Been off the site for awhile (been busier than a one-legged man at an arse kicking contest) but I need to start a new thread tonight and rant a little. Bear with me and if you have a "black gun", don't shoot me.
Ok, here's the scenario:
I'm at the local shooting range today and it's saturday so it's open to the public. I usually try to avoid the public days and just go when I'm the only one there but I'm so busy I had to go today. So anyhow, I'm hogging three benches on the leftish side of the range. I've got my own custom $3000 dollar rifle and $1000 rest setup one one bench along with $2000 worth of reloading gear, barrel coolers, powder throwers and other miscelaneous gear on one bench. Then I have a two clients rifles totaling $3000 or better set up on the other two benches. Now, I know it sounds piggish taking up three benches but there were 7 others that were empty off and on all day and even during the busiest hours, there was always at least one bench open. And I was working on all three at the same time waiting for barrels to cool so it wasn't like they were just sitting on the bench not being shot.
Ok, so I said I set up on the "leftish" side of the range. This means that there were two benches to my left and 5 open benches to my right. Well, I guess I should have set up on the farthest left bench because I came to find out that this was Black Saturday. Of the 20 some odd people that showed up to shoot today, more than half of them had AR15's. Of those 11 or 12 guys, 10 of them had to set up on the bench left of mine. Now, as you probably know, AR's fling brass out the right side. I take that back. They fling HOT AS HELL brass out the right side. And wouldn't you know, it never occurs to these black gun shooters what happens to the guy (and/or gear) to the right of them when they pull the trigger. Well, almost never. THere was one guy out of the 11 or 12 that took one look at my spread and set up right of me. The rest just kept flinging brass onto myself and gear until I finally had to request that they either get a brass catcher or move benches. They looked at me like I was from Mars. Brass catcher? What's that? Are you nuts? Can't you just deal with it? Well, no, I can't. Why should I? It's their responsibility to keep the range clean and the range safe just as much as mine. It's also common courtesy to be aware of your surroundings and fellow shooters on the range and not spit hot brass at them or their equipment. I had more coin on the benches with me than all their **** lead sprayers put together and it never occured to them that I might not want to have brass "tingging" off of any of it!
ANyways, after some edjumicating of the black gun enthusiasts, the rest of the day went ok as they found a new home on the right benches.
Now I have nothing against "black guns". I have shot many of them and know they have their place(it's on the right). I would even own one if I wasn't left handed and could stand to have my shooting finger hand so far down from the center of gravity. But I am and I can't so I don't have one. But IF I DID, I would spend the $20 to get a brass catcher and even then I would try to be on the right of other shooters even if all they had was a 10-22 and a Tasco spotting scope.
Ok, I'm done with the ranting. I just hope those of you here who own semi-autos take this to heart and be aware if you aren't already. Have a great day!