daveshrews
NES Member
Oh gotcha. Damn, didn't realize this was connected to that.
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Massachusetts Rifle Association - Woburn, MA
- Thread starter PMD
- Start date
Thanks. I signed up for it when it first came out, but it must be going to my spam folder because I’ve never seen an email from them.
So, basically I’m not shooting until next year or whenever the project finishes. It’s been going on for quite a while now. I’m not sure I buy it finishing up by November 5th.
Ranges: Pope, Summa and Mclaughlin Ranges
Monday 10/23 - closed 12pm to end of day
Tuesday 10/24 - closed all day
Wednesday 10/25 - closed all day
Thursday 10/26 - closed all day
Friday 10/27 - closed all day
Saturday 10/28 - Open
Sunday 10/29 - Open
Monday 10/30 - closed 12pm to end of day
Tuesday 10/31 - closed all day
Wednesday 11/1 - closed all day
Thursday 11/2 - closed all day
Friday 11/3 - closed all day
Saturday 11/4 - Open
Sunday11/5 - Open
Well, now you’re going to get an average of 2 emails a day from them. I used to hate that, but it does help when you feel like a short outdoor shoot and then remember the emails about that cleanup or some shooting event or class, so I shouldn’t complain.
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2005
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Why not just post closures on the club website?
SKumar
NES Member
LOL That's asking for too much
I showed up to the outdoor range, set everything up, finger on the trigger, then all of a sudden a group of guys show up and say "range is closed for board member shoot only". It wasn't on the website calendar, which I check regularly. They say I had to sign up for "e-blast" to get that notification. I kindly let admin know about this frustration.
MRA is a good place to shoot at a convenient location, but you have to put up with archaic BS once in a while.
daveshrews
NES Member
They, literally are posted on the website. Right there on the calendar.
I’ll have to keep an eye on the calendar to find out when every single weekday is no longer closed.
dcmdon
NES Member
I arrived at MRA this morning to find the outdoor ranges closed.
Shame on me. It was clearly conveyed in the email blast. I should have checked.
Instead I practiced some offhand .22 rifle on the 2nd floor. Good fun anyway.
Shame on me. It was clearly conveyed in the email blast. I should have checked.
Instead I practiced some offhand .22 rifle on the 2nd floor. Good fun anyway.
Hydrocarbonate
NES Member
- Joined
- Mar 19, 2022
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Place is great,
I wish we could get steel targets some day. Feels like there’s enough infrastructure for it and wonder why it’s not done.
Love the ding sound of ringing steel.
I wish we could get steel targets some day. Feels like there’s enough infrastructure for it and wonder why it’s not done.
Love the ding sound of ringing steel.
What the fork is a "board member shoot only"? The board are not owners, they're members just like everyone else. That kind of "we're special people" shit is infuriating.
Yea, I get that the board does a lot of work for the club, that's awesome. But it's a volunteer position, it's not supposed to be a paid position, or have perks that take away from members' use of the club.
If someone needs to have special perks like that to make being a board member worthwhile, they probably shouldn't be a board member.
SKumar
NES Member
Trust me man, I was livid. Some even had a smirk on their face as I packed my shit up. After letting Ed know about the situation, I don't think they're doing that again. For the amount of membership money they receive, the least they can do is update their website. They're certainly quick at taking your money with their new online payment system.
dcmdon
NES Member
I used to rail against the restrictions at MRA. In fact they once tried to suspend me for drawing from a holster when there wasn't actually any prohibition against it.
The law said "No fast draw", going back to the terminology from the 60s , which was the last time the rules had been updated.
I instructed the board member who said I had been caught doing something wrong to go read the rule and watch the video of me.
He called me back and said. "OK Slow draw, you are clean". He saw that I was very slowly going through the motions of drawing and firing a shot in order to build muscle memory.
He then told me that "We've come up with a much worse punishment for you. Since you are so good at parsing the rules, we would like you to be on the new Range Rule rewrite committee.
With that I was now part of the group that was revamping range rules. As someone who is careful and safe and also competed in nearly all shooting disciplines (not very well. but I was there) I never imagined the level of stupidity and incompetence that I learned that the club has to deal with while serving on the range rules committee.
I heard stories that would make your head spin. For example. The outdoor pistol range prohibits pistol caliber carbines. That seems stupid. I can shoot my 500 S&W magnum out there, with as much energy as a 30-06. But I can't shoot a 9mm carbine?? Idiocy . . . i though. I was wrong.
Then a member told me about a person who was shooting their 9mm AR on the pistol range and another new member, seeing this, decided it was ok to go get teir .223 AR. He was caught and stopped before he started shooting. But this is the kind of idiocy that MRA must deal with.
