Oh, I get that...

by Paul , Saturday, September 27, 2025, 10:19 (9 days ago) @ AaronB

Aaron, have you ever seen a "day before opener sighting in day"? In Colorado I had the privilege of meeting up with Dalton Carr at the local range the day before rifle season opened. It was an eye opener for sure, and explains why I'm not too keen on public land hunting. And these are the folk that at least make an effort to sight in! I can well imagine the thought process of folks who think that hunting is easy. Just buy a scoped rifle at the store and "it comes to you ready to go". Just shove some ammo in and put the crosshairs on the kill zone of the critter and it's meat in the freezer! And then there's the folks who figure that they've got to have the biggest loudenboomer cartridge to take game with - but can't keep two shots (if any) on the same zip code, much less near the bullseye. I saw one chubby guy with an '06 trying to get his rifle on paper. Complaining about the recoil each shot, not accomplishing anything near a group, to say the least. At another range on a different day I saw a guy with a 340 Weatherby - if I recall correctly. It was a Weatherby "elk rifle" anyway. He couldn't hit the paper, much less group his shots. Afraid of the recoil. I put enough rounds on paper to show him that the rifle was sighted in (for MY eyes, anyway) and he was ready to go. The percentage of people in the general public who do not understand the basics of how rifles, ammo, scopes and shooting work is much higher than it should be in what used to be "a nation of riflemen".