.50 cal bans at private clubs

[Ddeloge75]

New to shooting anything bigger than .30, i was surprised to find my local club is planning to ban .50s on their 600y range set to open this summer. Are there many clubs doing the same Fienstien type move?
Is there anyone in this organization from the NE area willing to address our BoD @ PF&G in Pelham NH?

 

[wapiti25]

it has to do with back stop damage and they destroy steel plates.

 

[CJ6]

it has to do with back stop damage and they destroy steel plates.

+1

 

[johnu]

Aside from the aforementioned reasons, those bullets go a looooong way if the berm doesn't catch them.

 

[VaniB]

I don't consider this an anti-gun move myself. It's just a matter of clubs realizing the brute force and range of a round that was primarilly used for taking down enemy aircraft during WW2.

 

[fdshuster]

Prohibated at one of my shorter distance clubs also. The NRA came in and inspected the range and advised that they be prohibated. Just too many houses, businesses and people nearby. Nothing anti-gun about it. It's all about safety.

If a 50 cal. bullet were to leave the club property, as they have at a few other local clubs, it would spell the end of the club.

 

[stool]

i consider it anti gun , and told my board so when they started banning stuff at our club....
where do they stop in the name of "safety"...some 22 rim fires will go out to a mile....

it the same game divide and conquer....
if it is a damage issue, limit what they can shoot at, not what they can shoot.

 

[JRS]

Use your head stool : there is nothing anti-gun about safety.

 

[LHSmith]

Use your head stool : there is nothing anti-gun about safety.

+1............get ONE (1) incident where someones house was penetrated by a stray bullet which just happens to line up with your ranges direction of fire.....and your club got major problems.

 

[dkhunt14]

Some of the bullets being used by 50 calibers don't deform much and fly a long ways from impact point. Most other bullets deform and lose energy quickly and don't fly straight after deformation. Matt

 

[dan06]

I am not a .50cal shooter. I don't know why I want to get into this discussion? I would like to say that in the last 40 or so years that I have never heard of an accident caused by a 50bmg round being fired out of a range. First of all I don't think there are any firearms or calibers that are inherently dangerous. There are club members that are dangerous. We need to approach safety by keeping the members operating in a safe manner not banning equipment. It gets to be a slippery slope once this starts and give the anti's ammo to use against all the ranges. If you would ban one round that when fired out of the range that would be dangerous why wouldn't you ban all rounds that if fired out of the range would also be dangerous? There are very few ranges in the US that it would be safe to shoot a shot up in the air or in any direction with any high powered rifle. We need to stand together and not isolate the shooters that are in the minority. Most of you long range shooters have equipment that would be dangerous with a wild shot up to or more than 2 miles. Get a map and draw a circle around your range most will see that there is some buildings, roads, schools, malls, and such inside of that circle. So using the same logic we could talk about banning all ammo with a velocity of more than 1500 fps and a BC. of over .100. The sad thing is that there would be a bunch of trap, skeet and hand gun shooters that would support a ban like that. My real point is that we all need to stand together or all will be lost. Ban the individual club member that is unsafe not that club member's rifle and everyone on and off the range will be safer.

 

[people]

The range I used to shoot at banned all rounds based on the 50bmg. NRA said they should not allow them or full autos so there are none.

I have never heard of your range so I do not know but there are tones of idiots out there who will do stupid things. Like shooting 30cal ap at steel to see what it will do.

Sad fact is almost all 50 owners would not do anything to loose a range to shoot their 50cal.

 

[stool]

just how far do you thin a 30'06 round bullet or a 300 win mag bullet will fly ? how big is your range.
it is banning gun under the guies of saftey....

Use your head stool : there is nothing anti-gun about safety.

 

[stool]

with a 30'06 or a 300 win mag or ??

Use your head stool : there is nothing anti-gun about safety.

+1............get ONE (1) incident where someones house was penetrated by a stray bullet which just happens to line up with your ranges direction of fire.....and your club got major problems.

