Well guys (and girls), about once a year I have to fuss about things. As Safety Officer, range housekeeping does contribute to range safety. We do not have trash service at the range. We do not have a janitor to come around and clean up behind us. We have to clean up after ourselves.
I did a trash haul at the range yesterday. Both trash cans were full to overflowing. We keep trash cans at the range for casual trash that wanders onto the range, not as community garbage cans. The can over by the concrete benches looked like it had been used to dispose of trash from a picnic; food wrappers, plastic drink bottles, yogurt containers and – I’m not making this up – a dirty baby diaper.
Over at the 100-yard line the can was full of shot up targets, more drink bottles, potato chip bags and food wrappers.
If you come to the range, bring a Wal-Mart bag of something like that to throw away your trash. If you bring targets or cardboard backers, take them back home with you. Don’t leave them “in case someone else might need them”.
As an example, someone had built a nice target holder with a wooden frame to hold targets. But – the frame was shot up and instead of taking the backer and frame back home, the person just laid it down beside the trash can for someone else to dispose of it.
Let’s talk about sandbag etiquette for a minute.
We try to keep sandbags on the range for people who want to use them for sighting in or supported shooting. Building sandbags isn’t fun. We get them from the county highway department and we have to fill them ourselves. Each one weighs close to 35-pounds and loading them and unloading them gets to be work quickly.
Sandbags are a thin plastic material that can be damaged and easily destroyed. One way to destroy a sandbag is to rest the muzzle of your rifle on the bag when you are firing. The muzzle blast blows away that plastic and lets all of the filling of the bag spill out. Don’t rest the muzzle of a firearm on a sandbag; rest the fore-end instead.
Another way to destroy a sandbag is to rest a Picatinnny rail on it. The serrations tear up the bag with the same result – the innards become outarrds. If you have a rail, lay a towel or a carpet square on the bag to protect the bag.
And, in case the string on the bag breaks, don’t just throw the bag on the table or lay it down on the floor for the sand to spill out everywhere. Sit it up out of the weather and we’ll get a new string on it or we’ll slip it in another bag. If a bag does spill, there is a broom and dustpan out on the apron to sweep up the spilled sand.
And, just one last comment – if a sandbag does spill its guts – throw it away, that is a valid use of the range trashcans.
