• Watch Out for Scammers!

    We've now added a color code for all accounts. Orange accounts are new members, Blue are full members, and Green are Supporters. If you get a message about a sale from an orange account, make sure you pay attention before sending any money!

Newb/Old hand behavioral markers

Doing my part

Sergeant of the Hide
Full Member
Minuteman
Jul 17, 2020
209
217
Over lunch today I was doing the usual and overthinking my hobbies - surfing, racing bikes and shooting.

I can pick out a new guy in the first two pretty easily, and its comes in useful in avoiding accidents and silly BS. It got me wondering, are there any giveaway things which new guys or old guys do which let you quickly gauge their experience?

Two things I have observed that seemed very cool..
- A guy shooting prone deflecting his brass with his left hand to stop it bothering the guy next to him, that seemed cool
- A guy and his spotter barely speaking between shots but getting it dialed quick.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: armorpl8chikn
This feels like one of those click bait adverts - answer these ten simple questions and we'll tell you if you're a clueless noob or not.
 
Honestly, just look at the efficiency of them getting set up...

Are they doing a lot of running back and forth to get targets set up......are they hunting around for mags and ammo.....do they have they own staple gun

Look at how their equipment is configured......is it a professional setup, or have they dragged their SKS through a tapco catalogue.

Look at how used their equipment is....has it actually been used, or is it all factory fresh.

That's usually what I looked for when I ROd.....
 
When it comes to shooting, my first tell, is how that person handles their firearm. If that barrel starts waving around, I'm going to say something and possibly piss someone off. But, for the most part, it's safety issues, don't pay too much attention to any other stuff, unless someone's shooting a fancy, smancy, rifle or handgun, then my interest is perked. I don't have any "Operators", where I shoot. Mac
 
  • Like
Reactions: Doing my part
Over lunch today I was doing the usual and overthinking my hobbies - surfing, racing bikes and shooting.

I can pick out a new guy in the first two pretty easily, and its comes in useful in avoiding accidents and silly BS. It got me wondering, are there any giveaway things which new guys or old guys do which let you quickly gauge their experience?

Two things I have observed that seemed very cool..
- A guy shooting prone deflecting his brass with his left hand to stop it bothering the guy next to him, that seemed cool
- A guy and his spotter barely speaking between shots but getting it dialed quick.
I am not sure if you are asking about shooting at a public range or an organized match. At public ranges the level of retardation is so high there is no way to tell if someone has fired a million rounds and has no clue or is a new guy. At an organized match the volume of communication between a spotter and shooter depends on how well they know each other. When I shoot with a couple of buddies the talking never stops and it's rarely anything to do with making a better shot, usually quite the opposite.
 
I go to a very nice range with people that are the salt of the earth but.......

I don't really want to see your rifle nor especially do I want to shoot it 99% of the time.

I only get limited time to hit the range and I want to Zen out.

I don't care how special you think your rifle is.

If you have a specific problem you need help with I will forgo my shooting to help you if I can but I don't want to get behind, hold or shoot your rifle no matter how much you insist it's okay.
 
I am not sure if you are asking about shooting at a public range or an organized match. At public ranges the level of retardation is so high there is no way to tell if someone has fired a million rounds and has no clue or is a new guy. At an organized match the volume of communication between a spotter and shooter depends on how well they know each other. When I shoot with a couple of buddies the talking never stops and it's rarely anything to do with making a better shot, usually quite the opposite.
I have yet to attend a match - some way to go before I want to step forward for this.

Possibly part of the difference between US and UK shooting is that the most customers I have seen in an open long distance range was 4 shooters. One brought his dad as a spotter. There was plenty of chat but the business talk was short and effective. My favourite part was when the shooter saw and cut the spotter off. Boom "SEEN" click clack Boom..... Ting.
 
  • Like
Reactions: lash and 308pirate
@pmclaine - that's funny.

I always want to shoot other rifles.
But they usually belong to folks I know or am with.
Not so much the random guy.

But if they have something special, like a nice double or an old SAA, Im gonna prolly hafta do it.
 
@pmclaine - that's funny.

I always want to shoot other rifles.
But they usually belong to folks I know or am with.
Not so much the random guy.

