steve004 said

  

Bill –

I’m with you on the hearing issues.  I do a whole lot less shooting because of various muzzle devices.  Not that I own any – I don’t.  The problem is many guys at the range own them.  There’s not much room between shooters.  Sometimes I have had, on both sides of me, shooters using braked, vented or compensated rifles.  Sometimes they are shooting semi-auto .308’s with long magazines.  Usually, it seems they have a limitless supply of ammunition.  The noise and the concussive blast is really something (I have many bad words I could use here).  Many times, I just pack up and leave.  For the last several years, I have noted the range is ever more populated with these type rifles.  It does not make me happy. The irritating paradox of course for me sitting at the range is knowing that I’m getting a lot more noise and blast than the shooters themselves are

One improvement our range made is they require brass catchers for AR type rifles.  And that had been an irritant – hot brass hitting my skin when I’m trying to shoot.  That is now less frequent but still, I am often packing up early because of the noise and blast.  

  

One benefit of retirement is going to the range on a weekday morning.  However, there are airline pilots not scheduled to fly that day, one of whom shows up  with a .505 Gibbs just back from the gunsmith with its barrel newly trimmed back to a “handier 18 1/2 inches”, a Lead Sled and 200 rounds of ammunition.  

He was congenial, although pretty deaf, and offered me the opportunity, which I declined.  He told me he’d been flying BAC-111s  for some years, which would explain his deafness.  By the time he got around to shooting the Gibbs, he couldn’t hear much anyway so it didn’t bother him.  

Bert H. said

steve004 said

I will confess to some history in this area.  As a younger man, I  would on occasion show up at the range with my .510 Wells, .450 Watts, .460 HE Magnum, several .458’s and .416’s.  Back then, I particularly enjoyed wildcats.  None of what I mentioned had muzzle brakes, vents, ported etc.  However, I did have one – a custom rifle built on a Sako action in 8x68S magnum.  It had some sort of brake on it and wow, that thing cracked when I touched it off.  No one ever mentioned anything to me at the range but there well could have been some fellow shooters who were thinking unkind thoughts about me.  At least as the range people are routinely wearing hearing protection.  But as we know, the usual $10 ear muffs only work so well

My wildcat years were an interesting era for me.  My main focus was vintage wildcat cartridges.  I recall buying a new in the box Winchester M70 Black Shadow and having it barreled to 8mm Gibbs.  Why I needed that after already owning an 8mm-06 Improved is a question looking for a logical answer that can never be found.  When I was asked that question by a friend back then I explained that the 8mm Gibbs is essentially an 8mm-06 Improved Improved.  I recall he changed the subject.

Sometimes…. we can run headlong down a rabbit hole but if we’re lucky, we eventually ask ourselves what we are doing.  What helped me was throughout that time, i was still collecting antique and vintage rifle so it was easy to shift that to my exclusive focus.  Less money spent on the wildcat stuff translated into more money for the vintage stuff.

Sorry for the tangential journey.  This thread about heavy recoiling rifles got me reminiscing about my younger years.  My days of shooting a 700 grain .51 caliber bullet in a .460 Weatherby case feel like they were centuries ago.  By the way, that rifle not only didn’t have any sort of recoil-reducing device or treatment, but I recall the stock fit me poorly and it was not a particularly heavy rifle  

Steve… this is just for you

Bing Videos

 

Bert

  

Yes, Bert, this was somewhat like me at one time.  Now it is painful to watch.  I never considered a .577 T-Rex before but I do recall pondering a .585 Nyati at one time (on a Winchester action).  I’m glad I never pursued it.  Funny to think about all of the things that come to mind now, that never used to cross my mind (e.g. retinal detachment).  

I had not seen this video before but I have seen one featuring this same shooter.  It was about what surely was his worst day at the range.  It is amazing he survived and it is a testament to his mental and physical stoutness.  To have the wherewith all to do what he did, for a sustained period (i.e. long trip to get in to where medical help was) is astounding.  He was surely blessed with several skilled guardian angels that day. It also illustrates how the unexpected can happen on the range.  It made me reflect on while I often dream of being by myself at the range, there are times this can work out not as one hoped:

t=38s

Chuck said
That’s one stupid individual.  Nobody should be shooting unknown ammo in their guns, especially rounds that are this powerful. Watch some of his other videos.  He does not practice any safe shooting practices.  He’s all for show.

