Anyone go to the rifle range Thursday? It's open from 3-5 the first and third Thursday of the month.

I'd love to, but i have a class from 3-5

those "match grade" rifles are pretty old, and they aren't very accurate any more. some of them even rattle around in the stock.

and of course, it's only the air rifles they provide. it'd be nice if the university had a real rifle/pistol range for students to use.

I think they're pretty new actually, could be wrong, but I shot them Thursday during class, and was able to be pretty accurate, especially considering that it's the first time I've shot a gun.

they were olympic-grade match air rifles at one point in time. i took marksmanship 3 years ago, and they were pretty old by then. they may have bought new ones since i took the class.

i think they had 5 or 7 rifles, one or two wouldn't work right, a couple more were wobbly in the stocks (you'd aim, and if you leaned one way or the other the action and barrel would slide around) but the rest were alright. i mean, you could still hit the bullseye reliably, but that's only what, 50 feet max?

They've bought new ones when they re-opened the class this year.

well, in that case... sweet!

Say so to the school leadership. I would love to have a place to shoot on campus as well. .22's would be nice. Pellet guns are good for practicing basic skills and shooting nice, tight groups at 10m, but it's just not as fun as shooting real guns. It would be really nice to have a place to shoot high power and pistols.

BTW, the guns are Baikal MP532's, Feinwerkbau 300s (the old one's that still work just fine since they've been fixed) and Feinwerkbau 603's. The 603's are top of the line but they don't get used much because there's only two of them.

The rifles you listed off that the school has are hardly Olympic match grade, I would love to be able to bring in a couple of german made Anshutes (sp?) olympic 22LRs

Only 5K a piece

Not that it'd matter if you could bring them in since you can't shoot anything but air rifles there. SMS has an indoor pistol range, I wish UMR did too :-\

What's your point? You can't shoot .22's so it doesn't matter what kind you have. As far as the FWB 603's, that model has won Olympic gold. The Eastern block used the Baikal rifles in years past. Not sure what they use now. There is definitely a difference in the German guns and the Russian guns in terms of quality, but they all will do just fine. Before you criticize the guns, maybe you should try them out. The 300s's have been repaired so they shoot just fine.

Inherent skill and a shit ton of practice are more important than a five thousand dollar air rifle. I would rather shoot a two hundred dollar gun that I have practiced with than an expensive one that is new in the box.

A sharp eye and a firm hand are worth more than money