Military Rifle Range

[kroberts2131]

The other thread about the poser guy got me thinking......when you were in the military, how did the rifle range work? For me, I was in the Marines. We had 200, 300, and 500 yard lines. Half the group on the range would go down to the pits and set up targets. The other half would do the course of fire. When you worked the pits, you stood on the back wall and watched the dirt behind your target. When you saw the splash, you jumped up and pulled down the target. Put a white cardboard disk on the spot they hit on the black.....use a black disk if they hit in the white. If they completely missed the target, we would tell the pit NCO we had a NO IMPACT, NO IDEA on our target. Whoever worked in the tower would then proceed to embarass the shooter by yelling "Target 27, NO IMPACT, NO IDEA on that shot!"

Just called a buddy who is still in the Marines and he said thats exactly how they do the range still.

 

[indi]

I didnt make it to the rifle range, im so sad now!

 

[fatcpa]

It was basically the same at the Camp Pendleton range in 1968. Working in the trench and pulling the targets up and down was called "pulling butts" and when the shooter missed completely you would wave "Maggie's drawers" (white flag on a pole).

 

[angsniper]

Ours worked the same way except that if they missed we would put an orange disc down in the corner of the target.

 

[rlongnt]

Not shockingly you described Camp Pendleton in 1988 as well.

Just for cool factor when I finally get around to putting in a storm cellar, I’m going to install those cage covered jar lights like the tunnels leading to the butts at Edson Range.

 

[chief63]

In the Air Force the average guy who only had to keep qualifications up to work inside the wire shot small targets at 25 yards to simulate bad guys at 100 yards. You would all walk down and get embarassed together. By the time I retired after 30 years it was getting pretty difficult to see them little targets and get a high score.

 

[TwoForFlinching]

I always got invited to go shoot at Sill, since during that time there wasn't a public range closer than OKC, but Sill wanted my serials... Couldn't do it

 

[TerryMiller]

Fort Leonard Wood, MO between January and March of 1966, U.S. Army.

I had the distinct "pleasure(?)" of being assigned to a Reserve/National Guard company. The training cadre didn't really appreciate the weekend warriors. I don't know if all of that was a factor or not, but our range work started out with zeroing on a 25 meter range. From there, all I remember of shooting involved shooting at pop-up silhouette targets at varying ranges from 50 meters out to 1000. Each shooter had an observer behind them scoring their shots on the varied distance range. Some of the weekend warriors figured out the timing of how long the silhouettes would stay up and timed their shot to coincide with the scheduled "drop" of the target.

I learned the hard way that zeroing could be difficult. My rifle was off enough on the sights to miss the target entirely. To complicate things, one of the shooters next to me on zero day was shooting at my target. The cadre just adjusted my sights and sent me on so they could get more folks through the course. Later, when I couldn't hit squat on the varied distance range, they questioned me as to why someone who grew up with firearms couldn't hit the target. They took me back to the zero range and I got to really get it zeroed. After that, I was able to hit.

I was one of only about 4 or 5 of us that were Regular Army, meaning enlisted, so they did give the few of us some leeway at times.

 

[ronny]

My recollection of those pop-up silhouette targets was that when they went back down on the timer, they were kinda slow and leisurely, whereas is you hit it with your shot, they dropped quickly. It was pretty clear whether you hit the target or not. At least the range at Ft Leonard Wood worked that way.

 

[recon279]

army pop up targets from 25 meters out too 300