2beararms
New member
It's been about three weeks since my spaking new replacement P-3AT came from Kel-Tec and I have not had time to get to the range to put some ammo downrange to check her out, so this morning I had a free hour or so and decided to give it a break in. I took it to one of the local ranges, which has a nice indoor pistol range with about a dozen shooting stalls but normally is very quite on Friday mornings. I bought a 100 rounds of range .380 (which this range requires you use their ammo and use it up during the session - no returns with leftover ammo) and went into the range.
Now this has been a sort of "self policed" range for years with no range master hoovering and telling you what to do, a factor I have actually always liked.
Upon entering I noticed their were three other shooters. The fact that the only equipment on the set-up table was three brand new gun boxes should have been a hint. I went to a stall, hung a target (really just for effect, I was more concerned with did it go bang and did it feed or did it jam. It functioned flawlessly BTW). I loaded up my three magazines with six shells each and fired them downrange. When I stopped to reload I happened to glance back at the set-up table and nearly dropped to the floor.
Now I note, this is my second P-3AT and I also have an LCP so I know these guns well. Standing in front of one of the new gun boxes at the set-up table is a guy, maybe mid forties with a brand new P-3AT in his hand backwards. The top of the gun is in his palm, his thumb is INSIDE THE TRIGGER GUARD, facing the guard at this moment. From my position a few stalls away I could see the magazine was still in the gun and the slide was back about 1/4" from battery ... HELL, that is the standard P-3AT Jam. This idiot has a live round 1/4" from battery and is waving the gun around everywhere trying to figure out what to do. First I watched as the barrel waved past my direction which is when I nearly hit the ground then I watched with amazement as with his finger now ON THE TRIGGER, he began to look down the barrel to see what might be wrong!
I waited until the barrel was pointed at the ceiling and with both hands raised ran over and said STOP... Don't do that, your gonna kill someone or yourself! He looked at me like I was the crazy one. I slowly took the weapon from him and with it pointed at the floor moved carefully back to his stall, aimed the weapon downrange and half-racked the slide placing it into full battery and fired off the round, much to his surprise. Then I removed the magazine and unchambered the next round and tried hard to explain all the signs around that said don't remove a gun from the firing line for jams or to reload, and never remove a loaded gun from the firing line and that if you have a jam you don't understand, lay the gun at the firing line, exit and request help. I also tried to give him the one minute gun safety course ... it's always loaded, don't point it at anything you don't want to kill, etc. And I explained what the jam he was getting was and how to fix it.
I'm not sure if he got the message but I returned to my stall and shot the remainder of my ammo (rather quickly I might add) and decided to leave refinement for another day. I went to the outside area and explained to the shop owner while I was settling up and he said yeah, he will likely have to add an "on-line" range master with all the new guys coming in, even though it will be aggrevating for the old-timers. As we were talking the guy from the stall next to my original freind was putting a red-dot scope on a .22 target pistol. We watched on the video monitor as he put a fresh magazine in, racked the slide and fired two shots then proceeded to take the now loaded and cocked gun back the set-up table with no regard for where it was pointing and started making adjustments to the sight with an allen wrench.
That was when the owner shrugged and said, "gotta go, see ya sometime" and rushed into the range area.
My hope is that these incidents will make them crack down a bit because I am certain that if these two were happening simultaneously they are happening everywhere all the time these days.
It is up to us to stress gun safety to everyone because it will only take one or two accidents to give the anti's all the ammo they need to take ours.
I will not penalize the range yet, and I will go back there to shoot ... primarily because I am usually alone in the range at the times I go... but if newbies are in the range I will be a lot more careful to assess the circumstances next time before I decide if I am going to stay.
Now this has been a sort of "self policed" range for years with no range master hoovering and telling you what to do, a factor I have actually always liked.