But if they have something special, like a nice double or an old SAA, Im gonna prolly hafta do it.
Some guy I never met insisted that I shoot his 338 lap mag at the range. I kind of didn't want to knowing the cost per round. Three whiffs and I put it down. "Yeah mate, that's awesome"... Quick exit.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 308pirate
Blood running down face, flesh and eyebrows on ocular.
One eyed badass🙄
Oh, I don't want to be too much all over this thread but the first range I went to in the US was South Texas and absolutely awesome but... As we rolled up some poor guy was walking from the shooting line to the office bleeding profusely out of the face hole... I grabbed my girl and hustled into the office behind him just in time to hear the range master taking the piss out of the customer with the new 300 win mag. Awesome.

Didn't help sell the (also British) girl on shooting though...
 
  • Haha
Reactions: 308pirate
Saw it happen in the lane right next to me a few weeks ago. He had just been bragging loudly about how many guns he had etc etc 😂
 
  • Like
Reactions: lash
I wrote this in another thread a while back discussing all of the tacticool snipers I'd run into every weekend when I lived in Florida and went to the Manatee 1000yd range.

70% of the people would show up and I'd know what was about to happen just by seeing their Rem700 decked out with every milspecDEVGRUreconsealranger thing you can think of, matching krylon paint job, drag bag and all sorts of shit 'good enough' spotting scopes. If they didn't manage to progress that far yet, their woodland BDUs and jungle boots with matching sun hat let me know they were well on their way. Ocassionally there was even face paint, because, the sun was out or something.

The evolution was almost identical throughout the years; it was like there was some 'how to' out there everyone followed. I caught myself putting up with the 45 min drive some weekends just so I can get out there to see what todays episode was going to be. I also made myself a goal of never talking to any of them as to not disturb the process; kind of like when you come back in time with a time machine, and you cant disturb certain aspects as they would have undesired results in the future.

So they'd all show up with their full 'milspec' stuff (even though half of it wasnt) and were all under the impression that this was the key to everything; therefore they should be able to make a .5 inch group at 900 yards with it 'if they did their part'.

- Step 1. Rezero the rifle, every time you come to the range. None of them understood why the rounds were low/high in relation to the zero they spent 60 rounds trying to figure out the last time when it was 96 degrees out and the next time when it was 60 degrees and raining the gun would always shoot low and not match up to whatever manual DOPE card they had started to make last time. So the concencus was; you needed to rezero the gun everytime before you shot because the zero never stays the same. Man, it must suck to be a sniper in the military and have to rezero your gun like 3 times a day.

- Step 2. Talk about it with all of the other tacticools, all the time. Is your scope zero wandering? My BDC numbers on this turret don't match up. I must have bumped it on the ride home last time. Am I supposed to use the exact same ammo each time? It's all 168g 308WIN, its the same right? Maybe I need to get it bedded and it will stop doing this. Is that MILSPEC? Do you have an allen wrench that fits my scope cap? I should probably clean it again after shooting 10 rounds, maybe the bore is fouled and causing this.

- Step 3. Assemble a mobile cleaning kit station that you brought with you. This consisted of shit like plastic rolling toolboxes, loading down drag bags with pounds upon pounds of cleaning shit, or one guy even had some sort of stroller thing he fucking strapped a Tipton gun vise to. The cleaning games commenced. Shoot and clean after every round...every 2nd...5th? Noone knew. Let's spend 2/3 of our time cleaning the fucking barrel. Maybe I need a copper cleaner? Do you use foam? How long do you leave it in? OMG you're using a nylon brush. Should I leave some oil in the barrel after? You didnt clean it until the patch comes out looking brand new!

- Step 4. The arms race. At some point when the tacticools had reached peak lingo/cleaning prowess/rezeroing status, it was determined that better equipment was necessary. Some of them, by pure luck, where probably right as they now wanted a McMillan stock over their piece of shit Hogue rubber stock, or wanted to replace those no name rings with something that didn't suck, but for the most part, they were trying to figure out what would help them actually hit something. I need a better/bigger bipod. I need a heavy bench rest. Maybe I'm using the wrong color spraypaint. I could hit that 500 yard target if I bought a M107. They'd then come back the next week with their new gadget and new problems would arise, making them start some parts of their 'process' over again due to it; or just outright blame the new part.

