A few years ago they had a person killed at a combined air gun, rifle range. They had the ranges designed with both shooting toward each other and a big concrete wall with berms of sand on each side. Now this was an indoor range and for some unknown reason they left a 1" strip along the top where the wall and sand didn't reach the ceiling. Some person on the rifle range shot at their target, the bullet skipped on the slanted sand instead of going into it, went up, richoched off the ceiling tile, went through that 1" crack, richoched off a tile on the other side and angled down and hot a person sitting in a chair in the head. This range had been in operation for several years and even though this was a freak thing, I have never understood why they left that 1"opening along the top.
At our indoor range the bullet traps are thick steel and they angle down in a
> shape with the point at the back and a huge concrete and steel backing plate behind it. That way all bullets are channelled into a small space and trapped and it is easy to clean them out. I have shot 50 calibers there and they just glance off the angle and wind up with the smaller calibers, so it is a good design.
As for learning to shoot, my first gun was a single shot 22, although my Father taught me to shoot all of the rifles and hand guns that he had including the German and Italian ones. He was a real stickler on safety and there was always a razor strap near by.
Ron
