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Just making noise

7K views 68 replies 48 participants last post by  buck460XVR 
#1 · (Edited)
Earlier this week I ventured back into the woods to test-fire a couple of pistols I have. When I arrived at the parking area leading to the shooting spot I could hear somebody rapid-firing a rifle. I didn't think too much of it as I grabbed my portable steel target and my pack containing my gear. There was more rapid-fire shooting as I walked to the shooting pit, where I found three guys with a whole lineup of ARs and AKs laid out on a portable table with stacks of high-cap mags. There was more than one spot to shoot so I chose the area not in use. I passed the other guys and we greeted each other with pleasantries, and I proceeded to set up and do my shooting.

As I was doing so the guys with the rifles continued pouring out a constant volume of fire, and I was amazed that they somehow managed to acquire so much ammo during this pandemic that they could afford to do one mag dump after another. By contrast I didn't do any more shooting than necessary to satisfy myself that my guns were working fine, as I'm trying to conserve what ammo I have until the supply situation improves. Therefore it wasn't long before I was done shooting, and as I packed up and began to walk out I just happened to glance over at whatever targets those guys were shooting at.

There weren't any.

Those dudes blew close to a thousand rounds of ammo during the short time I was there, literally shooting at nothing but the hillside a couple hundred feet away. Aside from a piece of trash here or there they had nothing to aim at. They seemed like nice ordinary guys and they had a lot of pretty well dressed-up rifles, but... what on Earth??? All those nice guns, all that ammo, and all they came there for was to play Rambo for an hour. Granted it was their right, their guns, their ammo and their money to waste, and so forth. But when I see YouTube videos where guys are mag-dumping rifles at IPSC targets 7 yards in front of them, where I usually laugh at them, I have to admit that at least they're shooting at something!

Anyway, no offense meant to you guys whoever you were, and BTW nice collection you have. But please, get yourselves a portable target, or at least a case of cheap soda and some milk jugs, and actually use that trigger time to work on your skills. Become riflemen, not just men with rifles.
 
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#6 ·
A LONG time ago, when I was younger, I enjoyed "dumping ammo" at the hillside (or trees, or at the garbage dump - yes it was called garbage dump before being called land fill). But, that was a LONG time ago when I was young....
 
#8 ·
... or at least a case of cheap soda and some milk jugs, and actually use that trigger time to work on your skills. Become riflemen, not just men with rifles.
That sort should never be advised to take soda or water: they'd be the same ones that leave all the crap all over the landscape and cost us all another spot to shoot.
 
#9 · (Edited)
I suppose some people just want to literally "have a blast".

Still, same as you, I'd be scratching my head over it all.

---

Probably not a concern in this specific instance (i.e., they appeared to be shooting at a hill), but one of the basics of firearms safety is to know your target and what's behind it. With those rifles, the fired rounds could travel a considerable distance. Not being critical, because I wasn't there, don't know the surroundings, didn't ask them, etc. But one should have some idea of what they're shooting at, and all the more so with longer-range equipment.
 
#12 ·
They were probably making youtube videos, with the camera directly to the right of the rifle being fired. Turning money into noise seems to appeal to a certain segment...I am more impressed when I can see both the shooter, and the affect on the target in such videos.

A target with reasonable significance might be an 8 x 12" steel plate. Speed and distance may be exchanged, such that you could expect to shoot faster at near targets. If you are shooting so fast that more than half your rounds miss, slow down until your hit rate approaches 100%. Then speed up again until you start to miss a few. Practice until you do better at both speed and distance. Or, can hit smaller targets reliably at the same speed and distance.
 
#17 ·
Give me a semi auto 22lr with 25 round mags and I become Rambo. :rock:

I get what DSK is saying that it seems pointless. It's like Seinfeld "it's a show about nothing"

But hey I don't judge. As long as they were being safe and cleaned up their mess. Bless their little hearts.
 
#19 ·
Sometimes a gun is a tool.
Sometimes it's art, or sports equipment, or a toy, or an investment / keepsake.

A gun is whatever you, as the owner, decide it is.

With those guys I might be a bit annoyed at the continuous racket, but otherwise, if they want to use their guns as blasting toys, fine by me.
 
#20 ·
Well advised. But my take. People are scared. They want to know that their hardware works. Especially if they are not experienced shooters.

On the other hand, they may just have wanted to do the "Predator" scene.

Just an old guy view.
 
#49 ·
You sparked a long ago memory, circa 1960. My dad took me out to a gravel pit to shoot my brand new J C Higgins bolt action .22. We took turns shooting at some of those 3” tall molded plastic toy soldiers that we set up on a log. When we went forward to check how we did, only one of them Had been hit and the bullet took the head off. I was proud of that shot until my dad said, “What makes you think you hit it”? He was in the Army and was at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked. He spent the next 3+ years island hopping until the re-taking of the Philippines. Odds are the hit was his.
 
#25 · (Edited)
I love the smell of napalm in the morning.
It just brightens my day.
But when I'm out or the supply is low,
then lotsa gun powder is the way to go.

Early Willie Nelson tune? :biglaugh:

Decades ago on July 4th, I took pounds of powder, poured it in the middle of the street and lit it up.
Next morning a Cop rolls by, looks at the large USA burnt in the roadway and shakes his head.
All I said was, " you all thought it was fun last night". :rock:
 
#26 ·
It might have appeared as though they were just making noise but if it was only a
couple of hundred feet away they could easily see little rocks and dirt clods to shoot at.
And maybe not. I have seen people at the range that are just making noise but they never burn up much ammo.
 
#32 ·
It might have appeared as though they were just making noise but if it was only a
couple of hundred feet away they could easily see little rocks and dirt clods to shoot at.
Guessing this ^ I do it all the time at the outdoor ranges and desert shooting, everything is a target. Ill set up a 15-25 yard target for handgun and also be blasting the burm at 100 to 200yds.
Defiantly use a target to zero a rifle though.
 
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