- Step 5. Math class. If wind was ever taken into a calcuation, it was at the shooter and for the most part, done via someones version of 'the bush is doing this, so the wind is 5mph'. Everyone still had MIL reticles and MOA turrets. The math to figure shit out literally took 4 people like some kind of throwback organic supercomputer that calculated we had won the Vietnam war 2 years before we ran the calculations on when we could win. You'd hear them trying to convert things from MOA to MILS and back again, doing the same calculations with 3 of them getting a different number and then the real math discussion began. They would also use constants for wind that they got out of some FM from 20 years ago, for a bullet they weren't shooting at a velocity the constant was for. Calculators became a mainstay in their very neat and clean data books that consisted of new data, from a new zero, on the same gun, from everytime they had been out there before.

It would progress from there. The main thing was, none of them, ever figured out that temperature and enviromentals existed.
 
Last edited:
If I'm handing you your ass on a 100 yard target with open sights and/or 22, you are probably a scrub.

I'm not that good.

Also if you ask me about my tacticool rifle (Rem 700 with KRG Bravo)... :cool:

Anyone who asks what my Labradar is.... :rolleyes:

Usually some punisher crap all over their rifles and or tats/shirts :cautious:

My favorite is all the guys and their "sniper" rifles working hard on groups, scopes/rests/gadgets/spotters--pull out the AK, put it on a sandbag and show em how its done.

I'm not saying I have a magic AK. I am saying the people at my range S-U-C-K. The range staff also know to kinda keep me away from the others as I usually have something loud to scare away lookie loos. However, any child gets a free shot or two if they show interest.

I also am "super polite and tidy" as I sweep up everyone's brass for them :devilish:. Staff love it cause they don't have to, I love it becuase FREE BRASS!!

There is an old timer who hangs out there with his 22--guy is a stud. we don't get a chance to talk much, but he knows his stuff.

I do show some newb tendancies--I always am losing my mags, bags, etc... Plus I haul a lot of crap to the range to feed these monsters, including rifles that don't fit into cases cause supressors. Forget my staple gun 9/10, wear my keys on a lanyard cause I'd forget those too.

THe real teller is gun handling. Watch the muzzle for 5 mins. You'll know.
 
1. Old Guy: Quiet grandpa type, takes out a soft case with a Savage 99 lever gun in .300 Savage with a Lyman Alaskan scope he purchased new from the base PX back in 1954. Has a very tattered and well faded 2O rd box of .300 Savage he purchased for $3.75 with 6 cartridges remaining. Puts up a 12" round target at 100 yards with a 1/2" orange dot in the center. Loads 1 cartridge, takes aim, fires putting a hole in the orange dot. Proclaims he's done and ready for the season. Retrieves his target, Puts his rifle back in the soft case, grabs his 1 box of ammunition and goes home. (y)

2. New Guy: 400lb coach potato wearing a XXXX "black" Mall Ninja suit, has spray painted his $300 Rem 700 ADL in 30-06 with a Walmart $39.99 3x9 scope in FDE, tells everyone thats in earshot, "...how tactical as fuck he is!" Sets up a B27 target at 200 yards. Shoots as fast as he can: hitting 50 yards in front of the target and various other locations next to, above and below, but never touches the target. 5 boxes of Ammo later. Gets pissed off proclaiming the rifle' barrel must be loose or someone here must have fucked with it when he was setting up his target! Cell phone rings and quickly claims he shot just a 1000 Yards today and hit it every time. And says he'll shoot to a mile or maybe 2 after his next range trip. Grabs his rifle but drops it. Doesn't bother to pick up his brass, the virgin target, leaves an empty Bag of Chips and a juice box at the bench leaving a mess for someone else. (n)
 
The two guys laying next to each other, then the "spotter" says loudly "Send It!"
An almighty flinch/wobble, and the projectile races down the range...... to hit their neighbours target.

Just smile and nod, because there ain't no point to anything else.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: Steel head
Ocassionally there was evenface paint, because, the sun was out or something.
This was a public/civilian range, correct? I've seen some tactical timmy shit and back in the day I even went down the rabbit hole for some gadgets but I ain't turning my back on that fool with a loaded gun.
 
  • Like
Reactions: GrumpyOleFart
If they show up with 15 different guns and go through 250 rounds in 10 min.