Which leads me to the biggest threat to MRA. The threat is that a round gets off the property and lands somewhere it shouldn't be. Pull up a google map of MRA. Go to satellite view and look at what is beyond the backstops. Lets just say its a bit built up.
Every "idiotic" rule that MRA has is designed to minimize the chance that a round ever gets off of the property. It simply can't happen.
Steel targets present an infinitesimally small ricochet hazard. It could be done wit 100% safety with low powered handgun rounds like 9mm and rimfire rounds like .22 LR. But then they would have to worry about and police what people shot at the steel with. Its just not worth it.
Its doubly not worth it when you have clubs like Woburn Sportsmen and Harvard Sportsmen down the road in far less urban areas where you can do this kind of thng and their dues are only about $160/yr.
So I look at it this way. MRA is my slow fire pistol and rifle club. Its where I engage in the "gentile" shooting sports.
Harvard Sportsmen is where I play draw from a holster run and gun and shoot steel types of games. At HSC I can shoot a machine gun at 100 yards. Or I can square up with a sub machine gun against 30 pieces of static steel at 20 ft. Its a Disney land for that kind of shooting. MRA - given its location in a very urban environment is best considered to be a place where you shoot paper slowly. That is what's best for the club and its members, if its going to be allowed to exist into the future.
Hydrocarbonate
NES Member
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To clarify,
I meant steel indoors. Boston rifle and gun has steel but noting it’s only piston calibre and their whole setup is even smaller than MRA.
dcmdon
NES Member
Got it. That's interesting. Steel that's angled down would be a lot of fun and not present any risk to others who may be on the range and turned away from down range.
I was at a steel match where a spectator was wearing proper eyewear but she was turned probably 100 deg away from down range. The bullet fragment went behind her glass lens and bounced into her eye. Her blink reflex was fast enough so all she ended up with was a scratch on her eye lid. So the problem is that if you are shooting steel, you need everyone to really be facing forward.
I'm nit picking. But I'd rather see it on the out door range because it's never crowded compared to the indoor range which is always crowded.
WSA does not allow PCCs on any range other than the 50/100/200 yard highpower range.
Same argument: someone might confuse a 9mm AR with a 5.56 AR (but .22 ARs are fine?).
dcmdon
NES Member
Yes. Same ridiculousness at MRA. .22 ARs are fine. I wasn't going to argue to try to prohibit .22s since they were already allowed on the outside handgun range.
Harvard Sportsmen is really the Disneyland of guns. I've got 1 foot in NH, probably finaliizing the move this summer and I will maintain my membership at HSC just because it's such an awesome place.
Plenty of places to shoot a MG, plenty of long range (for the northeast) plenty of 3 sided pits, plenty of steel, both moving and static.
The only ding against HSC is you can't shoot a .22 more than 100 yards. Which is stupid.
Wat? That's.... bizarre. What's the fear that caused that rule?
dcmdon
NES Member
I apologize, I am dictating this because my carpal tunnel is killing me. The rationale is that a 22 round that goes over the 200 yard backstop could be on such a steep declining pass that it could hit someone near the 60 yard backstop.
I've done the math using JBM ballistics, it is absurd given the height of the 200 yard backstop, a round wood sail completely over the 60 yard range even fired from a 22 using standard velocity ammunition
OK, I can see how they got to that rule. That makes it slightly less retarded. But it's still idiotic.
dcmdon
NES Member
Yes. Its dumb, but I suppose you could come up with something, like a CB Cap that could be weak enough to clear the 200 yard berm and still impact inside the 60 yard range.
But if there is one thing I learned being on the Range Rules Committee at Mass Rifle it was that you need to assume people will do the dumbest possible thing. And if you assume that, and the consequences are someone getting shot. It actually doesn't seem so dumb anymore.
It could be done safely with something as weak as a standard velocity .22.
But if someone shoots over the 200 yard berm with something like a CCI .22 short with a 29 gr bullet moving at 700 fps, then things become much more dangerous.
But if there is one thing I learned being on the Range Rules Committee at Mass Rifle it was that you need to assume people will do the dumbest possible thing. And if you assume that, and the consequences are someone getting shot. It actually doesn't seem so dumb anymore.
It could be done safely with something as weak as a standard velocity .22.
But if someone shoots over the 200 yard berm with something like a CCI .22 short with a 29 gr bullet moving at 700 fps, then things become much more dangerous.
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dcmdon
NES Member
I just ran some basic ballistic stuff.
