spot, but being female and minority, reinstated a few day later.

ATF agent firing a MP-5 on full auto on the range who held his index finger up. It reached past the short barrel. Subtract one finger. I was on the range that day. I didn't see the shooting, but saw they carry the guy off the firing line. The agents with him scrambled a Lift-Flight chopper. Since I was one of the ranking local officials at the range, I canceled the chopper and pissed the ATF crew off. A busted finger wasn't reason enough to tie up the chooper.

RogerK,
Typical. If it had been a White Male Recruit, well wave goodbye to officer life... But you are a protected species if you are a "minority"

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Howdy,

We dis-assembled several loads from a rather eccentric individual in a neighboring community. He could not read his powder scale, or his powder measure. Powder weights that varied from 46 grains to 87 grains in the same lot of reloaded .300 Winchester ammo were found. Nobody knows the powder, not even this guy that loaded it. I also found four different head stamps in 32 rounds. We dis-assembled the ammo, burned the old powder, and gave the bullets away after the fellow had blown up his second Browning A bolt.

Coach

My dumb ass buddy was going to use a phillips head screw driver as a "drift" to drive out a pin in my custom 1911.

Same asshole had my 1900 DMW American Eagle Luger sitting in his lap along with a couple magazines. The phone rang and he tossed the gun and the mags in a heap in the display cloth and handed the pile to me, all banging together.

I don't let him handle anything I own these days.

[ 01-21-2003, 04:52: Message edited by: Genghis ]

Hello Coach, a fellow coach as well.

Here is one for the thread which happened a few weeks after 9-11. It was a wonderful sunny fall afternoon. Had several of my sons friends out on our land after they had played a middle school football game. They were running around on a hill approx. 150 yards from our home. They were on the South side of the slope. Had a gentleman helping repair some fencing near our little barn. We were appox. 50 yards North of our home. The Mrs. was inside, actually in the kitchen which has 6�x 6� windows facing the North.

Shooting is not uncommon around here, and we have a trap range a few miles to the West. Well, as I was talking to the worker, I heard what sounded like a snap. Then I heard something thud. A few more snaps above my head. Not having military experience it took me a few seconds to realize what was going on. At about the time I realized we were taking rounds, I heard the smack, smack, smack, hitting the side of a trailer about 10 yards from where were we standing. The thuds and smacks were not directly related to the snaps I was hearing.

The gentleman helping me was a Vietnam vet, hard of hearing, and thought I was kidding when I told him to hit the deck. The words he spoke didn�t leave his mouth when the snapping began again, and he heard it too. He crawled to the horse barn. I�m not a particularly brave man, but my thoughts ran to the kids on the hill. Yours would too, I bet. At this time, I never heard a shot.

I began screaming my head off to hit the dirt. They did. I didn�t know which direction the shots were coming from. They told me it was coming in over their heads. (they were all young hunters/shooters) I told them to crawl like snakes to lower ground, actually running to them. From there, they made it to a tree line, and eventually to safety on the other side of our brick home. It seemed like an hour, but in reality only a couple of minutes. My wife stepped out on the back deck to see what the commotion was. The gentleman and I ordered her to head to the South side of the home and stay put. He noticed the brass deck light had been hit too. This was next to the door she was just at. We found out later two other rounds had hit the deck, in a pattern of 3 shots spaced by a few feet. A mere 4 feet to the left, and it would have been through the kitchen window.

The next half hour was a blur of honking horns, calling the Sheriff and warning our neighbors to the South. After knowing our people were safe, and taking a breath, I now heard the shots. It kept up the entire time. Two sheriff cruisers showed up finally, with a young deputy not really believing what I was telling him. He began telling me to calm down. That is, until he heard the snaps over his head. We were on the South side of a brick home at the time.

They took off, and found the shooters. Three innocent city folks who had not a clue what they were doing. The deputies brought them to our home. At the time, I knew they felt as bad as they could, and did not press charges. The father of the two boys in their early 20s was crying. They explained it was time they learned to shoot. They didn�t know there was a house over the ridge. Oh my!!! Isn�t that in the first commandments of hunter safety nowadays. They agreed to pay all damages. At this time my thoughts were this bad dream was over. Whoa Nelly, my wife who had been a rock during all this went bezerk. Totally lectured (screamed) to the folks about gun safety, and how close they had come to hitting HER son. Giving me a pointed finger in the chest and a look that could kill as I was trying to calm her down. At one point, I thought she may have to be restrained by the deputies.