Usually don't have any rifle rests

Always ask me what caliber my gun is and when I answer they give me a blank stare and walk away.

The type of ammo they are running
 
Usually don't have any rifle rests

The type of ammo they are running
Unless you are Michael j fox... You don't need a rifle rest


And I don't trust a man who won't run tula through his gun....if you are worried about steel cased "damaging" your gun....you are the type of ocd bitch who is afraid to train hard enough to scratch it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Bender and PBWalsh
I wrote this in another thread a while back discussing all of the tacticool snipers I'd run into every weekend when I lived in Florida and went to the Manatee 1000yd range.

70% of the people would show up and I'd know what was about to happen just by seeing their Rem700 decked out with every milspecDEVGRUreconsealranger thing you can think of, matching krylon paint job, drag bag and all sorts of shit 'good enough' spotting scopes. If they didn't manage to progress that far yet, their woodland BDUs and jungle boots with matching sun hat let me know they were well on their way. Ocassionally there was even face paint, because, the sun was out or something.

The evolution was almost identical throughout the years; it was like there was some 'how to' out there everyone followed. I caught myself putting up with the 45 min drive some weekends just so I can get out there to see what todays episode was going to be. I also made myself a goal of never talking to any of them as to not disturb the process; kind of like when you come back in time with a time machine, and you cant disturb certain aspects as they would have undesired results in the future.

So they'd all show up with their full 'milspec' stuff (even though half of it wasnt) and were all under the impression that this was the key to everything; therefore they should be able to make a .5 inch group at 900 yards with it 'if they did their part'.

- Step 1. Rezero the rifle, every time you come to the range. None of them understood why the rounds were low/high in relation to the zero they spent 60 rounds trying to figure out the last time when it was 96 degrees out and the next time when it was 60 degrees and raining the gun would always shoot low and not match up to whatever manual DOPE card they had started to make last time. So the concencus was; you needed to rezero the gun everytime before you shot because the zero never stays the same. Man, it must suck to be a sniper in the military and have to rezero your gun like 3 times a day.

- Step 2. Talk about it with all of the other tacticools, all the time. Is your scope zero wandering? My BDC numbers on this turret don't match up. I must have bumped it on the ride home last time. Am I supposed to use the exact same ammo each time? It's all 168g 308WIN, its the same right? Maybe I need to get it bedded and it will stop doing this. Is that MILSPEC? Do you have an allen wrench that fits my scope cap? I should probably clean it again after shooting 10 rounds, maybe the bore is fouled and causing this.

- Step 3. Assemble a mobile cleaning kit station that you brought with you. This consisted of shit like plastic rolling toolboxes, loading down drag bags with pounds upon pounds of cleaning shit, or one guy even had some sort of stroller thing he fucking strapped a Tipton gun vise to. The cleaning games commenced. Shoot and clean after every round...every 2nd...5th? Noone knew. Let's spend 2/3 of our time cleaning the fucking barrel. Maybe I need a copper cleaner? Do you use foam? How long do you leave it in? OMG you're using a nylon brush. Should I leave some oil in the barrel after? You didnt clean it until the patch comes out looking brand new!

- Step 4. The arms race. At some point when the tacticools had reached peak lingo/cleaning prowess/rezeroing status, it was determined that better equipment was necessary. Some of them, by pure luck, where probably right as they now wanted a McMillan stock over their piece of shit Hogue rubber stock, or wanted to replace those no name rings with something that didn't suck, but for the most part, they were trying to figure out what would help them actually hit something. I need a better/bigger bipod. I need a heavy bench rest. Maybe I'm using the wrong color spraypaint. I could hit that 500 yard target if I bought a M107. They'd then come back the next week with their new gadget and new problems would arise, making them start some parts of their 'process' over again due to it; or just outright blame the new part.

- Step 5. Math class. If wind was ever taken into a calcuation, it was at the shooter and for the most part, done via someones version of 'the bush is doing this, so the wind is 5mph'. Everyone still had MIL reticles and MOA turrets. The math to figure shit out literally took 4 people like some kind of throwback organic supercomputer that calculated we had won the Vietnam war 2 years before we ran the calculations on when we could win. You'd hear them trying to convert things from MOA to MILS and back again, doing the same calculations with 3 of them getting a different number and then the real math discussion began. They would also use constants for wind that they got out of some FM from 20 years ago, for a bullet they weren't shooting at a velocity the constant was for. Calculators became a mainstay in their very neat and clean data books that consisted of new data, from a new zero, on the same gun, from everytime they had been out there before.

