Bullets leaving range hitting houses

[338 dude]

If this information were true then Steel Challenge would not exist. I can understand those recommendations for liability purposes but people have been safely shooting steel targets with handguns at far less than 25 yards for many years.

Also, there is a difference between intentionally shooting at target which is squared up to the shooter and a system that is designed to catch/deflect errant bullets. The baffle plates at my indoor start just in front of the firing line. They are engineered to deflect the bullet fragments down range.

Also steel targets shot with pistols at a closer range are angle downward these baffles are concrete which as someone stated earlier are not the same as steel I understand that but will definitely still ricochet and do not appear to be angled at all obviously it was engineered by Someone much smarter than me I am just trying to understand I’ve been to a couple ranges that have overhead baffles and they were wood with sand or gravel inside to absorb the bullet and hold it I don’t get the concrete as for a ricochet

 

[Nick Caprinolo]

The simple solution is to create a baffle in front of the firing line that prohibits the shooter from aiming higher than the target. Another is to build a box at each bench that forces the shooter to keep there barrel from pointing higher than the target. Rifle muzzle must be inside the box at all times. It's not brain surgery!!!!!!

 

[338 dude]

The simple solution is to create a baffle in front of the firing line that prohibits the shooter from aiming higher than the target. Another is to build a box at each bench that forces the shooter to keep there barrel from pointing higher than the target. Rifle muzzle must be inside the box at all times. It's not brain surgery!!!!!!

Accidents happen I just wouldn’t want to be injured from someone else’s mistake I’m sorry if I’m not seeing something I will not ask about this subject anymore

 

[CaptainMal]

Believe the standard for space behind a range is 2 1/2 miles or more. That is over 13,000 ft. That range is NOT safe unless constructed differently.

At Manatee we have had bloody hell with the issue because of a public park behind the range. 30-40 ft. berms do not stop bullets shot up by mistake or intentionally. We put wind flags on top of side berms down range and found they got shot up. No RSO can police every shooter and see that. People, yes shooters, are irresponsible and flat out evil. Including the guy that blasted a hole through my Target Vision camera at 600 yards and way out of his direct line of fire.

Now forget evil or accidents. Let's talk about STUPID. If you shoot at 1,000 yards or 600 yards or even 300 yards you need to be sighted in for that range. You need to have your impacts around the target and surely on the berm or backstop for that range.

"What do you mean, sighted in"? I got this Creedmore and is sure is flat shooting. On at 100 yards it will hit on at 300. Then the bullet hits the ground, skips over the backstop and into the park. Try that at 600 or 1,000 yards. Skip, skip skip for shot after shot and wondering why they cannot see where they hit. STUPID.

Then there is the issue of steel targets. Nick one on top and it skips the bullet up maybe 35* or more. Well if there is a high backstop behind the target it can capture that skip. Of course some idiot places steel targets 20 yards in front of the berm or out to the side or in the middle of the range or - both idiots and skip mongers. We have had PRC and three-gun shooters shoot at cars and other objects for fun in their programs and lordy knows where they end up. Even saw police lie prone and shoot UP at targets way in front of berms. More IDIOTS even running those programs and allowing that.

Then there are those manufactured steel plate targets that flip down when you hit them. So you hit them, they flip down on impact and the bullets is deflected up and away. Especially popular on handgun ranges they need to be turned upside down so the plates flip up and deflect down.

I have mega pictures showing such stupidity and we have been successfully weeding much of this out. Lately no problems but then again ... you never know. Even supposedly educated shooters, some on this forum, are now maybe pondering why they do what they do.

 

[fyrewall]

Any thing is possible but actions to reduce the odds are worthy - I would imagine soft plowed ground in-line with targets, high target berms, bullet absorbing boxes to prevent high shots, continuous berms along each side of range to absorb wild side shots, limiting ammo to cup & lead core bullets (no penetrators). As development(s) continue to grow around ranges actual safety and the visibility of safety features are critical to prevent range closures. I have also observed bouncing bullets from target auto-wrecks, most likely 5.56 steel penetrator bullets. Smart RO supervision is also part of the program. I have seen a shooter launching a bullet up at 45* when the rickety board bench he was sitting on collapsed.

 

[Papa Charlie]

The ones in my picture are about 25yds away. No issues I’m aware of.

