11/25/2018 at the range !

[willyp]

I will be there just to watch the nimrods shoot ! I do get a lot of once fired brass on that day also !
I get to see a lot of guns old and new being shot ?
I get to see a lot of folks take many 100 yards hikes back and forth from the target backers ?
We, my sons and I get ask a lot if we are going to shoot ? Have to tell them it has been done for weeks and we are ready !
Hear a lot of "Good enough."
See a lot of paper plates in the trash barrel to ?
See a bunch of scopes mounted so high on rifles you could shoot them from the hip ?
Dimes laying on the ground and benches from cranking the scope adjustments ?  Some scope caps also from the adjusters to ? We take them to the club house but no one ever comes to claim them ? Must be a lot on nonmembers slipping in to shoot ? That's no big deal as we are very friendly! 
Get to see some guys get scope eye ?
See guys hand an adult size rifle[30-06] to a kid who has never shot before. It looks like the kid is trying to hold a fence post ?
IMHO there should be a type of training to go to for gun use ?
Anyways I will be there !

[Deleted]

Guns are a subject the vast majority of hunters do not really understand. And scopes are downright mystifying to them. Many only know enough to get themselves in trouble.

[dennyf]

Back in the mid 80s until the late 90s, I was range director at our club. Always there quite a bit on the weeks leading up to bear/deer seasons and never missed a Thanksgiving Day morning out there. Lots of strange things going on, similar to what you've observed.

One year I took my M760 pump out to fire a few shots. One guy was having issues getting his M760 on paper and asked what kind of ammo I was shooting, to get such tight groups. Front rest under the receiver (not the pump "handle"), it'd shoot one inch groups all day.

Told him they were Speer 150 gr spitzers. He went on a rant that he wouldn't shoot reloads if someone gave him a bushel of 'em. His buddy said he wouldn't either, because it'd scare him if his pump ever shot that well.

Another guy's pump was spraying shots all over and he was upset. Suggested he might want to check to make sure the base/rings were properly tightened, which made him even madder. A guy we both knew, told me after deer season that he'd gotten the rifle away from the owner, redid the entire scope mounting routine and had it on the money the day before buck season. Scope base was loose.

No shortage of paper plates, which I have no problem with. You can put a few shots in a plate at 100 yards, should be good to go? Now and then a guy that hit a plate twice, went home happy. My favorite: One year a guy fired two shots at a plate, both up around 11 o'clock. "Right where I want 'er, high and to the left". Mmm, okay?

Another year a guy showed up about a week before buck season with an old M94 30-30. He'd had a scope mounted on it, bore sighted and was trying to get on paper at 100 yards. No dice. Suggested we go down to the 25 yard range, he threw a fit - "It's bore sighted, should be on paper". So he burned up two boxes of ammo, said he was going to Walmart for more. Asked him if he was coming right back, 'cause I'll take all the once fired brass I can get. Never saw him again.

[Deleted]

The scary part is these guys are in the woods with this equipment. Makes you pity the deer.

[turkeykiller]

Back in the olden days, when I heard shots on the first day of buck, I always hoped it was one of the guys willyp is talkin bout.

[CoureurDeBois]

My one Uncle would always say, "There's more shots fired from Thanksgiving to the day before deer season than all of deer season."
No big problem in this, you should make sure the rife is sighted in. Trouble is, 99.9% of it is from a shooting bench, and 99.9% of the shooting at deer, is not from a shooting bench.

[dennyf]

I've always encouraged people to fire a few shots offhand, after they've sighted in from the bench. While I've killed a fair number of deer using a bipod for really long pokes, most of the deer I've killed were taken with an offhand shot. If I'm hunting in the woods, which is where I normally start the season, I expect to be shooting offhand.

The rifles w/bipods are for deer out in the open and pretty far away, different thing altogether in my opinion.

Although one year towards the end of the first week of buck, I hauled my heavy barrel 25-06 up to the top of a neighbor's hay field on my ATV and was ready to take whatever showed itself up there. Spent hours up there glassing around the area. Got up to take a whiz (had a thermos of coffee along) and there's a small buck on the other side of the wooded fence row behind me, just tippin' along oblivious to my being there.

He eventually crossed into the woods above my hay field and I watched him thru the scope for what seemed like hours (rifle weighs over 10lbs). Buck finally got into a small opening heading uphill and I popped him at the base of the neck, offhand and probably 75 yards distant. One of three or four deer I've killed with that rifle offhand.

Ya never know what's gonna come up. One year I ran into a neighboring farmer in my woods, while carrying that rifle. He wanted to know WTH I was totin' that thing around in the woods? Told him it's the perfect brush gun, with the scope set at 6X.