It would progress from there. The main thing was, none of them, ever figured out that temperature and enviromentals existed.
lol
The German nailed it!
 
People shoot at public ranges? Gotta be a blue state thing

For some reason there is a big waitlist for private ranges even in red states....not sure why. I mean there are only 300 or 400 holes in the ceiling at the local indoor....per lane.
 
For me it's simple.

The more they talk, the less they know.

Weapons manipulation tells me a lot, particularly with handguns. I can spot a noob or a tool with a pistol in about 5 sec.
 
For some reason there is a big waitlist for private ranges even in red states....not sure why. I mean there are only 300 or 400 holes in the ceiling at the local indoor....per lane.

20201121_085925.jpg

No wait list...no fudds 😁
 
For some reason there is a big waitlist for private ranges even in red states....not sure why. I mean there are only 300 or 400 holes in the ceiling at the local indoor....per lane.
The ones directly overhead the firing points are even more disconcerting for me.
 
Guy with scoped 12 ga. auto missing 2 ft. high at 25 yds.🤬 Again in the lane next to me.

Public ranges. Sucks being a city slicker
 
RO's? Rangemasters?
What in the wide wide world of sports is going on here? What kind of Kansas City faggotry goes on at these public ranges?
Almost as bad as the shooters. Usually sitting on their ass watching a gun bunny or spouting nonsense.

Or the RO who called out all the pistol guys for rapid fire and wanted us to snitch who was doing it, calling all our manhoods into question. I finally told him it was me. (I mean if you want to know who is rapid firing, why not get off your fat ass and move down here).

I had a big magnum revolver

He was not amused.

My son was laughing his ass off.

Yes living in the city SUCKS ASS for shooting. I can't get out of here fast enough.

No FMJ. No Rapid Fire (ok I'm fine with this for my own fn safety seeing some of these idiots). No steel ammo. Ammo has to pass magnet check.

My Fav was in Michigan--1 round at a time in any firearm. Holy shit was that stupid. Thank god I graduated and got the hell outta dodge.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: deersniper
We have the usual idiots.

Kneeling/sitting height bipod resting on the bench while they stand behind it and shoot a 2' group.

"Can't get this zero'd" and they're using a cheaper vortex that has broken turrets. (Seen this one enough times it's scary).

5 boxes of ammo, all different, and can't hit anything.

Trying to zero offhand with no sling/sticks anything and wondering why they're chasing the zero all over.

Sometimes I quietly shoot a little 1" group with my b14r. Then walk up to the targets and make some comment about "damn, this lot isn't very good. Can you believe how big these groups are?"
It's funny to me when they get back to the bench and pack up because they were shooting 6" groups with their favorite magnum and can't figure out how that's possible with a .22.
 
Almost as bad as the shooters. Usually sitting on their ass watching a gun bunny or spouting nonsense.

Or the RO who called out all the pistol guys for rapid fire and wanted us to snitch who was doing it, calling all our manhoods into question. I finally told him it was me. (I mean if you want to know who is rapid firing, why not get off your fat ass and move down here).

I had a big magnum revolver

He was not amused.

My son was laughing his ass off.

Yes living in the city SUCKS ASS for shooting. I can't get out of here fast enough.

No FMJ. No Rapid Fire (ok I'm fine with this for my own fn safety seeing some of these idiots). No steel ammo. Ammo has to pass magnet check.

My Fav was in Michigan--1 round at a time in any firearm. Holy shit was that stupid. Thank god I graduated and got the hell outta dodge.

We were talking at our Thanksgiving get together about moving to the boonies. Have a family compound.

Sort of Koreshish. Only tank proof.
 
  • Love
Reactions: deersniper
Well, my SUV is full of steel targets, stands, etc for pistol training, a pvc paper target stand, paper targets so my back is a bit packed. Result, my box of mags, ammo, stapler, and all the essentials usually sits in floorboard, along with my bags. Takes me about 3 trips to the bench (granted, that's about 15 feet). I guess I need to mark my cases because inevitably the barrel is pointing the wrong way when I open the case.

