Braintree Rifle and Pistol Club

[not new guy]

I know it's not allowed, I'm wondering if it's the same fear of a couple of inches on a barrel making a pistol round suddenly able to pass through walls. I guess some calibers, in +p+, out of a rifle length barrel are significantly faster, it just stinks to only be able to shoot a pcc on the rifle range.

 

[n1heu]

Indoors the problem is ricochet potential as well as range damage. The other problem is the firing of centerfire rifles of any caliber leads to confusion as to what is acceptable. We have had very recently a guy with an AR-15 firing indoors with the assumption that "it's a 22 so it's ok". When he was informed that only rimfire was allowed he said "what's that?". Said he had no idea what a rimfire was. He was removed from the membership roll. We've had in the past AK's, AR's, shotguns and in at least one case a M1 Garand. All argued that they had seen other people shooting rifles indoors. We haven't had the Thompson Contender or AR pistols reported although I'm sure that issue will arise sooner or later. The short story is policing the rule as no centerfire rifles on pistol ranges is much easier and easily understood than the nuances of FPS and energy levels.

 

[drgrant]

Indoors the problem is ricochet potential as well as range damage. The other problem is the firing of centerfire rifles of any caliber leads to confusion as to what is acceptable. We have had very recently a guy with an AR-15 firing indoors with the assumption that "it's a 22 so it's ok". When he was informed that only rimfire was allowed he said "what's that?". Said he had no idea what a rimfire was. He was removed from the membership roll. We've had in the past AK's, AR's, shotguns and in at least one case a M1 Garand. All argued that they had seen other people shooting rifles indoors. We haven't had the Thompson Contender or AR pistols reported although I'm sure that issue will arise sooner or later. The short story is policing the rule as no centerfire rifles on pistol ranges is much easier and easily understood than the nuances of FPS and energy levels.

So basically the rule isn't really based on science, just that there's a consensus that the members are too stupid to understand anything beyond "handguns only".

-Mike

 

[Len-2A Training]

So basically the rule isn't really based on science, just that there's a consensus that the members are too stupid to understand anything beyond "handguns only".

-Mike

Considering the wiz-bang training that most of the new members get to get their LTCs, it may not be their fault due to piss-poor training but yes, they are challenged. That's what you get when you take training for the lowest price/least amount of time in a classroom and maybe shoot 10 rds that are loaded/unloaded for you. [I had BFS students ask me if I would load their mags for them. My answer was NO, but I showed them how to do it. Otherwise you create new gun owners like the person that loaded the mag on the cover of H&K's catalog some years ago (all rounds loaded backwards).

Read Mike's post carefully, it shows people who never learned anything in whatever class they took to get their BFS certificate.

 

[not new guy]

Thanks, Len and n1heu. I don't love the rule, but I don't have to deal with the idiots. I appreciate the explanations.

 

[n1heu]

So basically the rule isn't really based on science, just that there's a consensus that the members are too stupid to understand anything beyond "handguns only".

-Mike

The rule is based on the recommendations of the backstop manufacturers and the NRA Range Engineers we consulted to review all our ranges. And yeah, the RO's and e-bd have argued with enough people about it that it provides an easy demarcation. I'm not calling members stupid, maybe less informed than they really should be. You'd think that they never had any education in firearms at all. Speaks to the quality of some of the instruction out there.

 

[drgrant]

The rule is based on the recommendations of the backstop manufacturers and the NRA Range Engineers we consulted to review all our ranges. And yeah, the RO's and e-bd have argued with enough people about it that it provides an easy demarcation. I'm not calling members stupid, maybe less informed than they really should be. You'd think that they never had any education in firearms at all. Speaks to the quality of some of the instruction out there.