  

Like much in our society, it’s all designed around entertainment.  Shooting unknown ammo is a huge red flag. It is easy to dismiss his accident to stupidity but there are many paths to a very bad day at the range.  We’ve discussed here before how Glenn DeRuiter lost his life at the range.  He was not shooting a .50BMG with ancient unknown loads but rather a Win-Lee .236 with his own handloads.  And our own, “Shrapnel” here, had an incident with a blow-up of a Winchester lever rifle.

Let me bring up another risk – that impacts me.  It would not impact Clarence as he has stated he leaves if there is another person at his range. But at my range, shooters can be fairly close together and while you might have followed all safety precautions with your rifles and ammunition, that doesn’t mean the guy shooting a couple feet from you has.  And then of course, even if both you and nearby shooters have taken reasonable precautions, sometimes bad things still happen.

I’ve never had a hankering for a, “bullpup” rifle.  There’s a lot about them that doesn’t appeal to me.  One aspect is resting my face right next to a chamber where an explosion of say, 50,000 PSI is happening.  

Warning:  I’m falling into a deeper tangent:

Not all rifles (or shotguns or handguns) are equally strong.  On this topic combined with the range trip topic, some of you know one of my collecting genres is Ross Rifles (sporting and target rifles; not military).  I have a friend who sometimes comes to the range with me and we sometimes shoot .303 and .280 Ross rifles.  He is familiar with the Ross bolt “blow-out” stories from WWI.  He is aware that these stories focused on the final Ross action – the military MkIII – which was the same action used in the Mk10 .280 sporting rifle.  Anyway, he was comfortable shooting the earlier Ross rifle (the M1905 or MkII action).  I always pointed out that the M1905 was simply a two-lug action and not strikingly strong vs. the M10 action – which with it multi-lug bolt head was about the strongest action in the world at the time.  It most closely resembled the Weatherby MkV multi-lug action.  E.C. Crossman became a Ross believer and attempted destruction testing of several rifles including Winchester M1886, M1894 and the Ross M10.  His destruction testing consisted of filling the case with pistol powder, tamping it down several times to push more powder in, and his final move was to grease the case!  The Winchesters didn’t fare too well but he could not blow the Ross action.  And given the .280 Ross had a case capacity similar to the 7mm Remington Magnum, that was a lot of pistol powder.  

Yet, despite showing my friend Crossman’s articles, he was still skiddish when it came to fire the Mk10.  He of course was worried the bolt would blow back in his face.  And history records this did happen to a few Ross shooters. But it wasn’t a failure of the action.  The problem was the bolt could be disassembled and then reassembled incorrectly and when pushed forward to close the action, it would stop short of engaging the locking lugs into the receiver.  However, this is very easy to inspect.  In fact, if you slowly close the bolt you can put your face in a position where you can literally watch the locking lugs rotate into the receiver.  Plus, I had assured him I had not loaded the case with pistol powder!  I will concede this friend happens to be prone to bad luck however and given I am cautious anyway, I think his trepidation is a positive quality.

clarence said

TXGunNut said Until TPWD decides we have a sustainable T-Rex population available nothing in Texas needs that much killing.

  

Not so fast, Mike.  Unless you’re already collected your eland buck; 16-1800 lbs is no whitetail.

https://www.oxhuntingranch.com/texas/eland-hunting/

When will they begin importing rhinos?  Those left in Africa are doomed in the long run, so it might be the salvation of the species.

  

I drive past a three high fence ranches on the way to my brother’s deer lease in Bee County. Neat critters but I can barely eat a deer or hog in a year. My freezer isn’t big enough for an eland or nilgai, even an axis would be more than I want. And then there’s taxidermy fees. I’m afraid you may be right about rhinos but DCS et al haven’t given up and I wish them success.

Mike