Upon entering I noticed their were three other shooters. The fact that the only equipment on the set-up table was three brand new gun boxes should have been a hint. I went to a stall, hung a target (really just for effect, I was more concerned with did it go bang and did it feed or did it jam. It functioned flawlessly BTW). I loaded up my three magazines with six shells each and fired them downrange. When I stopped to reload I happened to glance back at the set-up table and nearly dropped to the floor.
Now I note, this is my second P-3AT and I also have an LCP so I know these guns well. Standing in front of one of the new gun boxes at the set-up table is a guy, maybe mid forties with a brand new P-3AT in his hand backwards. The top of the gun is in his palm, his thumb is INSIDE THE TRIGGER GUARD, facing the guard at this moment. From my position a few stalls away I could see the magazine was still in the gun and the slide was back about 1/4" from battery ... HELL, that is the standard P-3AT Jam. This idiot has a live round 1/4" from battery and is waving the gun around everywhere trying to figure out what to do. First I watched as the barrel waved past my direction which is when I nearly hit the ground then I watched with amazement as with his finger now ON THE TRIGGER, he began to look down the barrel to see what might be wrong!
I waited until the barrel was pointed at the ceiling and with both hands raised ran over and said STOP... Don't do that, your gonna kill someone or yourself! He looked at me like I was the crazy one. I slowly took the weapon from him and with it pointed at the floor moved carefully back to his stall, aimed the weapon downrange and half-racked the slide placing it into full battery and fired off the round, much to his surprise. Then I removed the magazine and unchambered the next round and tried hard to explain all the signs around that said don't remove a gun from the firing line for jams or to reload, and never remove a loaded gun from the firing line and that if you have a jam you don't understand, lay the gun at the firing line, exit and request help. I also tried to give him the one minute gun safety course ... it's always loaded, don't point it at anything you don't want to kill, etc. And I explained what the jam he was getting was and how to fix it.
I'm not sure if he got the message but I returned to my stall and shot the remainder of my ammo (rather quickly I might add) and decided to leave refinement for another day. I went to the outside area and explained to the shop owner while I was settling up and he said yeah, he will likely have to add an "on-line" range master with all the new guys coming in, even though it will be aggrevating for the old-timers. As we were talking the guy from the stall next to my original freind was putting a red-dot scope on a .22 target pistol. We watched on the video monitor as he put a fresh magazine in, racked the slide and fired two shots then proceeded to take the now loaded and cocked gun back the set-up table with no regard for where it was pointing and started making adjustments to the sight with an allen wrench.
That was when the owner shrugged and said, "gotta go, see ya sometime" and rushed into the range area.
My hope is that these incidents will make them crack down a bit because I am certain that if these two were happening simultaneously they are happening everywhere all the time these days.
It is up to us to stress gun safety to everyone because it will only take one or two accidents to give the anti's all the ammo they need to take ours.
I will not penalize the range yet, and I will go back there to shoot ... primarily because I am usually alone in the range at the times I go... but if newbies are in the range I will be a lot more careful to assess the circumstances next time before I decide if I am going to stay.
After a bunch of hostile words from this man, I decided to allow him to learn via "hands on" experience. After his first shot, he dropped the gun on the bench (probably still had several rounds in the mag) and shook his left hand. There was visible blood on his thumb. He looked at me and said "see, I didn't get hurt". I told him "next one might hurt a little more." Sure enough, next shot caused the slide to break his left thumb! He dropped the gun on the ground and was screaming his head off like a little baby. I stopped my shooting (no need to call "cease fire" only two of us on the firing line), cleared my firearm and walked over to assist. He was hopping around crying and yelling at me. I attempted to calm him down while calling 911 on my cell phone. The gun store personnel came in as I was talking to the guy and helped calm him down as well. The ambulance got to the shop pretty quick and patched the guy up. What got me laughing the most was when he demanded that the store refund his range fee and ammo cost! Once the guy left, the range manager offered me his unused ammo and let me shoot it up. I enjoyed the experience. Who said "A good deed goes unnoticed"?? :biggrin:
