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No agenda with this but range damage has become a hot topic at one of my clubs with a newly refurbished sleeper butts retaining wall getting some accidental damage from sighting in a gallery rifle (not by me I hasten to add) as well as some Rimfire damage. I understand the frustration of newly installed timberwork being damaged, but if the damage was unintentional should this not be put this in to context or should it be seen to be negligent? There are low and high height markers at each side.

Just wondered what the general view is with regard to range damage (accidental not intentional)?

The rail sleepers are there to catch those inaccurate bullets, but some people act like it's the plaster on their bedroom wall and get super precious about it.

Damage that results from sighting in is accidental, if this happen then the shooter in question requires assistance, not condemnation.

My previous club in Fife/Edinburgh had a new range built. The third use of it saw some nicely grouped holes (5) through the corrugated roof at the butts end, above the target frames!!
I have a feeling one of the olde-bold brigade had had a senior moment & done some damage.

The JSPC likewise had a few added-extra holes in the framework after every hiring by a guest club/association. Co-incidence?

The main MoD range near Edinburgh has been closed for the majority of this year - sand slippage - if you can believe such a thing (I don't!)

Some folk should be very heavily supervised prior to being let loose with a shootin' iron as some of the gun handling they've learned was from Rooster Cogburn & their muzzles spend more time vertical than horizontal.
Accidental damage should be clamped down on by monitoring each lane pre & post target changes...then seeing what the errant shooter is doing wrong & fixing this.
Deliberate should be seen as reason to withdraw club membership (Maybe AFTER a warning to the person concerned, i.e. do it again & you're out)

I spent almost all of my spare time for 2 weeks solid rebuilding our butts , metalwork, linatex and target framework, not including the prep work, measuring out and ordering the materials.

We had designated target areas put into the design of the new butts as the impact areas of these "windows" was triple thickness to avoid having to replace the steelwork again and to get the most use out of the linatex by being able to rotate the sheets for maximum usage, a benefit to the whole club and its membership by keeping maintenance costs down.

I made it abundantly clear to most everyone who came down to help and to pass on the message that under no circumstances were bullets to come out of the target area.

If you're zeroing an unknown rifle you should move closer to the target area and make sure you shoot at a target in the middle of the not unsubstancial target area.

If you can't shoot inside a 3x3ft target area at 25 yards, frankly you shouldn't be on the range.

Target areas were to concentrate fire as we were having bullet holes going far too high to the ceiling and after an inspection by A. Aitken we were in danger of being shut down. :(

The BIG Message to get over with people sighting in a 'New' gun is START close in. With 'New' scopes Bore sight it and get someone who KNOWS how to do it to check.

Unfortunately the range in question does not allow shooting from positions other than the covered firing point AFAIK. Different distances are catered for by several different target holder mounting points. I've certainly never heard it mentioned or suggested during communications about this issue.

zanes wrote:Unfortunately the range in question does not allow shooting from positions other than the covered firing point AFAIK. Different distances are catered for by several different target holder mounting points. I've certainly never heard it mentioned or suggested during communications about this issue.

I would assume that to Zero one should use one of the middle firing positions, using the shortest target holder mounting points in that situation, so you're not in danger of hitting the extreme edges of the backstop.

Likewise, it should be boresighted before even going onto the range so you know roughly where the barrel is pointing in relation to the scope so you don't miss the target completely.

Alternatively zeroing on a purpose built zero range before letting loose on your club range to avoid damage. To shoot without knowing at all where you'll be hitting is IMHO bordering on negligence.

Do any of the laser bore sighters work out past 25 yards?

We get damage to the wooden proscenium that surrounds our backstop and Linotex curtain.

The odd shot astray into the backstop I can understand and is in no way dangerous.

The thing I can't understand is when we get nice neat 5-10 shot groups in the backstop, obviously we have members who don't bother looking to see if they are hitting the target even although the club provides spotting scopes. Targets are held on target holders within the proscenium and any shot missing the target should still not hit wooden surround.

Although in itself not dangerous in our range what worries me is that we have such casual and irresponsible shooters within the club, they are a minority and when found they have to retrain. The airpistol bods are the worst shooting at 6 and 10 yrds they only seem to be interested in the target and not what is beyond so a slightly mis position target holder at 6 yds compounded by a out off alignment stance means that the bottom right of the wood work is positivley peppered.

The 22 prone shooters are also an issue as some of the holes can only be made from the prone position.

The local university use our facility 2 days a week and I suspect a lot of the 22 holes come from the influx of new shooters having a go at freshers week, they only shoot prone whereas our club is lucky to have a dozen prone shooters all old experienced hands.

Back stops and ther surrounds are there to contain off target shots as can occasionally happen but as I have said when some shooters seem not to bother looking to see where their rounds are going then they need to leave or just shoot blanks.

So range damage in itself isn't and issue but people who repeatedly miss the target but such an amount are.

HALODIN wrote:Do any of the laser bore sighters work out past 25 yards?

No. All laser bore sighting units are calibrated to only allow the beam of light to travel 24.95 yards.

I have re-calibrated one to travel out to 1000m, but it only does this on a parabolic curve during Lent.
It's available to hire for Bisley shots to use.