Personally, I see much more grave issues with pistol/revolver handling than rifle. I absolutely will not shoot with anybody else at a pistol bay unless I know them well or I've taught them myself.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Doing my part
I guess I need to mark my cases because inevitably the barrel is pointing the wrong way when I open the case.
I put a piece of blue painters’ tape on one end of my gun case. Now I can tell muzzle from butt without opening it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Doing my part
I put a piece of blue painters’ tape on one end of my gun case. Now I can tell muzzle from butt without opening it.
I'll justify my Brother Cube label maker :).
 
We have the usual idiots.

Kneeling/sitting height bipod resting on the bench while they stand behind it and shoot a 2' group.

"Can't get this zero'd" and they're using a cheaper vortex that has broken turrets. (Seen this one enough times it's scary).

5 boxes of ammo, all different, and can't hit anything.

Trying to zero offhand with no sling/sticks anything and wondering why they're chasing the zero all over.

Sometimes I quietly shoot a little 1" group with my b14r. Then walk up to the targets and make some comment about "damn, this lot isn't very good. Can you believe how big these groups are?"
It's funny to me when they get back to the bench and pack up because they were shooting 6" groups with their favorite magnum and can't figure out how that's possible with a .22.
Wanna really make jaws drop stretch that 22 out to 3-400. I was laying prone and I heard a couple dudes talking shit behind me saying “he doesn’t know what’s he’s doing, and that 22 won’t even make it that far (lol) then out of the corner of my eye I caught them watching my plate down range, they shut up. (It was a big plate I’m not even that good). At that same range i went on a weekend (stupid) all the 100’s and 50’s were full and I was tuning the gas on my 11.5 sbr so figured the 300yrd iPsc silhouette target would be good enough for that. It drew a crowd that I could hit that off hand with just a red dot. They all thought I was a wizard. Then a bunch of older fellas wanted to tell me “when I was in the “service”” stories.


But my all time favorite was this fella sat on a bench next to me at a range I used to go to had his magpul plastic flip up reversed the front was on the rear and the rear up front, and actual rear sight was backwards. The best part and I shit y’all not the gun was a skeletonized ar painted in “zombie” green splatter paint. I left shortly after I saw that.
 
  • Like
Reactions: deersniper
Unless you are Michael j fox... You don't need a rifle rest


And I don't trust a man who won't run tula through his gun....if you are worried about steel cased "damaging" your gun....you are the type of ocd bitch who is afraid to train hard enough to scratch it.
If it won’t run steel it doesn’t deserve brass lol
 
Love this.....guess we all have some great "range reports"...LMAO
 
We have several open ranges where I'm at, and we all act as each other's RSO.

Last week was epic, so many new shooters, I almost packed up and headed home. Dude next to me with a Smith 686, weak hand in front of the trigger guard, shaking like leaves on an Aspen, trying to hit a 5 gallon bucket perched on a shovel @ 15 yards. Classic left foot forward, head down to the sights, trigger slapping, fast shooting... He gets done, finger on the trigger, flagging left and right, steps in front of the line to see his hits (all misses) - fucking train wreck. He looks over at me, and I'm "hiding" behind the back of my truck peering around the camper shell in horror. He smiles, because he's a happy idiot.

So... He says "I'm new to all of this", and I reply "Yes, I see that" and proceed to give him a little education about safety and basic SOPs, to which he was honestly grateful and eager to learn.

There was another guy, all the way at the other end - same deal, bad stance, tea-cupping, flagging, no awareness of anyone else... Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang... Then walks out to inspect his target just as I'm bringing my pistol up. Fuck! I yelled out to him, and he scurried back to the line. Later when I called down the line for a cease, I went over to him and told him "Hey sorry, didn't mean to yell at ya, you just scared the shit out of me when I saw you out of the corner of my eye, I must not have heard you call out"... He looked up, and said "No, I didn't, sorry about that, I didn't know to do that".

I finished out my session, albeit shortened with having to take some time with "Henny" next to me, but I feel like it was worth it. He actually started hitting the coffee can I gave him when he used the front sight focus, and stopped shaking when I randomly loaded 3 of his 7 chambers and showed him proper trigger technique and revolver grip. He thanked me profusely, and left the range with an ear to ear grin. Happy idiot.

