ten rounds

[CRSIII]

Does anyone belong to a club that imposes a limit on how many rounds you can put in your mag at one time? I found out today, that at my club (Hamilton rod and gun), that there is such a limit. Right after emptying a 30 rounder, the range master shows me the rule in print, no more than 10 rounds. I damn near puked! Evidently its been in place about 2 years. He wasn't sure about the pistol range. And no 50bmg either. WTF, it makes no sense to me, somthing about offending the neighbors? Any thoughts on this?
CRSIII

 

[dwarven1]

Time to find another club...

 

[garyz]

holbrook

the holbrook club used to impose a 5 round rule for the indoor pistol ranges, which was just lifted earlier this yr.

garyz

 

[Lugnut]

One of mine has a 5 round limit indoors.... I guess they worry about a gun going full auto.

 

[Admin]

Time to find another club...

+1

 

[MikeD]

Is the 1 round rule still in effect at MRA? IIRC, the outdoor 100 and 200 yd ranges were limited to 1 round in the rifle.

 

[jhrosier]

.... Any thoughts on this?
CRSIII

It's only a few miles from Hamilton to either Holland or Warren.
Quaboag Sportsmans Club in Warren is $25yr, ranges to 200yds and no restrictions.
Full auto is still allowed.
The firing line is covered and can accomodate a couple dozen shooters at a time but I don't recall seeing more than 6-8 when I go on the weekends.
No organized shooting is currently scheduled, except skeet, so the ranges are available except 2 or 3 days a year.

 

[rscalzo]

Unfortunately noise is becoming an issue up here. One local club was shut down in recent times because of the noise complaints by neighbors. Even with state laws covering the club, apparently there were a few problems with permits from many years back. To date they have spent over two hundred thousand in legal fees.

We fortunately have rational neighbors and have a terrific relationship with the town. We adhere to the time restrictions of shooting without fail. Any member who violates the rule gets dealt with quickly. It doesn't take many to screw it up for everyone. We allow 50BMG but as far as I know, only one member has actually shot one on the range.

 

[EddieCoyle]

Come to my club. There are no limits on anything. Capacity, caliber, or rate of fire.

 

[LoginName]

Is the 1 round rule still in effect at MRA? IIRC, the outdoor 100 and 200 yd ranges were limited to 1 round in the rifle.

Yep, and it's handguns 10 round max, rifles 5 round max, shotguns 3 round max on the McLaughlin Range 50 yard range.

 

[Finalygotabeltfed]

One of mine has a 5 round limit indoors.... I guess they worry about a gun going full auto.

Ya, theres a better chance of being struck by lightning...and they know it.

The people who dream up such rules should be run out of these clubs on a rail.

 

[BillO]

Woburn Sportsmens Club also has a ten round limit.

 

[Bandit]

Time to find another club...

I hope You haven't Paid Your 2007 Dues Yet ?

 

[boomerang]

I've had a gun go full auto.

At MRA a few of the target carrier cords in the loeb get shot off every single week. Those cords get replaced all the time.

I think it's a good rule because of the people that can't/won't aim.

An extra magazine or a girlie loader can help.

 

[daceman63]

Maynard......

...is 5

 

[M1911]

The people who dream up such rules should be run out of these clubs on a rail.

Have you been in a club's leadership? If not, I suggest that you volunteer. Most clubs are desperate for members to step up and help out.

When you do, you might find out some of the reasons behind some of the rules. You may or may not agree with the rules, but I think that quite often you'll find there is logic and experience behind the rules.

 

[highlander]

no such rules at Cape Ann in Gloucester that I know of indoor OR outdoor. The only thing that's a no no is full auto. 50 BMG is ok know of 2 that shoot them here both are bolt action.

 

[C-pher]

I know that a lot of clubs frown on the .50 BMG because it does a number on the back stop.

I'm sure that someone can clairify. But I was under the understanding that the reason that Hanson didn't have any .50's at this years MG Shoot was because they didn't get the repairs done to the berm from the .50's the year before.

 

[daceman63]

Maynard.....

....and no rapid fire unless in an NRA match or practicing for one...

Neighbor relations you know.....no shooting before 10am and none after dusk outside and none after 9pm inside.

 

[hminsky]

Is the 1 round rule still in effect at MRA? IIRC, the outdoor 100 and 200 yd ranges were limited to 1 round in the rifle.

I think that MRA, being located right behind route 128, in a very densely built area, is understandably worried about any slip up, no matter how small. One rifle round fired out of the range would be likely to close them down forever.