They were shooting .223s in semi-auto, and .357s from a revolver. They were a little less than a mile (North) away from the house. I still have bullet scars on the brick to show folks. The thuds were the rounds hitting the brick, the smacks were them tearing through aluminum, or wood decking. They did claim they were shooting into a dirt bank.

Well, that�s my idiots who should not be allowed to be around guns story.

Scott

my story is a hunting story of sorts.
if anyone here has ever been pickerel shooting in the spring they know what i am talking about. my buddy and i were in his canoe in a swamp behind his house. just cruising aroung looking for the swirls from the pickerel surfacing.
same as above. snap, snap. couldn't figure out what it was. when we did we both went over the side. some yahoo was ripping off his 10/22 at some fish along way away. the bullets were ricocheting off the water and hitting trees around us. never heard the shots. i wanted to fire back so bad i could taste it.
never did find out who it was. i would beat him to a pulp and you would'a needed a surgeon to remove that rifle from his ass.
just goes to show. some people just cant see past the end of their nose........
woofer

Thanksgiving day 2001 a local bull was on the loose from a nearby farm. The farmer was gone and this bull kept running across the highway almost causing a few wrecks. The sherrif deputy was ordered to kill the beast(about 1800-2000lbs). It ended up in my backyard(my nearest neighbor is 1 mile) and I was told of the situation. I grabbed my Contender in a SSK 14" 45/70 with a 2x7 Burris and out the door I went. The deputy was carrying a 25-06 with 90gr bullets and I offererd the use of my hand-cannon on something bigger than a deer untill I found out who owned the bull(the neighborhood nut-case). The last thing I wanted was a pissed off neighbor wanting me to pay for the bull I killed. Long story short!!! The sherrif shot bull 5 times with 25-06 and just really pissed off the bull. Followed that 5-shots with 10 more from his 45 auto. After that I gave him my 45/70 and the deputy aimed and shot at bull with the scope only a INCH from his eye. The scope left a perfect cut around his eye which started bleeding like a stuck pig. He then shot at bull again with his 45(10 more times) and grabbed my gun again and missed. Probally couldn't see for all the blood in his eyes. A neighbor finally dispatched bull with a head shot from 25-06. The deputy shot at bull a total of 27 TIMES and only hit it 12!!! It's a wonder I didn't end up in jail because I showed NO MERCY when describing his stupidity and shooting ability. I'm just glad he wasn't defending my life with his shooting skills!!!

About a year or two ago I was sighting my rifle at the range, along several hunters, some of which had muzzle brakes on their rifles. Then out of his car came this guy with a kid thad may have been three years old. The guy handed the kid a loaded "baby-size" .22 short rifle, and the kid was so small that he could not even hold it on the target 20 feet ahead.

The kid was turning around with his loaded rifle, and the shooters that saw him started moving back pretty fast (including myself). But the worst thing was seeing a Dad with his son in the middle of all the shooting taking place, both without ear plugs. This guy and his kid were right in the middle of some intense noise!

Dave......I had to tell the deputy what the snapping over his head was. Sounds like we could team these fellows up.

I know this idiot I know gave his brother a 30-06 for loading into a 30-338 with which his brother wasn't familiar. The round fired, the case ruptured, which caused a considerable bit of damage to the rifle and induced a considerable flinch in my brother. Whoops. I think I just identified the "idiot." Ku-dude

A new couple moved from the east coast to Kansas. The husband, anxious to get into hunting, asked me to take him along. I agreed, but was busy for a few weeks.

About a week later, I ran into the fellow and asked how things were going. He said they were great. He had been out hunting alone the day before and had taken seven shots: four "sight" shots and three "sound" shots.

Needless to say, I stayed "busy" until he and I lost contact.

kk

I was up at the local shooting range a couple years back. Its a fairly open range and while the do require memberships a lot of people just pop in, blast off a mag or two and leave. We police ourselves up there and usually dont have many problems.

It was one of the days that the range was about half full, maybe 20 or so shooters on the line. A vanfull of people pull up a couple guys get out carrying a couple handguns and AK-type rifles. I knew it was only going to get worse when the a guy wielding an AK walks up to the line, jacks in a 30rnd mag and procedes to empty it in a spray in about 5 seconds into anything that was out on the range. Without even a word he loads up another mag and does the same thing again, this time totally wiping out my pistol target stand and box another shooter was using for his pistol target and one of those little spinner .22lr targets that a shooter about 10 benches down from him was using.