Wish I put more rounds down range, but glad I took the time to hand down what someone else taught me.

Teach a man to fish...
 
There is a lot I love about Texas. All the land having been bought up and charged for $4000 deer/hog leases isn't on of em. Hopefully when I get back up north I can get myself a piece of backwoods.

I do try and emmulate HiDesertELR and help those in need. Trouble is, most people would rather act a fool than ask for help (I see this when I teach at University at well). But man sometimes I get cranky and just want to be left alone. (Thus the RO magnum story--if I wanted to be berated for shit I didn't do, let me go back to work).
 
  • Like
Reactions: HiDesertELR
I am not sure if you are asking about shooting at a public range or an organized match. At public ranges the level of retardation is so high there is no way to tell if someone has fired a million rounds and has no clue or is a new guy. At an organized match the volume of communication between a spotter and shooter depends on how well they know each other. When I shoot with a couple of buddies the talking never stops and it's rarely anything to do with making a better shot, usually quite the opposite.
Our banter sounds more like brothers challenging and laughing at each other. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Some guy I never met insisted that I shoot his 338 lap mag at the range. I kind of didn't want to knowing the cost per round. Three whiffs and I put it down. "Yeah mate, that's awesome"... Quick exit.
My .338 never comes out at the short range, but I’ll happily let someone shoot it if they wish. I doubt that they will whiff.
Saw it happen in the lane right next to me a few weeks ago. He had just been bragging loudly about how many guns he had etc etc 😂
That’s a sure tell of incompetence or at the least of insecurity.
I wrote this in another thread a while back discussing all of the tacticool snipers I'd run into every weekend when I lived in Florida and went to the Manatee 1000yd range.

70% of the people would show up and I'd know what was about to happen just by seeing their Rem700 decked out with every milspecDEVGRUreconsealranger thing you can think of, matching krylon paint job, drag bag and all sorts of shit 'good enough' spotting scopes. If they didn't manage to progress that far yet, their woodland BDUs and jungle boots with matching sun hat let me know they were well on their way. Ocassionally there was even face paint, because, the sun was out or something.

The evolution was almost identical throughout the years; it was like there was some 'how to' out there everyone followed. I caught myself putting up with the 45 min drive some weekends just so I can get out there to see what todays episode was going to be. I also made myself a goal of never talking to any of them as to not disturb the process; kind of like when you come back in time with a time machine, and you cant disturb certain aspects as they would have undesired results in the future.

So they'd all show up with their full 'milspec' stuff (even though half of it wasnt) and were all under the impression that this was the key to everything; therefore they should be able to make a .5 inch group at 900 yards with it 'if they did their part'.

- Step 1. Rezero the rifle, every time you come to the range. None of them understood why the rounds were low/high in relation to the zero they spent 60 rounds trying to figure out the last time when it was 96 degrees out and the next time when it was 60 degrees and raining the gun would always shoot low and not match up to whatever manual DOPE card they had started to make last time. So the concencus was; you needed to rezero the gun everytime before you shot because the zero never stays the same. Man, it must suck to be a sniper in the military and have to rezero your gun like 3 times a day.

- Step 2. Talk about it with all of the other tacticools, all the time. Is your scope zero wandering? My BDC numbers on this turret don't match up. I must have bumped it on the ride home last time. Am I supposed to use the exact same ammo each time? It's all 168g 308WIN, its the same right? Maybe I need to get it bedded and it will stop doing this. Is that MILSPEC? Do you have an allen wrench that fits my scope cap? I should probably clean it again after shooting 10 rounds, maybe the bore is fouled and causing this.

- Step 3. Assemble a mobile cleaning kit station that you brought with you. This consisted of shit like plastic rolling toolboxes, loading down drag bags with pounds upon pounds of cleaning shit, or one guy even had some sort of stroller thing he fucking strapped a Tipton gun vise to. The cleaning games commenced. Shoot and clean after every round...every 2nd...5th? Noone knew. Let's spend 2/3 of our time cleaning the fucking barrel. Maybe I need a copper cleaner? Do you use foam? How long do you leave it in? OMG you're using a nylon brush. Should I leave some oil in the barrel after? You didnt clean it until the patch comes out looking brand new!