 

[M1911]

One rifle round fired out of the range would be likely to close them down forever.

It doesn't have to be a rifle round -- a pistol round would do it. IIRC, the ranges at Camp Curtis Guild in Reading are still closed after a 9mm round from an MP5 escaped the range and hit a house.

All it takes is a single round to escape the range and chances are good that a club would be shut down FOREVER.

Is it any surprise, therefore, that some clubs have restrictive rules?

 

[Cledus J. Crabb]

Old Colony recently went from 1 to 5 rounds in a rifle.
No firing before 10am

 

[drgrant]

It doesn't have to be a rifle round -- a pistol round would do it. IIRC, the ranges at Camp Curtis Guild in Reading are still closed after a 9mm round from an MP5 escaped the range and hit a house.

All it takes is a single round to escape the range and chances are good that a club would be shut down FOREVER.

Is it any surprise, therefore, that some clubs have restrictive rules?

It depends on the rationale. IMO the only thing that will prevent these
incidents is vigilance by the members and officers. A guy that doesnt
know what hes doing can still fire ONE round offrange. I can perhaps
understand the rationale behind 1 round, because if the gun malfunctions or
the the shooter makes the gun double somehow, the subsequent rounds
may not go where desired- but most of this "5 round" and "10 round" stuff
seems pretty arbitrary. Did they conduct some sort of a test that
said "If the moron only fires 5 rounds offrange at once, he has a 65%
less chance of hitting a house."

Further, some clubs have these rules as a matter of jackassery and
not really safety.

EX: A friend of mine from CA... after firing his P226 rapidly at an
indoor range.

Range Nazi: Yew boooyz is rapid firin! Don't do that!
Him: Why can't I do that? All 10 rounds though hit inside the target.
See, theres 10 holes there.
Range Nazi: I don't care. nooo rapit firin! ya hear?

Him: Ok. (Then he proceeds to start shooting his next target at precisely
the minimum interval specified (in a rythmic tempo)
which irritates the nazi more, but at this point he realizes
he can't tell my friend to not do that, because he -IS- following
the rules, to the letter. )


I'm all for safety(and long term survivability of a club!) but sometimes
these rules end up being nothing more than pure jackassery.
The problem with these rules is they're often geared to "deal" with
the lowest common denominator, and by virtue of that, they also
end up punishing the people who are not likely to cause the club issues,
either.

-Mike

 

[Pilgrim]

My club has limits.

When shooting at pumpkins, the limit is 10,000 rounds in any given hour !

We only reached about 6,000 this year so they'll credit us with the remainder for next year !

BTW, some neighbors wanted to know "What the Hell was going on down there?" No complaints, just curiosity.

 

[dwarven1]

At Riverside in Hudson, we can't shoot outdoors before 9 AM - don't want to wake the neighbors. Fortunately, I don't believe that there's any restrictions on rapid fire.

 

[adweisbe]

I've had a gun go full auto.

At MRA a few of the target carrier cords in the loeb get shot off every single week. Those cords get replaced all the time.

I think it's a good rule because of the people that can't/won't aim.

An extra magazine or a girlie loader can help.

Ricochet from steel targets also cuts them.

 

[M1911]

drgrant:

The issue with rapid fire is, as you said, keeping them all in the target. The problem is, what if people aren't keeping them all in the target, as happened in my club? The baffles on the ceiling started to get shot up. Quite often there is no one on the range but the shooter. So how do you police it?

In the situation that you described, suppose there were several holes already on the target. Now how would the range officer have known whether all rounds hit the target or not? He wouldn't have, would he?

I don't like the no-rapid-fire rule myself. But given the limitations of our range, it was the best thing we could come up with.

I really do wish that all of you folks who are so quick to criticize would join the leadership of your clubs. Come help as we spend hours and hours of our time wrestling with these issues. Since all of you so clearly know better than we do , come join the leadership and show us the ONE TRUE WAY...

 

[Lugnut]

M1911- good points. Would it make sense to have certain members "qualified" to have more than 5, 10 whatever in the gun at a time?

My clubs don't allow drawing from the holster either- I'm quite sure why they don't allow that. However as a person that is active in competitive action shooting as you are, I'd like to be able to do this at the range as well. Is there anyway around the liability issue? Do you think any kind of qualification steps would suffice for a club? At one of the clubs I'm a RSO and I have no "extra" priveledges...

 

[drgrant]

drgrant:

The issue with rapid fire is, as you said, keeping them all in the target. The problem is, what if people aren't keeping them all in the target, as happened in my club? The baffles on the ceiling started to get shot up. Quite often there is no one on the range but the shooter. So how do you police it?

