I got up early this morning. Geared up my Mossberg MVP to take out to the backwoods close to my place. Went out.....and didn't shoot a single round in ammunition..... why? Well Its Sunday, I came out after the first large snowfall, and its cool, about -15 Id say. Well that’ll keep the weekend warriors at bay right? Wrong. I know its hunting season, and frankly all the vehicles and people I saw on my commute where there for that reason. I sat in my truck for 10 minutes to wait and hear if there would be a crack of a rifle, nothing, no target shooters or plinkers.. So out of respect and because with all the human traffic, game was no where to be found anyway I decided not to be the one to make all the noise and scare everything away.
About 50 yards from my truck I notice this piece of plywood, screwed high up on a tree, behind it? a forest, then the creek, then the highway, and a campground. What a risky set up to be shooting out in the open where your hope is the trees stop your bullets, and whoever was shooting at this didn’t have a little .22, whatever he shot cut the tree in half.
So i did my due diligence and ripped the board off the tree and threw it into the back of my pickup. This way other shooters don't come out, see it, and use it themselves as the original shooter did. Talk about seeing that right off the bat before I even got a quarter of the way down the cut-line. It was all I could think about, being out there wasn't about testing the Mossberg, this article is about shooting safety in the back woods.
I don’t want to be the one to school those whom follow proper protocols and have their head on straight, its the select few that ruin the entire sports image, and no shooter..hunter..or competitor is unfamiliar with the situation. When I go out into the back country to set up my target and shoot I always treat it as if it where my backyard, pick up my casings, collect the target and the target frame, and I always leave with at least one piece of garbage more than I have brought. And if your reading this and I described you perfectly, good on you! If you cant relate, pay attention, stuff like this is why the public range in my area was shut down, and why its increasingly hard to find private ranges, and of course, why its harder to shoot on crown land.
Pictured here is a power pole that has seen the wrath of a shotgun, as well as some larger caliber holes as well as some work done by a woodpecker.
So here it goes, my list of protocols to follow when you are shooting in the backwoods;
1. ALWAYS KNOW WHERE YOUR BULLET IS GOING TO LAND
I can’t believe someone actually goes out onto public owned lands, sets up a target, and shoots wherever their eyes lead them to. Pictured above is a power pole in which someone had made the centerpiece of their rifle scope, behind it, is all forest. When you are shooting on shared land you have to understand that you are sharing it with a bunch of other people with different hobbies, If my bullets wanders into a forest, I wont sleep at night wondering how far it went and if it landed on...or in something it should not have. ALWAYS ALWAYS know exactly where your bullet will land, generally you should be looking for a hill side that will stop the bullet dead.
Pictured here is a equestrian trail, situated 50 meters in behind the power pole pictured earlier.
2. Situational Awareness
The crown lands near highly populated areas always attracts many tourists and locals enjoying their specific hobbies. Mountain biking, hiking, equestrian riding in the summer months or cross country skiing, sledding and hunting in the fall/winter months, there will always be someone out doing something out there.
As a shooter it is your job to know whether it is safe to shoot or not, common sense has to come into play, If your out on august long weekend mid-day and think your going to get some shooting in, first is there are going to be lots of witnesses. Second is you don't know what these people are doing, where they are going and if they will unknowingly wander onto your range. The what if scenarios i could write about will be abundant, Unfortunately firearms are last when it comes to first come first serve, we need lots of space, and we do use dangerous tools that are able to kill, Yell at me saying guns aren't dangerous but frankly they are only as dangerous as who is using it. Be mindful of others in the area, be respectful of others, and please dear god don't do anything to endanger others.
3. Do Some Recon.
This kind of goes along with situational awareness, before setting up and start shooting on your chosen range site, its a good idea to walk around the area, check to make sure no one is around, no cattle is hanging around, things like that. In my area there are lots of trees, and those trees are good at hiding things, Before I even set up my target I go for a walk. I walk in behind and around where my range is set up to make sure nothing is there, no trails, people or livestock.Â
4. Look out.
So we have now checked our range, we know where our bullets going, and no one is in immediate danger, that's right not immediately. When we are looking down through our scope its very easy to get tunnel vision, its good practice to keep on the look out for anyone or anything that might show up unexpectedly. Keep a pair of binoculars with you, or if your out with a friend make sure one is watching the big picture while the other zooms in on target. The last thing you need is to be shooting out to 800-1000 yards and a mountain bikers pops into focus while your bullet is mid-flight. Which brings me to my next point...
5. Go Long! but not too long.
Long range precision shooting is becoming increasingly popular. Its challenging, and for many its flirting with the sniper-fantasy that video games and movies have created.
In my area there is only one range I know that has a 100 meter range, after that there is one range that goes out to 500 meters, and then the rest only go out to 200 meters maybe not even that, so a lot of people turn to the crown land for a long range shot. This once again ties into a common topic Ive already addressed.....Common sense, and situational awareness. At 1000 yards a .308 Winchester round will be in flight for almost 2 seconds (under certain conditions), sounds fast right? it Is, but.....lets add the average human reaction time which is around .30 seconds. so 2.30 seconds from which the brain decides to take the shot, your finger to squeeze the trigger and the bullet to accelerate and fly to the target. There is enough time for something to wander onto your bullet during that time period.
My rule of thumb for crown land shooting is half a kilometer max, plus its hard to find anything further than that in the trees. Though I cant stop you from exceeding that distance, make sure you remember the above points mentioned.
6. Keep it Clean!
I hate driving up to my favorite shooting spot and seeing spent casings and shotgun rounds laying around, beer cans and a make-shift campfire in the middle of a fire ban. Though I do love it when they leave .223 casing around I can reload I hate seeing it in the wilderness and even more so I hate seeing non-shooters see it.
Keep track of your spent ammo, take it home with you, I don't see this problem with rifle shooters as much as shotgun enthusiasts. I hate to say it but skeet shooters are the messiest of the bunch, especially with the fragments of orange clays laying around. Though i understand that you have better things to do than pick up all the pieces of clays, and plus its clay, its not going to hurt the environment, it just looks bad being orange, but I can get by that. What I cant get by Is beer bottles! liquor, water bottles soda cans any of it! i took 20$ worth of cans that I have collected from the backwoods in the last year. Its the lowest one can be. Not to mention you shouldn't be drinking and handling a firearm at the same time.
Sorry, that rant is getting a little out of hand. The point i am trying to make here is to leave with more garbage than you have arrived with, (Not that your selfish drunk assholes, well because if your reading this you probably aren't one of them anyway.) its nice to keep our back yard clean.
7. Do Not Drink and Shoot
I touched on this topic in the above point. And so we are clear....Alcohol...you can drink your water Smart Alec! This shouldnt need any explaining.
So to reiterate, we as shooters have to be above the average when it comes to our behavior and etiquette. With firearms already being under the microscope so much people and politicians are very quick to take anything away from us as they can. Like the public shooting range in my area, it was shut down because of peoples poor respect of the place and for the sport. Crown land is constantly being closed off to shooters and if things keep going the way they are we will have to either get lucky enough to join a private range (which is hard to do) or our firearms will collect dust in the cabinets. So the choice is yours.
*Drops Mic*
Did I miss something that is important and should be shared? Leave a comment or PM me!
~TSC
