The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

Great start, new SatNav took us the wrong way so had to drive 23 miles back to the way I was planning to go in the first place

It took us into the back of the range area and almost took the bottom out of the poor car on the various sheep infested roads until we got to a nice white gate with a "If this gate is closed Do Not Open" sign on it

Finally got to Ridleeshope range an hour late, pretty nice day, got all the gear out and wondered where all the target boards etc. were?, apparently the MOD hadn't opened the target shed so tough luck. No problem, we'll use the resetting falling targets, there's about 15 of them from 100yds to about 800+, wrong again

Only three targets almost working and taking an age to reset, about 20 people shooting on them so half the time you had no idea who was hitting them.

After a bite of lunch Jared decimated a few water filled plastic pop and milk bottles we'd brought for him, emptied a couple of 25 round mags of 22lr out of the S&W M&P15-22 then blasted them with a few rounds of 12g. By this time the novelty of sharing a falling target with multiple other shooters and being unable to test my various loads for the 6.5C for grouping had worn off and I decided I was sufficiently pee'd off so called it a day

So, 180 mile round trip (including the 46 mile "Sat Nav detour") to shoot 50 rounds of 6.5C, what a complete waste of time and money

Oh dear.....not a good day

The old say of "A bad day shooting is still better than a good day at the office" maybe of comfort to you ?

Is it MoD Estates or Landshark that run the ranges, fluffy cat ? Did you pay for range hire ? If so, it might be worth having a word with bod in charge. Sprinkle the conversation liberally with phrases like "breach of contract", "failure to provide contracted deliverables" and so forth. Require pecuniary remuneration in recompense.

As for the GPS error, that's just plain stupid. We can't help with that... Stick to a paper map or chart and engage brain afore deviating from a known good course.

'Threats' don't work when it comes to MOD ranges, well the ones my club uses anyway (Ponteland and Otterburn). You're more likely to get the response of "Oh well, you'll not want to come back then, don't let the door hit your @rse on the way out"

Ah...see.....my usual reaction was to get as much distance between Otterburn and my arse as possible

Sorry it went Pete Tong, F range was not much better for targets working when I was there a while back.

You can always ask the NRA Northern rep to assist - Ha ha ha ha

I got one of these target stands: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0009TPM78/ for this sort of occasion.

Sorry you didn't enjoy yourself, at least you missed the cold weather

I wouldn't trust people to not 'accidentally' shoot that. A few off-cuts/wooden stakes banged into the ground and a staple gun is all I've used at Otterburn when the target shed couldn't be opened. But then that was a few years ago before staples became contraband on MOD ranges

Hi Gareth :)

That looks a good idea, I'll add a couple to my Midway shopping cart for our next trip over the pond :)