 

[people]

Even a 308win can get you in trouble.

http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/2013/09/understanding-how-rifle-angle-alters-long-range-trajectories/

 

[Gina1]

I am am RSO and a board member for our local range. We have one 200 yard range that could handle 50 BMG's. The back stop is carved into a very large sand hill, and is a good 30 feet vertical, with 10 ft berms on ether side. Last year we opened it up to 50 BMG's. It took less than a week for some idiot to shoot up the range distance signs, and other support range indicators. For that reason 50 BMG's are now banned.
Since all our RSO's are volunteers, there are times when there may not be an RSO at the range, this was one of them.

 

[dan06]

I'm the president of a local club that doesn't have a RO available all the time the range is open. Our range stuff gets shot up on purpose quite often. ( I hate that) On our range I don't know of one time when stuff was distroyed by .50 BMG rounds. (probably hasn't been 20-50bmg rounds fired on this range for the last 10 years) Maybe next meeting someone should make a motion to ban all the other cals including shot guns because they have been used to dammage club property in my opinion more than anything else. Slobs are Slobs it doesn't make any difference what they bring to the range.

 

[effendude]

We faced this issue at our club here in the metro area of MN a few years ago. Here is what played out: We were getting complaints from members shooting at our covered 25-50 and 100 yard bench rest ranges. Fairly often, guys with .50BMG rifles would plunk down next to other shooters and start shooting without the courtesy of a warning of the muzzle blast, etc. It was a great way to clear the range.... There was a strong group who wanted the .50's gone. I don't own a .50BMG nor do I ever think I will, but I understand the slippery slope argument. Some of us fought hard to defend use of the .50's despite the morons who caused the issues.

We did sound experiments and found that once someone was a short distance away, the .50 wasn't any louder than any other rifle. The rifles all sounded the same along the perimeter of the property. Penetration tests into barrels of compacted berm sand proved that the FMJ 750 grain .50 didn't penetrate any farther than a FMJ 147 grain .308 Win. round, actually a little less sonmetimes. Penetration was less than 24" with both rounds. We didn't have any AP ammo to try. Comments about backers being destroyed were shot down when backer samples proved slugs were far more damaging. The true issue was mainly consideration to other shooters once we did the experiments and presented the facts.

Our solution ultimately was that the .50BMG could be shot only by members, only on our KD range, only with some additional training. Our KD berm is over 80 feet tall and is actually a hill so overpenetration wasn't a concern. We created some special backers for the .50 guys to shoot at as to not destroy our competition backers. It seemed that the common sense test wasn't given as part of the .50BMG purchase to some of the buyers. After all the dust settled, we learned we had less than 10 .50BMG shooters in a club of 700 members. Simple economics prevents the .50BMG from being a popular round.

I am glad we defended and protected the use of the cartridge. We wouldn't have noticed 10 less members but if the .50 went away, would my cartridge be next? I have several other large bore rifles for hunting. Where would it end?

Scott

 

[dkhunt14]

I am not against 50 cal. We even hunt with a few. On our range there was a hunting camp down range about a mile. The person was outside when a bullet landed in the yard. They found the bullet and brought it to the club. It was a fifty cal. solid turned bullet. The bullet skipped off our back bank at 1050 yards and went another mile down the road. Now if they weren't outside they probably wouldn't noticed it. But they were and found the bullet and brought it to the club. That bullet had almost no damage, the point was a little deformed. Other bullets when they hit the bank they open up and shed a lot of energy. Most times the lead leaves the jacket and they just lay there. Our board decided you could not shoot a 50 anymore. We could not take the chance on an accident.

 

[queen_stick]

The local club I belong to banned 50bmg's because the neighbors complained about noise. There are houses lining the sides of the range. I think the only reason the range still exists is because it was there first. 'They' made the choice to build a house on top of the range

Dkhunt, I think I know who you're talking about. I wasn't aware of that incident.