We called a clear and you could hear the grumbling as people walked out and started fixing things that the shooter had mowed down. I was up at the 100yrd burm, stapling another target to my stand and BANG! BANG!. Pretty much dove for cover and looked back down the range towards the benches. Same guys were now shooting a pistol, not downrange but parallel with the shooting benches! There were maybe 8-10 people still out on the range setting stuff up.

To say I was a little hot under the collar would be putting it lightly. I pretty much stormed back down the range, walked up the the guy who was holding the pistol and asked him 'WHAT IN THE $$%^#@ DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?!?!?!' He told me that he thought it would be 'ok' to shoot down the benchline because there wasnt anyone there and he wasnt shooting downrange while the range was cold.

After chewing them for a couple minutes about what 'ALL CLEAR' and 'RANGE COLD' meant, they decided they didnt like our organized methods of shooting and packed up and left. I kid ya not when there was a group 'Woohoo!' as the pulled out of the parking lot.

Mudruck

Some years back, I was at the shooting range, and in comes two guys, with a pistol in hand.
I waited to what they were going to do, and low and behold, the idiots began to shoot sans ear plugs/muffs.
I offered one some clean tissue to stuff in his ears, telling him it would help save his ears.
"No it won't!" was his responce. I've used tufts of tissue as plugs when I didn't have my muffs, and it does indeed help. Either he didn't accept this, or he didn't believe in ear protection. ~~~Suluuq

I was at a local gunshop when 2 guy's come in together. One is looking for some Green-Dot. The sales clerk says we are out of Green-Dot, but we have Red-Dot, and Blue-Dot. The guy's buddys says, "go ahead get it, all them Dot's are the same"

M son was in the local Walmart a while back at the gun counter. A guy comes up ans asks the clerk what's the difference in a 270 and 3006. The clerk says the 270 has pointed bullets and the 3006 has round nose bullets.

oh dear.

last deer hunting sight-in we had a guy trying to chamber a 7MM WSM into a 7MM rem mag.

An idiot that my daughter worked with sent me some of his 300 gr. .44 Mag. reloads to shoot out of my Mod. 29. There was so much powder in them that they had to be seated in the bottom cannelure and the load was so compressed that I don't know how he seated the bullet and crimped them without buckling the shell. He said that even though they weren't very accurate, he liked them because they threw a 6 foot flame out the end of the barrel. I never even put them in the cylinder, pulled the bullet, trashed the powder and recycled the bullets and brass.

I was at a public range one day sighting in before deer season and had a group of National Guardsmen drive up and set up several benches down from us. My brother in-law went down and told them that we needed to go downrange and put up more targets and they said go ahead. While we were puttimg up our targets, we started hearing pops and the scary sound of .45 rounds buzzing downrange. They had set up and were firing at targets 10 yds out on a 100 yd. range there was a pistol range right next to the rifle range but they decided to shoot on the rifle range).

Took my brother, his son, and my son to the club I joined to shoot .22 rifles. My son has been shooting for several years and is very safety minded (he delights in catching me doing something wrong). My brother's son had never had any "formal" time on an organized range, so before we set up I gave him the normal safety lecture, guns always pointed downrange, never touch the weapon until ready to shoot, when not shooting actions are locked open, never shoot with someone downrange, etc. Another member pulled up and set up 3 benches away, when we were through firing the other guy asked me if he could go down and put up some targets. I told everyone to put the weapons down and not touch them until we were given the all clear. I decided to take this time to organize some things in my shooting box and when I turned back toward the range, the guy was walking back to the shooting line but he had a very concerned look on his face. When I looked at our benches, I saw my brother's son sighting through the scope on my .22 rifle. I screamed John (not his real name) put the G*d D****d gun down and do not touch it again. His excuse was that he wasn't going to fire, he was just looking through the scope. After apologizing to the still rather upset member for my own lapse in judgement, I went back to our benches and gave the little GEEK the ass chewing he deserved then we packed up and left. He has not been welcome at the range since.