You just said a few posts ago in this thread though that it was because of the issue of people getting confused by seeing other people with rifles on the range, and then bringing things that were higher powered rifles on the range and not just things that fire projectiles that are suitable well within the constraints of the backstop. A PCC shooting at a backstop isn't going to be any worse than a large caliber handgun shooting at the backstop (unless you guys have like some kind of hard FPS limit for your backstop, and also block things like .357 Magnum, etc. ) This is obviously not a scientific/fact based consideration but one made based off pragmatism and setting up rules that can be easily understood by the lowest common denominator. (eg, numbskulls).

I agree people are stupid (as a generality) and it does make me wonder. That said- I also think rules engineered this way have the side effect of deterring smarter people away from clubs, which has the fun effect of making a given club member base collectively dumber... although clubs like BRP, MRA, etc, don't really care about losing a few handfuls of people here and there because it's a fart in the wind on the dues rolls.

I can also concede that in the post-sandy hook era, some of the new shooters are, to be polite, a special kind of stupid... which makes for additional challenges to gun clubs that don't want to operate a 40 hour training/orientation course before permitting members access to facilities.

I think eventually this problem is going to come to a head (not necessarily at BRP but at clubs as a generality) as more and more facilities gradually become unusable because of bad rules.

-Mike

 

[n1heu]

Clubs do make rules as problems appear. BRP's rules have been very consistent with the exception of outdoor range officers for 40 years however. I don't think a PCC is anymore dangerous or damaging to a backstop than a high powered pistol round either. Running a club as being on an e-board is a good lesson in sociology though. When you constantly have to deal with trap shooters that insist #4 shot is half the size of #8, 223 is a 22 rimfire round, shooting at the target hanger, electrical outlets, light fixtures, shells on the floor, the rolling handicap bench, targets on the other side of the range, shooting pistols on the archery range and 50 other things I can't think of right now it is easy to enforce easily understood rules. I disagree there is a problem with clubs and their rules. The problem is the liability of running a club in an ever closer urban setting with guys (it's always guys) that have watched movies for their firearms training. I want to shoot at a club that I don't have to worry the dude beside me is doing rifle to pistol transitions because he thinks it impresses his GF or quick draws from a cross-draw shoulder holster. These things should be supervised by people that know how to supervise these things. An open club that does not vet shooting ability or competency is not the place to do it. A time and place for everything.

 

[n1heu]

As an addition to the above: It seems the era of the lone shooter coming in to sharpen skills or compete in bullseye shooting is coming to an end. Guys at gun ranges are as bad as women to public restrooms, they can't go alone.
We have now guys (again, always guys) bringing their even less qualified buddies with them with seemingly the only objective to see who can make the most noise and burn through the most 9mm in the shortest time. It's very expensive fireworks.
Listening in on some of the 'instructing' is most amusing though. One guy telling another he can hunt bears with his 44 mag, claiming he can kill a bear at 200 yards with it. He couldn't hit a B7 at 15 feet with it. Hitting a target seems irrelevant to them.
It's always happened of course, but in very small numbers. It seems the demographic has grown in the last 10 years. I stopped a guy a couple weeks ago that was just ripping though mag after mag not even hitting a 2x2 foot target 15 feet away. I asked what he was doing. His answer: 'Muscle Memory". I asked him what that meant and he was at a loss to explain it. Just a microcosm of what happens on a daily basis at some of the busier clubs.

 

[n1heu]

Once again now that's out of my system: (thanks I feel better)
We had a complaint of bullet escape years ago. We hired range engineers and a civil engineer to investigate it for us. It was determined that the rounds were not fired from any of our firing points. They gave us a report that suggested ways to make our ranges even more bullet tight. We incorporated all those enhancements. One of the suggestions was the use of an RO on outdoor ranges. We did that too. They also reviewed our rules and indoor ranges and verified what we had for restrictions of types of guns on ranges.
There are exceptions. We have action pistol matches in the summer months outdoors. Those are closely controlled by guys that are qualified to RO those events. We also have outdoor HP rifle matches that are outside the normal firing points. Again, these are tightly RO'd. We don't have the personnel or the inclination to have a large team of RO's supervising safe action shooting. We can't trust the average shooter with housing units 200 yards from our outdoor ranges and no one wants to shoot next to an AR15 on an indoor range. The simplest rules that are easiest to explain are the path of least resistance.

