TargetTalk

Ouch!
i'm new to competitive shooting and at my second league night for international standard pistol, i found myself in the wrong station. two shooters to the left was a walther shooter, and his brass was coming down on my head, shoulders, arms..and even TWO down my collar! (I still have the burn marks--healing.) needless to say, it destroyed my score, especially when got to rapid fire - a veritable rain of burning brass was falling all over me while shooting.

when this kind of thing happens, can i step back and ask for my 5 shots after the line has fired, similar to when a jam occurs? Or ask to be moved on line if room? or just plan on wearing an umbrella hat next week? I ain't going to stay in that kind of position again--wife isn't pleased with scars on neck!

There probably isn't much you can do about it, except wear a turtleneck. Every highpower rifle shooter has a story about a 30-06 case down the back. Many pistol ranges have dividers between points that would prevent it. Some are not much more than curtains hanging from rails over the firing points. The curtains can be pushed to the sides of the range when not required. Light masonite or luan dividers on stands can be used as well.

I don't know about your club, but at mine, if you offered to build and install the dividers, the club would buy the materials and set up a work day.

Tell your wife the scars make you look more rugged and manly.

I thought that there was a rule whereby no shooter can interfere with another...this would be a perfect example.
As well that's pretty damn unsafe of the range that your at to have that going on.

Our range has inserts that can hang on the ports to block that kind of thing, you should either ask for one of those, ask that the range safety officer move that shooter to the end position, or request a different line.

Two words. Mock Turtleneck. Works for MLB players, works on the range too.

If you shoot any match where you and your fellow shooter are side by side it's going to happen. With that said, come up with a plan.

1) Shoot only on the far left side.

2) Wear proper clothing and hat.

3) get use to it, if you only practice on an empty range it doesn't help you with little thing like hot brass, noise, people moving around you and only catch it in your side view and you blow a shot.

I go by this simple rule: mind over matter, if you dont mind it doesn't matter.

Let it rain brass, the only thing that counts, is that x ring and you.

Good luck and have fun.

Now you know why a lot of HighPower shooters wear hooded sweatshirts under their shooting coats, even in the heat of the summer... it ain't cuz it looks cool!

Most self-respecting AR shooters I know at least attempt to 'neuter' their ejector spring a little to get it to spit empties more towards 1:30 than 3-4 o'clock. Not sure having empties bouncing off your front sight helps the score all that much, but it sure hurts less physically :D Might be worth a friendly suggestion to said shooter.

I'd say either start bundling up, get used to the 'battle scars', or maybe if this guy is the only one w/ a gun that is that anti-social, talk either w/ him or the match director about getting him down on the end of the line where he doesn't bother anyone... which only really work until someone else shows up w/ another gun like that.

Monte

Hi,

Pretty much where you have autoloaders, your going to have hot brass flying. The 22's aren't bad, the 32's are a little more anoying. The 38's and 45's are good and hot. None of the pistols compare to the centerfire rifles, those puppys can give second degree burns.

What I do is wear a shirt with a tighter fitting collar and a hat. What I find helps too is standing about half a step forward or back at the line if you can. That puts out of the direct line of a lot of the brass from your friend on your left. (of course, if your really unlucky, you get the slot to the left of the only left handed shooter that ever bought a Randall "port-sider" and he flips the brass to you too... )

The Walthers seem to fip it in all directions at random but mostly to the right, the Pardini's either throw it forward and right or when they have worn recoil springs, right back at the right eye of the person shooting it. I have seen where a pardini shooter canted the gun to an extreme degree and was dropping brass 3 or 4 ports down the line. So you never really know where it's coming from.

My 2 cents,

Tom

Hi

Check out the International Pistol rule book. The Conventional Rule book specifies 1/4 inch mesh screen of a certain size to keep the other guy's brass from hitting you. It's usually mounted on your pistol box. I don't have the international rulebook, so I can't look.