Well, that's a good question. Regardless, I don't really think limiting
magazine capacity is going to stop idiots from being idiots. You could
have a guy with a 2 shot .38 derringer. or a small 5 shot snub that doesnt
know what hes doing putting a bunch of pockmarks in those
baffles, just as much as you could have a moron dump 17 rounds of 9mm
into the baffles with a G17. The G17 might cause more damage
but at the end of the day, the shooters are still morons, and they're
still both damaging club property.

I'm guessing the reasoning is less rounds on tap means less
chances the guy is going to do a wild mag dump... maybe... but who
knows. Chances are the random bullet sprayers will ignore that rule
anyways. The idea is sort of a crapshoot in that regard.

So that leads us to the following... how to get members to clean up
their act? Maybe a basic range safety qualification for
some? Maybe a "fee" that gets tacked onto membership renewals to
pay for damages, that way more people will be encouraged to stop the
knuckleheads, and the like. Maybe a mandatory meeting for all
range users, being overly obnoxious about the fact that if "a bullet
leaves the range, the club may die" and all of a sudden nobody will
have anywhere to shoot anymore. (then mention the other clubs,
like what you did earlier, to show that, yes, its not just paranoia, and
range closures or suspensions CAN happen. )

Of course I realize all of this is a pipe dream- getting members to concsiously
do a few things is probably like herding cats. I recognize
that and feel your pain. Getting people to put bullets into the backstop
seems simple, but given a few knuckleheads in the mix it probably -feels-
like an exercise in futility. Then you have to come up with anti-moron
devices like some ranges use... eg, baffles on overhangs, etc, so that
if someone shoots high, the bullet gets stuck in the overhang, etc... all
of which, are of course costly... and it's like wrapping a car in bubble
wrap to protect it from door dings... its not very practical. And even
given some of those devices, some -still- do insanely stupid things.

In the situation that you described, suppose there were several holes already on the target. Now how would the range officer have known whether all rounds hit the target or not? He wouldn't have, would he?

Well, in that specific situation, the RO was wandering around behind the
firing line collecting brass or something, so he was there the whole
time. The rule was not posted anywhere in the range proper, so
my friend didn't know what it was until the RO whined about
it.

I don't like the no-rapid-fire rule myself. But given the limitations of our range, it was the best thing we could come up with.

Is there an inadequate backstop or some other technical reason why
rapid fire doesn't "work" there? If the bullet traps are poor or are
dimensionally challenged, then yeah, I can see how there might be problems
and lots of restrictions may have to be put in place. If it's a human
problem, again, introducing an arbitrary restriction isn't going to really "fix" it.
All that restriction ends up doing is penalizing the people who actually conciously
obey the rules and try to put bullets into the backstop
and not the ceiling. Course I do understand the old adage- i t only
takes one person to screw it up for everyone else.

One thing that not allowing rapid fire does, is it scares certain types of
shooters away. (Of course depending on the demographic of your
club, and the type of shooters that go there, it might not really
matter. EG, if the club lives mostly off shotgunners, having funny
rules on the pistol range isn't going to hurt the clubs ability to pull in
dues. On the other hand, certain rules banning capacity, rapid fire,
and (belt level) holster use, basically exclude a large class of rifle and
pistol shooters. I, for one, won't sign on anywhere I can't do controlled rapid
firing or drawing from a holster, at a minimum. I don't mind a safety
briefing (even if it was an annual requirement) or even getting
"checked out" on the ranges.

I really do wish that all of you folks who are so quick to criticize would join the leadership of your clubs. Come help as we spend hours and hours of our time wrestling with these issues. Since all of you so clearly know better than we do , come join the leadership and show us the ONE TRUE WAY...

I understand that different clubs have different sets of issues, and not
all of them are easily solved. I don't think limiting capacity is a very
good stopgap, though. It might slow down the rate of bonehead
damage, but it's not going to stop it. Only vigilance by the members
and officers of the club can do that. Self policing is good, a lot of
crap could be stopped by someone simply -saying something- when it needs
to be said. I don't know if there is "one true way". I understand
that what works for one club might not work for another, etc.


-Mike

 

[sdavid]

The treasurer of my club keeps saying that there is a ten round limit on "clips." I just smile, nod my head and say okay. The only time I correct people on their terminology is when the say "weapon" especially when it is used over a loudspeaker and it carries over the lake to the town beach.

I have heard may complaints about what clubs should be doing, these are always by the people who haven’t lifted a finger to help the club since their work incentive has been covered.