- Step 4. The arms race. At some point when the tacticools had reached peak lingo/cleaning prowess/rezeroing status, it was determined that better equipment was necessary. Some of them, by pure luck, where probably right as they now wanted a McMillan stock over their piece of shit Hogue rubber stock, or wanted to replace those no name rings with something that didn't suck, but for the most part, they were trying to figure out what would help them actually hit something. I need a better/bigger bipod. I need a heavy bench rest. Maybe I'm using the wrong color spraypaint. I could hit that 500 yard target if I bought a M107. They'd then come back the next week with their new gadget and new problems would arise, making them start some parts of their 'process' over again due to it; or just outright blame the new part.

- Step 5. Math class. If wind was ever taken into a calcuation, it was at the shooter and for the most part, done via someones version of 'the bush is doing this, so the wind is 5mph'. Everyone still had MIL reticles and MOA turrets. The math to figure shit out literally took 4 people like some kind of throwback organic supercomputer that calculated we had won the Vietnam war 2 years before we ran the calculations on when we could win. You'd hear them trying to convert things from MOA to MILS and back again, doing the same calculations with 3 of them getting a different number and then the real math discussion began. They would also use constants for wind that they got out of some FM from 20 years ago, for a bullet they weren't shooting at a velocity the constant was for. Calculators became a mainstay in their very neat and clean data books that consisted of new data, from a new zero, on the same gun, from everytime they had been out there before.

It would progress from there. The main thing was, none of them, ever figured out that temperature and enviromentals existed.
I’m always a fan of the guys that pull out a lead sled, usually brand new, spend 1/2 hour or more setting it up and gently pull the trigger while staying well away from the rifle, yet still manage to put on a poor showing. Good entertainment for when I’m done shooting or waiting for a chance to go down range.
Oh great here comes somebody without a brake to tell us how they used to do it.
Brakes are awesomeness and are the only way to ahoot
🖕
😁
I would sorely love such a shooting venue, however, such is not readily or even possibly available everywhere.
Almost as bad as the shooters. Usually sitting on their ass watching a gun bunny or spouting nonsense.

Or the RO who called out all the pistol guys for rapid fire and wanted us to snitch who was doing it, calling all our manhoods into question. I finally told him it was me. (I mean if you want to know who is rapid firing, why not get off your fat ass and move down here).

I had a big magnum revolver

He was not amused.

My son was laughing his ass off.

Yes living in the city SUCKS ASS for shooting. I can't get out of here fast enough.

No FMJ. No Rapid Fire (ok I'm fine with this for my own fn safety seeing some of these idiots). No steel ammo. Ammo has to pass magnet check.

My Fav was in Michigan--1 round at a time in any firearm. Holy shit was that stupid. Thank god I graduated and got the hell outta dodge.
I had the good fortune of spending 4 years as a Michigan resident, during which time I joined the only club around that had as much as 300 yards. The Fudds there required single round feeding and were shocked and amused at my use of an SKS and razzed me no end when I brought it, calling me a communist...lol. I decided to bring it every time. Even though it was not at all a precision rifle it still outshot some of the fudds at 100 yards, using just iron sights.
 
lol
The German nailed it!

Not only did @TheGerman nail it. He stated exactly why I stopped going to Manatee.
A few of the ROs there didn't help anything either.

Then there's the guy blasting his AK/SKS at the ten yard pistol target and mostly hitting the ground or going over the berm.
Same guy hands his slightly overweight, low cut, tank top wearing, muffin topped GF a semi auto pistol so she can get hit between the tits with hot brass and she shoots him in the leg. (No shit, this actually happened)
 
Not only did @TheGerman nail it. He stated exactly why I stopped going to Manatee.
A few of the ROs there didn't help anything either.

Then there's the guy blasting his AK/SKS at the ten yard pistol target and mostly hitting the ground or going over the berm.
Same guy hands his slightly overweight, low cut, tank top wearing, muffin topped GF a semi auto pistol so she can get hit between the tits with hot brass and she shoots him in the leg. (No shit, this actually happened)

Maybe we met at some point lol

You're not Mike the RO that was also a welder are you :p (please say no)