Mike
Wichita KS

It's worth the laughs you get after it happens. My close friend was shooting to the right of me at Camp Perry and we were at the 25yd Slow & Rapid Fire Line---it was the centre fire match and I was using my Pardini HP---now that puppy throughs brass perpendicular to the gun and he was bathed in flying .32 S&W Rem cases hot from the chamber. What didn't hit him on the gun or dot sight hit him on the face. If you shoot to the right of a Hi-Standard you are going to get the same bath of casings---I like especially the one that gun inside my shooting glasses and lay on my cheek. You can get distracted but after a while you learn to grit your teeth, shoot through it and laugh it off. When I was shooting competitive rifle I used a BSA MKIII and I could point my chamber at the shooter next to me and eject the case on to either him, his gun or face, ----of course I never did that in a match (NOT).

i'll be wearing a turtle neck and hat tonight, and looking to be to the left of this guy. He's a good guy, and the top shooter last two leagues--so it's not that he needs to help my concentration like bob might! LOL. i just might figure out how to rig up some chickenwire shielding if this remains an issue.

scottmi wrote:Ouch!
i'm new to competitive shooting and at my second league night for international standard pistol, i found myself in the wrong station. two shooters to the left was a walther shooter, and his brass was coming down on my head, shoulders, arms..and even TWO down my collar! (I still have the burn marks--healing.) needless to say, it destroyed my score, especially when got to rapid fire - a veritable rain of burning brass was falling all over me while shooting.

when this kind of thing happens, can i step back and ask for my 5 shots after the line has fired, similar to when a jam occurs? Or ask to be moved on line if room? or just plan on wearing an umbrella hat next week? I ain't going to stay in that kind of position again--wife isn't pleased with scars on neck!

Back in the bad old days we learnt to grin (?) and bear it (no pain - no gain was a saying then...)

Nowadays, a hot case is considered a disturbance (8.6.7 and following subclauses)

Did the range have the specified partitions?

Spencer C

Sometimes moving slightly forward, back, left or right (within the legal position) will get you enough out of the line of brass that you can shoot through it. An old winter scarf in the gear box can be handy to wrap around.

You men-folk have it easy. When the hot brass goes down the shirt and gets stuck in the bra, you REALLY do the dance.

Hi

I just started bullseye. Brass doesn't bother me in Timed or Rapid fire, concentrating too hard I guess. I tend to wait until the guy at the Left fires before I start my shot in Slow. If I do that, then I have say 15-30 seconds to shoot before even the faster guys are shooting again.

Mike
Wichita KS

mikeschroeder wrote:Hi

I just started bullseye. Brass doesn't bother me in Timed or Rapid fire, concentrating too hard I guess. I tend to wait until the guy at the Left fires before I start my shot in Slow. If I do that, then I have say 15-30 seconds to shoot before even the faster guys are shooting again.

Mike
Wichita KS

I hide behind my wire screen as much as I can, having had hot brass land on my collar against my neck and also brass knock off my Merit Disc in the middle of rapid. I also am a left hand in pocket shooter. Hot brass between the tender inside wrist skin and pants is not good either.

As to waiting for your neighbor to shoot his brass by you, I do that too. Especially if his loud report is more than even 29-30NRR can handle without percussion in your ears. If waiting for him to shoot SF does take you outside your concentration box, you may lose some of your shooting edge. But when you do re-enter maybe you are then better off without the worry of neighbors brass.

JohnD wrote:Tell your wife the scars make you look more rugged and manly.

Hah! My wife read this one over my shoulder and cracked up! I'm really fortunate I suppose that she has such good humor toward my shooting. ;-)

again thanks for the comments. much better last time out. turtle neck and cap removed any real concern that i'd get any new burns on sensitive areas so was able to keep it out of mind when on the line. Also made sure i was in a different position relative to that shooter. another chap's brass was coming down occasionally, but this was nothing.

this range is a multipurpose indoor room, with tables setup for the pistol shoots so no curtains or stalls for the shooters. if remains an issue for me, perhaps for my birthday i'll acquire a pistol case to which can mount some screen. meanwhile, grinnin' and bearin' it!