Black Powder Banned at my Gun Club!

[BP Addict]

Black Powder has been banned on our Club Range until further notice. A shooter on the Public Range started a fire with his 1860 Colt Replica Revolver. It was a Freak accident as indicated by his explanation. It wasn’t real grass but the Astroturf in front of the Firing Line. Maybe they should have concrete or bare dirt instead of something flammable. This is the second burn mark since the first of the year. I don't believe the first one was caused by a Muzzleloader.

“I feel really bad about what happened at the range, I hate to be the guy that got black powder banned. As near as I could tell, the fire was the result of a percussion cap hitting the "grass" in front of the shooting positions. I saw the fire start and signaled the range master. The fire moved fast (I'm sure you've sen the damage). I was shooting from a standing position, .44 ball, 25 grains of powder and a lubed wad, nothing unusual and pretty sure I hit the target. Anyway, that's the basics - if there is anything else I can tell you just let me know.”

I’m hoping that the Board comes to its senses and removes the Ban. Otherwise, I’m going to have to join another Club a little further north.

Walt

 

[Edm]

That’s a first for me. A spent cap?

Whatever… just make BP shooters use that lane from now on. Nothing flammable there now…

 

[Collie]

Why would they have a flammable material that only covers 10 feet directly in front of the firing line? Seems like really dumb design to me.

 

[jdw276]

We have an indoor range I worked at and was there the day it caught on fire. Reloads in an AR, bad feeds pushed the bullets into the case jammed the gun. Unjammed threw the bad case forward of firing line with unspent powder. We found 14 cases like that on the lane. Finally the gun fired, huge fireball, powder fell into the unspent powder pile and caught the sound baffling on fire. Not BP related but stuff can happen with modern firearms as well. Would not think a cap in this situation but burning powder onto unburnt centerfire powder. Poof.

 

[64Springer]

If the lettering is spaced well, GUN BANNING RANGE NAZIS, should fit in that burnt area.

And if that's all it took to ban black powder, they've been thinking about it for a while.

It's like a spouse asking for a divorce after leaving the cap off the toothpaste one time.

 

[BP Addict]

Why would they have a flammable material that only covers 10 feet directly in front of the firing line? Seems like really dumb design to me.

They never thought about it until now. They're still not blaming the carpet! I bet that wasn't cleared by the Fire Marshall when it was installed.

Walt

 

[springfield art]

Black Powder has been banned on our Club Range until further notice. A shooter on the Public Range started a fire with his 1860 Colt Replica Revolver. It was a Freak accident as indicated by his explanation. It wasn’t real grass but the Astroturf in front of the Firing Line. Maybe they should have concrete or bare dirt instead of something flammable. This is the second burn mark since the first of the year. I don't believe the first one was caused by a Muzzleloader.

“I feel really bad about what happened at the range, I hate to be the guy that got black powder banned. As near as I could tell, the fire was the result of a percussion cap hitting the "grass" in front of the shooting positions. I saw the fire start and signaled the range master. The fire moved fast (I'm sure you've sen the damage). I was shooting from a standing position, .44 ball, 25 grains of powder and a lubed wad, nothing unusual and pretty sure I hit the target. Anyway, that's the basics - if there is anything else I can tell you just let me know.”

I’m hoping that the Board comes to its senses and removes the Ban. Otherwise, I’m going to have to join another Club a little further north.

Walt

Maybe they should REMOVE the stupid, un-necessary idiotic Astroturf crap and just have like, regular dirt!

 

[springfield art]

Maybe they should ban tasteless, corny-looking, slippery, out-of-place Astroturf, too.

 

[oldsmokey]

Sounds like a freak incident. 1 in a million chance that it could happen and then to get all worked up...OH BOY!! After all you are at a Live Shooting Range.

 

[CuNosecap]

Have a bunch of members stop paying dues, or at least vote out the silly *** board members that made that decision. Worst case, find a better range that appreciates ALL patriotic shooters.

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

Be aware, as others mentioned, that even the by-products of the combustion process from 'modern' arms can be the source of a fire. I agree that they should remove the carpet.

Likely they something 'relatively clean' there to pick up spent brass that falls forward of the shooting line more easily. If that happened at my Club, I'd get together with other BP Shooters and lay a skim0oat of self leveling epoxy concrete or similar there ...

 

[ZUG]

Whoever thought of putting AstroTurf there in the first place should have been kicked out of that club - such a stupid idea. I installed AstroTurf in my front and back yard at a cost of $18,000 and would NEVER think of using anything flammable near it. I hate it when people let their dogs and cats take a dump on it and when I see them do it I yell at them to pick it up NOW.

 

[Nor Cal Mikie]

Had one of our members start a fire a couple of times. Seems he was shooting old military ammo. (tracers)
He watches what ammo he shoots now.

 

[user 34300]

At my club's indoor range the had a powder fire in the concrete expansion joint. It moved along very slowly, no damage was done. The safety bedwetters let forth a deluge of urine.

It was caused by "green" powder. In other words unburnt powder from normal shooting that accumulated over time. I speculate that the Astroturf was catching unburnt powder. Once it had accumulated sufficiently it was ignited. Astroturf is plastic and not very flammable.

Putting Astroturf in front of the firing line was a mistake. It should be removed. IT had nothing to do with shooting black powder. The powder fire at my range was ignited by a regular smokeless cartridge.

There is a certain segment of the "Tacti-cool", "range-Nazi", "karen" types that will cause trouble for the regular members. They seem to get off on controlling others and making pointless work. Most of them have no other life or other interests. IT is important to push back against them.

My indoor range banned black powder. I quit my membership as did many others.

 

[earlwb]

We had someone shoot the water sprinkler system at the indoor range. Wow! Was that alarm system loud. It shut down the range as it set off the sprinklers plus the range had to wait for the fire department to come give their OK before they could dry it out to use again.

But yeah that carpet at the range looked like a bad idea from the start.

 

[Colonial Boy]

On our range we use green grass, the self renewing stuff, what’s more it is kept short by the local ‘roos, wallabies, wild goats and rabbits.

 

[leadhoarder]

Sounds like the range needs some real grass so you can go back to using real powder.

 

[chorizo]

Not the astro turf, rather unburned powder from regular cartridges that the hot spent cap ignited. When managing an indoor gun range we used to get flash fires all the time and periodically the carpets on the shooting positions would ignite from the powder.

All it needs is something HOT to ignite it, like a cap.

The astro turf is a perfect powder catcher.

 

[ppg1949]

I give my range board members a double thumbs up after reading this. At my club on the pistol ranges the concrete extends six feet in front of the shooting benches and then gravel out to the backstops. The rifle ranges have grass to the backstops. I guess those country boys running my range are tad bit smarter than the average bear.

 

[Collie]

This new rule sucks and hopefully they'll come to their senses and remove it. At least you have a club you can shoot at. The only club near me has a whopping $10,000 initiation fee and a $195 monthly fee to join.