I thought it might be an illusion. I am sure that they work. Hitting cement and hitting a steel target are two very different things. Besides that, if they hit that it is going to bounce back onto the roof and not at the firing line.

Sorry, I didn't mean to start a debate.

 

[PRR1957]

There is a free gun range near me that is state run, but on private land owned by an aggregate company. It is only 65 yards long, but has a 45-50 foot berm as a back stop. The problem is that there is no supervision by a RO, so it is up to the shooters to be carful.

I was at that range about two years ago on a sunny warm weekend day. There was about twenty or so shooters. The problem shooters were these two twenty something kids who taking turns with an AR15 shooting at hand tossed shotgun clay birds. I saw that they were firing the rifle up at a 45* angle or more trying to hit the clays targets. I knew that there were houses about 5000 feet behind the range, so I approach these two kids and inform them that bullets could end up hitting a house or worse someone. The kid with rifle told in too “F••k O••. That is when I lost it a hollered for an emergency cease fire and very loudly so other could hear me, shouted at these two pinheads telling if they will not stop that I will call the police on them. When I said, again loudly, “That stupid acts such as this will get the range shut down”. That is when the other adult shooters joined in to berate these two stupid kids. It annoyed me that I had to call attention to this even though the other adults around these two morons were oblivious to the stupidity. I only now go to that range during the week days, and bring a friend to be an extra set of eyes in case there is another idiot doing something stupid.

 

[davidjoe]

Video recording is an unpleasant piece of the answer. Only a true nut will knowingly be recorded committing a vandalistic act. That person needs to be culled from the club ranks.

Cameras won’t lie, and they have become almost alarmingly good. Not just your arrival and departure, but your barrel’s angle, muzzle direction, guns used and probably even bullet choice would be resolvable. Members just have to understand that someone wanting to close down the range could join up - and then go make that happen. Cameras let the club protect itself and be able to exonerate careful shooters from false accusations.

 

[Drop Port]

I agree it is safe for the city all around and probably would not let a bullet get out of the range I am questioning Shooter safety it seems we have appeased the people of the city but put the shooters at much more risk

I look at it differently, they are put there due to irresponsible people. I walk past frozen poles all winter without a problem, if I see someone with their tongue stuck to one I shake my head, laugh and keep walking. You can't fix stupid.

 

[johnfred1965]

AH, all the stories that come to my mind as I read through this thread. Our club just replaced the tin roof over the shooting benches because of all the holes in the old one. A 3gun match I attended, a bullet from another squad over 500 yards away, cracked over our heads, and went right into the door of this guy's BMW (I thought he took it well, he covered it with a target paster!) One of our range neighbors called the police and met them at the range with a handful of brass, claiming our shots were landing all around his house! And finally, the two mental midgets who were trying to shoot the branches off the trees growing on top of our 300 yard backstop. I wouldn't want to deny anyone their SA rights, but there really are people that are too stupid to safely own a firearm.

 

[jimcasey01]

The range that I belong to has numerous distances for rifles, 25, 50, 75, and 100 yards at the 100 yard range. One day I ask the RSO why people shoot rifles at the 25 yard distance. His response, matter of factly was "so that they can hit what they are aiming at". For the first time, it made total sense to me.

 

[Herzo]

Video recording is an unpleasant piece of the answer. Only a true nut will knowingly be recorded committing a vandalistic act. That person needs to be culled from the club ranks.

Cameras won’t lie, and they have become almost alarmingly good. Not just your arrival and departure, but your barrel’s angle, muzzle direction, guns used and probably even bullet choice would be resolvable. Members just have to understand that someone wanting to close down the range could join up - and then go make that happen. Cameras let the club protect itself and be able to exonerate careful shooters from false accusations.

We are in the process of adding a camera system to our club. We are debating how far we want to go with it, but at a minimum, we will be using it to monitor the traffic through the gate.

 

[rwj]

... I wouldn't want to deny anyone their SA rights, but there really are people that are too stupid to safely own a firearm.

Yup, but I’ve met some really smart people that have no common sense... the outcome is often the same!

 

[davidjoe]

We are in the process of adding a camera system to our club. We are debating how far we want to go with it, but at a minimum, we will be using it to monitor the traffic through the gate.