If a CCI SV clears the 200 yard berm, it will drop 45 inches by 300 yards.
So this is safe since the 200 yard berm is more than 15 ft tall if it drops 4 ft, its still 16 ft off the ground at 300 yards.
If a CCI 22 SHORT clears the 200 yard berm, it will drop 171 (!!!!) inches (14.25 ft) by 300 yards.
If we assume a 15 foot high berm, then the bullet is going to coming in at a hight that could hit someone when you are near the base of the 60 yard berm.
As I've worked through this. I have changed my mind. I agree with this rule now. Ha.
If a CCI SV clears the 200 yard berm, it will drop 45 inches by 300 yards.
So this is safe since the 200 yard berm is more than 15 ft tall if it drops 4 ft, its still 16 ft off the ground at 300 yards.
If a CCI 22 SHORT clears the 200 yard berm, it will drop 171 (!!!!) inches (14.25 ft) by 300 yards.
If we assume a 15 foot high berm, then the bullet is going to coming in at a hight that could hit someone when you are near the base of the 60 yard berm.
As I've worked through this. I have changed my mind. I agree with this rule now. Ha.
dcmdon
NES Member
I was just out at Harvard and the view of the 200 yard backstop through my FFP scope was 50 mils. Doing some back of the napkin math and I get a backstop of 30 ft high.
Twice as high as my estimate in my post from Thursday.
So based on this, even if you lob a .22 Short over the backstop, it will strike the 60 yard backstop 15 ft up. So no risk to shooters at the 60 yard.
Twice as high as my estimate in my post from Thursday.
So based on this, even if you lob a .22 Short over the backstop, it will strike the 60 yard backstop 15 ft up. So no risk to shooters at the 60 yard.
Some of these volunteers put in a lot of hours. What’s wrong with a director’s shoot once a year?
I mean the ranges have events all the time. I think the board deserves it. It’s not like the whole club is shut down.
I bet it was on the website calender too
It posted on the calender located on the website.
SKumar
NES Member
Again, it wasn't and they admitted it.
Also, nobody is saying that volunteers deserve nothing, but as a paying member, I have a right to use the facilities just as much as anyone else.
Yes, us paying members have equal rights to use the range. Thats what we pay our dues for. But MRA closes a range for events all the time.
They do safety classes once a month and the loeb is closed for that. They do women’s day and close the whole club for a day. They have matches you have to sign up for and theirs is limit on participants and ranges are closed for that.
Why would one a year for a few hours to let the volunteers hold a match be an issue.
Nothing. It's excluding other people from the range that's wrong.
Board members are not special members with special privileges.
You're missing the point. Are you doing it deliberately?
Ranges have events, sure. Those events close down the range they're using. Also fine.
The difference is that ANY MEMBER can sign up to those events. You don't have to be special people to participate. Sometimes you have to sign up at the beginning of the season, but you can do it. It's for everyone.
"board only" events give special privileges to a select group of people. Even that isn't so super terrible, except that it's the board giving themselves those special privileges.
Volunteer work is volunteer work, it's not a job; it's not transactional. The extra duties and authority for board members (and any other activity chair or official position) are spelled out in the bylaws.
I do a ton of volunteer work for another club, and what I get for it is: I don't pay dues.
What being on the board or an activity chair or a dedicated volunteer *does* get you is more access to people who can make decisions about policy. If you want to run a new event, you are more likely to be taken seriously by those who can make decisions.
Except it wasn't. But even if it were posted, it's not OK, because board members are not special people.
Because a safety class is open to anyone who signs up for it, not just special people.
Because a ladies day or open house bring new members into the club, and are good for the entire club.
Because any of those league matches are open to anyone who is in the league, and anyone can be in the league.
The Board can hold a match open open to only the board, but it's not OK to close the range while they're doing it.
Just like I can hold a match at MRA anytime I want, open only to people I choose, so long as I obey all the club rules.
Board members are not our betters, they're not special people.
I've never heard of any "Board Member Only" events at MRA. Are you sure you have the right club thread? If so, are you sure they were board members? Something seems off here.
Massachusetts Rifle Association - Woburn, MA
No. This is for the EPA. Blame WR Grace for dumping trichloroethylene (TCE) and perchloroethylene (PCE) into the Aberjona River. Oh gotcha. Damn, didn't realize this was connected to that.
www.northeastshooters.com
Not buying it.Massachusetts Rifle Association - Woburn, MA
No. This is for the EPA. Blame WR Grace for dumping trichloroethylene (TCE) and perchloroethylene (PCE) into the Aberjona River. Oh gotcha. Damn, didn't realize this was connected to that.