[ 01-22-2003, 19:48: Message edited by: DennisF ]

In Fall I go to the range shooting a couple hundreds rounds.Out of 4 shooters,one has a scope so "cheap" they cannot shoot better than 6" MOA.I saw two of them using the handle of a srewdriver to adjust their scope.One of them told me ;he shot a female moose in the throat area,the blood was coming out with a lot of pressure,the game was "sreaming out"; I wasnt able to hit it with a second shot.

1) At the range where I used to shoot when I lived in AL, there were idiots who left their calling cards, even if I never saw them. Typical range arrangement- covered shooting spots. The roof had several bullet holes in it. The wooden divider between the rifle and pistol ranges (both pointed in same direction) was riddled with holes.

2) More recently at a local 100-yd rifle range, there were two guys, one with a rifle, the other with a 9-mm pistol. Guy with the rifle turns to the guy with the pistol, says "you're hitting a little short". Turns out he was bouncing the bullets off the ground at about 75 yds. There are houses all around, I only hope that the bullets landed in a safe spot.

3) My brother-in-law is about the most henpecked indvidual I have ever known. He and I went back to the sand pit with a rifle that I had just sighted in, his wife bitching at him the entire time about how she doesn't want him shooting. You can imagine what happened next - scope made contact over eye, drawing blood, knocking the scope totally out of alignment, getting him into even more hot water with his wife.

Shooting at a public range in Princeton Iowa about 20 yrs ago. A dildo comes out with two kids and is going to show them how to shoot. He gets out some coffee cans and is telling one kid to throw one up over his head so he can shoot at it with a shotgun. My friends and I cut loose on him so bad he didn't know which way to turn. Kenny took the shotgun away from him and put it back in the case. The fanorko was mad as hell and still didn't know what all the commotion was about. Kenny got him calmed down and explained to Mr. zero that we had just saved his kids and he should get himself and his kids a firearms safety course before he kills one of them. Mr. zero was pissed real bad when he left. I hope that he did get some classes or gave up shooting. I hope he realizes what he was about to do.

The one that stands out for me happened about 15 years ago,I was working the desk on the eve shift and had a citizen come in to file a complaint.I asked what it was about and he told me he wanted to report that a gun he had bought from an Officer, didn't work.I asked for a little more info and he said follow me out to the car.We get to the car and there is a white male holding the side of his head,when asked what was wrong he pipes up and tells me the guy next to me shot me,sure enough he has a tiny hole in his head and the guy next to me{then in cuffs} tells me the gun is in the back seat.Sure enough there it is a Browning 25. Oh and his complaint was that the gun didn't work because when he shot his friend it didn't kill him! And he wanted to sue the Cop that had sold the pistol to him

>>Out of 4 shooters,one has a scope so "cheap" they cannot shoot better than 6" MOA.<<

I didn't know you could even get scopes that bad anymore. What kind was it?

R-West ,yes you should know . However sometimes it gets a bit confusing. When remington wanted to revive the 280 , the gave it a new name the 7mm Exress , the dropped the name when too many thought the 7 Express was the 7 Mag. Now that there are more mags it's worse.

The two good ol' boys at the gravel pit drinking beer while the kids are shooting the 22 cal rifle. These same assholes get in the car and drive home on the public highways after drinking all day.

I see way too much drinking and shooting out in the woods. Only shooting I can justify is maybe shooting the drinking shooter.

I can't decide whether to be entertained or horrified??? There's just too much idiocy out there...

Anyway, I'll share a story of my local range. It's a public facility, with 50, 100 and 200 yard target setups. There's also various gongs set up, out to 440 yards. All this is set into an old volcano. On the ridge of this volcano sits a rock that looks like an Armored Personel Carrier. So one day some of the National Guard's brightest sets up with a 50BMG and starts shooting at this rock.

Big Surprise, one of the shots missed high and impacted a home a few valleys over. I'm not sure the exact distance, but the bullet was recovered. So there's no more .50 cal shooting at the range.

Can it really take that much common sense to know that you shouldn't be aiming any rifle, especially a 50 BMG that far above the backstop?

Just maybe the idiots keep us centered. As long as they don�t ventilate one of our fellow shooters. I know from the experience I had, there is rarely a time I don�t think about background. Always thought about it before, but now I�m obsessive. Even though I�ve been an avid shooter, and now handloader, since the 60s, idiots serve to remind us once in a while to be safer. One the downside, I often hear a rifle shot and wonder if I should duck. The situation which happened to us, served to have me look into a Win. Mod. 94 in .44 Mag. Something I would have never thought about before. I like loading for it, and even more the drop of the round over 200 yards in an area which is starting to have urban sprawl.

