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Public ranges here in PA are a nightmare. They are generally pretty well maintained, but there is no safety system in place. There may or may not be a ranger that shows up at some point to check and see if people are breaking the rules, but usually not. Safety is totally up to the individuals on the range, and on average, 90% of the people on the range fall between complete idiot and merely uninformed. A trip to the public range here generally leaves me favoring some form of gun control because it is so painfully obvious that most of the people there should not be trusted with firearms. Just kidding, sort of.
The closer the range to a major population center, the worse. At least at the more rural ranges you generally get more hunters.
The only saving grace at the range I have generally used is that I am shooting at the 200 and 300 yard targets, which not too many other people use.
Last time, a buddy and I were the only ones shooting on the rifle portion when an overweight 20 something kid showed up with an AK-74. We asked him if he wanted to go downrange to set up a target. He declined, so we kept shooting. He must have spent at least an hour there expending a couple hundred rounds, and at no point did he set up his own target. There was nothing downrange that would have offered him any feedback on whether he was hitting anything, unless you count the dirt. WTF is the point of that?
That wasn't half as bad as the guy that pulled up looking like he was on his way to rob a convenience store. He got out with a pistol grip pump shotgun and fired five rounds from the hip in the general direction of the 300 yard target. Needless to say, I did not turn my back to him.
Fun stuff.
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