 

[M125X]

Saw this in the latest email:
It is recommended that members load and shoot no more than ten (10) rounds at a time.

is this new policy or has this always been the case? I know it just says "recommended" not required... But still...

 

[gamma19]

Saw this in the latest email:
It is recommended that members load and shoot no more than ten (10) rounds at a time.

is this new policy or has this always been the case? I know it just says "recommended" not required... But still...

AFAIK this has always been in the handbook.

 

[dennism]

Have steel plates on the rifle range and VTAC barricades ever been discussed?

After running the excruciathlon I want to get better at the VTAC board.

 

[Len-2A Training]

Have steel plates on the rifle range and VTAC barricades ever been discussed?

After running the excruciathlon I want to get better at the VTAC board.

Not in my 18 yrs as a member. However, propose it to the CRO and be prepared to work with him to verify that it won't reduce range safety and see if it flies. Since we now have steel on the middle pistol range, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that it might be allowed.

 

[drgrant]

Have steel plates on the rifle range and VTAC barricades ever been discussed?

After running the excruciathlon I want to get better at the VTAC board.

I predict that will be allowed at BRP right after hell finishes freezing over.

-Mike

 

[Len-2A Training]

I predict that will be allowed at BRP right after hell finishes freezing over.

-Mike

Mike,

I thought that way wrt steel plates anywhere, but we now have 2 racks permanently placed at ~22 yds on one of the pistol ranges and they get a lot of use!

 

[babygorilla]

Oh, and plates on the plinking range too. The wife and I were painting them with .22 lead for about 3 hours yesterday, LOL.

 

[Len-2A Training]

Have steel plates on the rifle range and VTAC barricades ever been discussed?

After running the excruciathlon I want to get better at the VTAC board.

I had to look up what a VTAC board is.

If you attend tonight's members meeting, right after that is the RO meeting where this is the right venue for preliminary discussion. I doubt that our CRO will be there as he usually has to work that shift, but if he is I'll bring up your suggestion.

Personally I don't expect the VTAC board to fly but I think it is possible that they may be willing to test out putting steel on the 100 yd positions and if they determine that it would be safe, it might happen. I know that I'd like it. Our CRO is usually there on Saturday morning and I have RO duty (it is also the CMP match in the morning) and I will discuss it with him.

You might want to contact me offline (NOT PMs) by Email to further your idea.

 

[n1heu]

Steel rifle plates at 100 yd were discussed. Proximity of neighbors would preclude these as the ricochet hazard is just too high. We even make sure the berms are stone free to prevent ricochet. We had steel silhouette targets on the middle range years ago and they were used mostly by pistol shooters but some 22 rifle shooters used them too. The 100 yard ram was in sight of shooters on the rifle range at the time and was constantly perforated by rifle shooters. Steel targets and jacketed high velocity rifle rounds are not really a good combo. As to the VTAC board I didn't read this until just now so I didn't mention it but considering current club policy is to prevent seeing blue sky from shooting position outdoors it would seem to be a no-go. We do run IDPA type pistol matches however. I'm not sure what they do there as I've not attended one but plan on doing so this summer. I'll update as I find out more.

 

[Pyromancer]

Was there today, pretty busy outdoors.
Some fool at the middle steel range barely notifies the 10+ people there before flipping the cease fire, runs out to put some targets up before the alarm has finished ringing, people not yet behind the proper line. Gets called out by an RO. Barely 10 minutes later, same fool notifies the 5 people on the right side (notifies NONE of the 5+ people on the left, including an RO.) Takes two other guys out with him to put up targets. The three of them are on the steel range before people on the left (with guns in their hands) realize wtf is going on. The three of them get called out. 2+ acts of stupid within 20 minutes. I'm done for the day.