We came close one year at our gated-only, rural club range. Not because of houses, but over things like suspected non-member key use, trespassing and range vandalism. But those are merely nuisances compared to stray shots. (We are surrounded by public hunting and farmland such that I often pass informal shooters, sometimes with AK’s, and those sometimes with no apparent targets, on the way to the range gate.)

Our other half adds perspective. There’s no funny business at urban indoor ranges, a ceiling shot could just as easily be a stall shot and they aren’t having it and are watching. Any kind of exit hole or wound means lights off for the enterprise. I saw that OP link. If those Indoor guys are wrong in an interview, it will be that bullets have far more penetration potential than they do, not less.

 

[Old Navy]

The range that I belong to has numerous distances for rifles, 25, 50, 75, and 100 yards at the 100 yard range. One day I ask the RSO why people shoot rifles at the 25 yard distance. His response, matter of factly was "so that they can hit what they are aiming at". For the first time, it made total sense to me.

It used to be the norm to zero a new rifle at 25 yards in order to be on the target at 100. Just helped a friend this week zero and AR doing that. Can't see and other reason for it though.

 

[truman]

Video recording is an unpleasant piece of the answer. Only a true nut will knowingly be recorded committing a vandalistic act. That person needs to be culled from the club ranks.

Cameras won’t lie, and they have become almost alarmingly good. Not just your arrival and departure, but your barrel’s angle, muzzle direction, guns used and probably even bullet choice would be resolvable. Members just have to understand that someone wanting to close down the range could join up - and then go make that happen. Cameras let the club protect itself and be able to exonerate careful shooters from false accusations.

 

[BountyHunter]

Lot of misinformation here about bullets magically stopping after hitting the ground or going in a straight line after hitting the ground or that barrels have to be radically angled for bullets to do strange things. the Army did some doppler radar studies in 90s with their ranges and found that bullets are a lot like a fireworks fountain. They continue forward after hitting the ground, they go up, they go left and right and they come back. All way more that ever thought. This caused them to add bat wings to their new ranges to help contain ricochets and change range surface zones on existing ranges as much as possible. I have seen 308 bullets come back over the firing line, go 300 yards and thru the side of a building. We found them on the warehouse floor. The nearest target was 250 meters forward of the firing line. No rocks or metal was found on the range to cause that.

In 1987 5 guys were firing an AK 47 (7.62x 39) near Charlotte NC in a clay pit. Bullets left the pit back over the shooters and almost a mile diagonally and killed a girl.

Interesting study done in 2007 by PA legislature that showed plastic tipped sabots from muzzle loaders and shotguns skip much further than the 150 SP in a 30-06. BTW, standard military range skip distance for 223 is 3100 meters (almost 2 miles), 308 is 5300 meters is 3.3 miles. That is not radical angles up as many suppose, that is normally firing and just skip. Baffles and lots of surrounding land are the only ways to protect ranges along with stringent range safety guidelines and zero tolerance for idiots. Berms are easily skipped and shot over, and it is just naive to think they provide adequate protection from liability. IMO this place is an accident wa sitting to happen.

 

[seymour fish]

From the link.

"The president of Lake Bailee, Jesse Vonstein, says those bullets aren’t from his range. He says they're from people hunting on the land between the range and Gephart Road."

Hunting season doesn't normally last all year. Simple to correlate the time of the bullet hits and whether or not there was anything lawfully huntable with centerfire rifles on the land when said bullet hits occurred.

Also when hunting there's not much reason to shoot at more than a couple of degrees of elevation.

Consider “?

 

[jepp2]

We are in the process of adding a camera system to our club. We are debating how far we want to go with it, but at a minimum, we will be using it to monitor the traffic through the gate.

Our club has a card key system. Everytime you enter, they know who and when they entered the range. Also video monitors at key locations.

 

[DRNewcomb]

Our club has a card key system. Everytime you enter, they know who and when they entered the range. Also video monitors at key locations.

The range where I'm an RSO has a similar setup. Individual photo key cards. Member's entry and exit is recorded. Surveillance cameras at most ranges. We still have some abuse issues that could only be solved by having an RSO on site whenever the range is open.
I looked at the range that's the subject of this thread on Google Maps. I wouldn't touch it with a 10' pole.