Saturday I scoped a Coyote for a half an hour with a Ruger Number 1 in 06. I have at least 180 degrees of safe shooting, (3 miles, and downward into a valley) but kept watching the yote, hoping it would head a bit further South before dispatching. I spent 30 minutes of irreplaceable time patiently waiting for it to make the move. It didn�t but I sure as hell loved the time watching.

Speaking of backgrounds, several years ago I was chronographing some loads in my side yard, and firing through a target at 25 yards, and shooting into a hill. I went in and changed the load, came out and got ready to squeeze one off and the background looked a little funny. Sure was, there was a black bear snuffling around where the bullets had been landing.

A guy at our range had a red laser aiming device attached under his 9mm. He was demonstrating the handgun to his friend. He could not see the beam hitting the 15 yd target. He waved his free hand infront of the gun. The switch that activates the beam was attached to the front edge of the trigger. As the trigger finger contacted the switch, he must have squeezed too hard. I saw his free hand a few days later. He had shot exactly into the index finger's knuckle. It was GONE! The surgeon had bridged that gap where the knuckle was with a solid piece of material. At least the guy was able to save the finger. It was very messy looking.

The bull killing story reminds me of a similar situation. I came across a scene where a forkhorn mule deer buck had been hit by a car. A woman county sheriff was directing traffic around this buck. The buck was still alive, with his spine broken. He kept trying to get up. I pulled over and did quite a bit of talking to get the sherrif to dispatch the deer and put it out of its misery. She finally called, got permission and told me to grab it. I dragged the poor deer to the side of the road. She said what should she do? I said to shoot it in the head, through the ear. She was very upset and shot twice but pulled both shots. ( I did not realize this at the time ) She came out of the ditch blubbering that she had to do it but didn't want to kill a poor animal, almost crying. She went back to move the patrol vehicle. I went to look at the deer in the ditch. HE WAS STILL BREATHING! I called her over and said he is still alive. Oh man she was a wreck now. We went into the ditch. She said she is not supposed to do this and gave me her 9mm Glock and said you kill it. One shot in the ear and that was that.

I later got the salvage rights and managed to get 35 lbs of good meat. Can you believe it? I told her she should get a bigger caliber as that 9mm was a pop gun. She was very surprisedat ist dismal performance and said the armourer had just told them they now had the "hottest and baddest" loads ever, some real man stoppers. She said what if I had to stop a man? I said save the last round for yourself.

I heard of a local police officer who wanted to reload, so he got himself a kit and started out.
The does required was 25grains, he didn't know what grains were and assumed it meant grams.
Only 25grams wouldn't fit into the case.

He put as much powder in as would fit and stuffed a bullet on top of it all.

...I don't know what he was loading, but it blew up and unfortunately he wasn't hurt or killed, allowing him to one day pass on his genes to bring into the world more IDIOTS like himself...

Here's an idiot salesman story...I purchased my first reloading gear when I was about 15 years old. I was buying it piecemeal cause I didn't have the finances to get everything at once...Anyways, time comes to pick out a scale. I go down to the local sporting goods dealer and a youngish type salesman asks if he could help. I explain that I've been putting together a reloading outfit and now needed a scale, but didn't want to spend too much...He said (well meaning I'm sure) "A scale is not a necessity at first...save yourself some money and just count the grains of powder instead of weighing them". Honest...true story

Tom

Holy Cow...

I can't believe there are so many totally
clueless people living on the same planet
that I do.

Keep em coming folks, it helps everyone here
to focus on doing things the right way...

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I'M SPEECHLESS.......................................................................

THE 2ND AMENDMENT EVEN PROTECTS MORONS........

Reading the above, I do not feel quite so bad about our small town law enforcement. But then again not much better either. We had a (now past) Police Cheif, while demonstrating his legendary quick draw at our small range, shoot himself in the ass. Actually more of a graze, but it did draw a little dab of blood and inflicted a rather large powder burn. The cool blue uniform pants were toast. He achieved instant celebrity status even though there was a rather large attempted coverup. A short time later he decided to protect a town farther to the north. Maybe they have thicker pants there.

Dino and everyone else,

There is someone out there recognizing and rewarding the very stupid for self-removal from the gene pool:

http://www.darwinawards.com/

Enjoy.