 

[cockednlocked]

Was there today, pretty busy outdoors.
Some fool at the middle steel range barely notifies the 10+ people there before flipping the cease fire, runs out to put some targets up before the alarm has finished ringing, people not yet behind the proper line. Gets called out by an RO. Barely 10 minutes later, same fool notifies the 5 people on the right side (notifies NONE of the 5+ people on the left, including an RO.) Takes two other guys out with him to put up targets. The three of them are on the steel range before people on the left (with guns in their hands) realize wtf is going on. The three of them get called out. 2+ acts of stupid within 20 minutes. I'm done for the day.

I became a member yesterday. It's almost incredible the amount of dumbasses allowed to own a gun. Like, seriously. It's incredible.

 

[Len-2A Training]

I became a member yesterday. It's almost incredible the amount of dumbasses allowed to own a gun. Like, seriously. It's incredible.

It's largely due to poor training. Sometimes you get what you pay for with a Groupon and large classes.

 

[Pyromancer]

I became a member yesterday. It's almost incredible the amount of dumbasses allowed to own a gun. Like, seriously. It's incredible.

Seriously. I treat range visits like my extremely rare visits to the bar - avoid peak hours. Not bc of higher rates of stupid, just overall higher numbers of stupid people.

 

[Pyromancer]

It's largely due to poor training. Sometimes you get what you pay for with a Groupon and large classes.

My specific instance was less training and more a lack of basic self-preservation skills. I honestly dont know how this guy got to his 40s+

 

[browncoat]

I became a member yesterday. It's almost incredible the amount of dumbasses allowed to own a gun. Like, seriously. It's incredible.

Any idiot should be allowed to own a gun. Kicked out of the club,sure, but that's not a right

Sent from my 831C using Tapatalk

 

[jbert27]

they are out there. Do enjoy my infrequent RO duty there. Inside the range can be interesting too at times.

Got to remember you are dealing with the public, not Sig Academy.

Have seen very interesting "behavior" at Manchester and at a couple of Florida ranges.
Welcome to the day of new users with minimum training and skills.

God help us. Stay on your toes.

 

[Len-2A Training]

For Members of BR&P:

From a message by the club president, just received.

Meet Geoff Diehl

Geoff Diehl is a Republican State Representative from Whitman. He will be attending the Members Meeting on September 11, 2017.

Geoff became active in the community, and eventually became a member of the Whitman Finance Committee. In 2007, Geoff stepped forward as a private citizen to oversee the restoration of the historic Toll House sign in Whitman. Part of his work included obtaining underwriting for the project by the Nestle Corporation.

In 2010, Geoff ran for state representative and won. On January 5, 2011 he was sworn in as a member of the 187th General Court of Massachusetts, serving the people of the 7th Plymouth District (Abington, East Bridgewater and Whitman) as their state representative. He is presently running for a seat in the U.S. Senate currently held by Elizabeth Warren.

 

[browncoat]

Anybody have details on the combat pistol shoot? I'm thinking of going this Saturday but I don't know how long it runs etc.


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[Len-2A Training]

Anybody have details on the combat pistol shoot? I'm thinking of going this Saturday but I don't know how long it runs etc.

Sorry I have no details at all about it. I would send an Email off the website and hopefully it will get forwarded to whoever is in charge and they will answer your questions.

http://brp.org/ContactUs/tabid/1138/Default.aspx


Also, don't go this Saturday, all ranges are shutdown until 2PM as the Ancient & Honorables are hosted at BR&P for the day.

On the calendar here: http://brp.org/Calendar/tabid/1137/Default.aspx

 

[browncoat]

Sorry I have no details at all about it. I would send an Email off the website and hopefully it will get forwarded to whoever is in charge and they will answer your questions.

http://brp.org/ContactUs/tabid/1138/Default.aspx


Also, don't go this Saturday, all ranges are shutdown until 2PM as the Ancient & Honorables are hosted at BR&P for the day.

On the calendar here: http://brp.org/Calendar/tabid/1137/Default.aspx

I had forgotten about that, thanks for the reminder