Not such a great day at the range

[Jordan F.]

Me and my Dad recently aquired a new Anschutz 54MS so we thought we would try it out today. I also brought out my Marlin 2000L to shoot. We got there at around 3:00 and there were a couple guys there; kid (maybe 12 years old) and his Grampa. Everything went good at the start, but about 20 minutes into shooting, when I am shooting prone and my dad is shooting on the bench, I look up and see this kid is standing about 25 yards out checking his target , and we were still shooting. I immediately stopped, as did my dad, and we told the kid to always stay behind the line when we were shooting.

At around 3:45, we decided to pack up and leave, so I mentioned I was going to grab targets. So I walked out to 50 and 100 yards to grab the targets. On my way back, I look up to see this kid pick up his gun (I am still downrange) and man-handle it. I was getting nervous so I ran back to the line. By that time my dad had stopped this kid. Apparently (I couldn't hear) my dad had told the kid never to cross the line and touch any of your guns when there is someone down range; his responce to that had been "don't worry, it's not loaded".

Needless to say we got out of there preatty quickly after that. People like that make you real nervous. I am assuming this was this guys first trip to the range but a little more instruction from his Grampa woudl have been nice. And also, while he was doing these things, the Grampa didn't say anything; not a word.

I am glad no one got hurt though.

The good news is, the anschutz shot good. My dads last 8 shot group at 100 yards after getting it sighted in measured .752CTC. The first shot went about 1/4" above the other shots, and then the 7 shots after that went into a group of slighly under 1/2". We were very happy with the performance of it. This was with Lapua superclub.

I don't think that made up for the incidents though.

Stay Safe!
Jordan

[Brad Clodfelter]

Your getting all the new toys.

Show us some 5 shot one hole groups at 50yds buddy.

Sorry about your incident at the gun range.

That is scarry.

Brad

[Jordan F.]

Unfortunately, a member at our range passed away because of cancer, and that is the reason how me and my dad got the anschutz. I was able to shoot it before we got it, just to make sure it still shot good and it did shoot preatty good. When I brought it home, I closely inspected it and everything looked good, except there was some "crusty" substance on the crown. I removed that carefully (probably took me 20 minutes to get rid of this gunk) and it seems to be shooting even better now.

Here was the last 8 shot group fired by my dad at 100 yards.

The "high" shot was the first shot. The 7 other shots went into a nice little hole at 100

[rimfire kid]

Nice shooting there Jordan. You are a very lucky man, to have your dad shooting with you.

You and your dad are not the only ones to face the same problems at a public range. That is the main reason that I don't go to a public range that much.

[Jordan F.]

Thanks

Unfortunately this is the only range in the area, without driving a long ways (This one is 10 minutes from my house). This is the only incident that has every happened, and 95% of the time when we go there no one is there. Hopefully nothing like this will happen in the future, and I am doubtfull it will.

[claybuster]

That is scary. Glad no one was hurt.

Our range in Llano is a club range but for all practical purposes it is public. Most of the year we have it pretty much to ourselve, especially since we normally shoot on Tuesday & Thursday mornings. But gun deer season opens here in Texas in about 3 weeks so this becomes a kinda busy time of year. You really have to watch the guys closely who are not "range familiar".

Sorry about the circumstance of aquisition but glad to hear you got the Annie. Looks like she's a real shooter!