Here we go again!!!!

O

oneflyer

Guest
I read on the USA Today website this morning and later it was reported by NBC news that the latest wildfire in Utah was started by "target shooters" . The National Park Service stated that when bullets struck rocks a spark occurred and the result was a fire. Not only that but TWENTY fires have been started by target shooters this spring in Utah. Well now when was the last time you got out your flint and piece of copper to make a spark and start your campfire. What? Why not? BECAUSE COPPER DOESN'T"T SPARK!!! The last time I looked bullets are copper jacketed. Another subtle and uninformed assault by the government, aided and abetted by the uninformed and lazy news media on the shooting community. we should all be insulted and write NBC news and USA Today about this misreported "news" item.
 
I, too, saw that on NBC and had a visceral, bad reaction to the way it was presented.

However, I want more info before I get angry. Clearly, the specific mechanism you outline from the NPS statement is dubious. That doesn't necessarily mean that the fire was NOT started by shooting.

The backstop (rubber granule stuff) at my local indoor range was caught afire not too long ago when some nimrod with a SCAR, trying to impress the girlfriend he had dragged to the range with him, let loose with an entire magazine of tracers as fast as he could pull the trigger. The fire was small and quickly dispatched. The smell of smoke didn't even make it from the range to the attached gun shop. The fire dept came out. The range closed for cleanup for a day or so. It can happen easily with the wrong type of ammo.

Also, given the volume of steel-jacketed and/or steel-core, copper-washed bullets used by American shooters every year, I'm not ready to discount the notion of sparks at impact. In 7.62x39 alone, surplus ammo and new Chinese ammo with *lots* of steel in the bullets was arriving in the U.S. by the container-shipload before the Clinton administration stopped it. I have a case of the stuff, myself, and the bullets are strongly attracted to a magnet. I've never sectioned one, but it's clear to me that they have a good deal more steel in the bullet than the "bi-metal" stuff commonly found today.

I'm accustomed to the media getting things wrong and it appears they probably got this story at least partially wrong from the beginning. That doesn't surprise me. However, if it turns out that there were some idiots shooting tracers into dry pine straw or high-steel-content bullets into the right kind of rocks, that wouldn't surprise me either. I'll keep watching both mainstream and gun-centric web sites for further info and withhold judgement until I know more.

If the National Park Service knows enough to make a definitive statement regarding how the fires started, then they know enough to file charges against the people who started them. We may not know the whole truth until it comes out in a legal venue...and maybe not even then.

For people who would like to do a little more reading, there's a decent local news article here: http://www.heraldextra.com/news/loc...572a-a4c8-85989445763c.html?comment_form=true and a pretty good thread on thehighroad about the subject here: http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=664756
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I went out to start my truck this morning and it was completely covered in ash from these fires. Good thing I rolled up my windows last night!

This ain't the first time they have blamed target shooters for fires on this mountain. Several years ago, somebody started a fire almost exactly in the same spot. Shooters were immediately blamed and the county banned shooting in any undeveloped ranges for the duration of the summer. People complained so the county Sheriff went out to the mountain and gathered some of these "spark spitting" rocks along with some of the local grasses and took them back to their training range. They put them in a wooden crate and proceeded to shoot at it with everything in their arsenal--including tracers. At the end of it all, they weren't even able to get smoke going! So they repealed the ban.

The latest fire was supposedly started by target shooters shooting at steel dueling trees set in a dry grassy area. At least, that's the rumor we've heard locally here. I could buy that. I do quite a bit of long range shooting at steel gongs at night and usually, one out of every five bullets that hit the gongs will spark several sparks. That is why I set my gongs on a burm that nothing grows on. But even if there were dry, knee-high grass on those burms, it would take ideal weather conditions to get one of those sparks to last long enough to start one strand of grass on fire. I suppose it can happen, but it would be rare.

A more likely scenario is when idiots bring aerosol cans out to shoot. I saw somebody shoot one of these at a developed range several years ago. It flipped through my field of view while I was watching one of my downrange windflags. I never saw what it was but it looked like a can of Brak-Kleen. Anyhow, it flipped over the burm and nobody thought anything of it. Several minutes later, we noticed smoke coming up from behind the burm. Then suddenly, 10 foot flames were visible and we rushed downrange to put them out. Luckily, there was a small irrigation ditch behind the burm and I had a cooler in the back of my truck. We started scooping water up with the cooler and we narrowly got the flames out before they hit the first row of trees.

I guess the bottom line is common sense. People don't use it often enough.......
 
I would caution any shooter not to intentionally shoot at any hard target that is surrounded by dry grass. I do not wish to discuss this here, but feel free to PM or email me. Before some of you go into attack mode, you might want to hear the basis upon which I make this remark.
 
I've wondered from time to time, if you made a rifle with five barrels that have to be individually loaded (no magazine), would it count as a single shot?
 
Looks to me like our wondeful Government needs to invest in more tanker planes, than bailing out Banks. How about FAST AND FURIOUS, they don't want you to know why they did this because they want to get rid of the second amemdment. So let there be no mistake, when the second one is gone the rest will follow!

Joe Salt
 
oneflyer said:
Maybe then we could make some relevant comments to the post.
Click to expand...

If you post is political, as I understand it, it shouldn't be on BR Central. If it is how shooters can exercise care so as to not start fires, I believe several have been relevant, esp. Boyd's.
 
Gee you didn't seem to have the same sentiments about the "Irony Within Gov't" post.

By the way I wasn't talking about Boyd's post I was talking about yours. I don't comment much on this forum because I find it a home for those that like to attack one another with little or no relevancy to shooting or improving skills. If I did perhaps I too would have 4240 posts.
 
Charles: now days everything is political, because they want to control everything just like what you are trying to do right now. Sorry but everything goes right back to people trying to control the world. Oh must be Boyd was a bad boy and accidentally started a fire. All oneflyer is trying to tell people is there pointing fingers again!

Joe Salt
 
The words in this post DO NOT relate to my position concerning anything whatsoever - just food for thought.

Every now and then a thread pops up concerning Precision Shooting magazine and always ends (most often starts) with folks complaining about the content being irrelevant to precision shooting. On the other hand, when somebody here mentions that a post is not relevant they are immediately tagged as "forum police". Not sure if there's a point there but even if not it borders on one.

Truth is, were all just trying to get through the day with a little more than we started out with....
 
Wilbur: but here I think the gun grabbers are making this political. I've never seen a fire started with a bullet, maybe these gun grabbers seen someone shooting and decided to start the fire and blame it on the shooters. Some people will do strange things if they don't like you!

Joe Salt
 
Wasn't targeting this thread specifically - just a general statement.

Yes, fairly remote that a bullet would start a fire but it has happened and they grabbed onto it. No evidence to pute or dispute...
 
Last edited:
Joe Salt said:
I've never seen a fire started with a bullet, maybe these gun grabbers seen someone shooting and decided to start the fire and blame it on the shooters.
Click to expand...
That's possible but that's not what happened in the instant case. The fire that started all this discussion was actually called in by the shooters who started it.

...While the winds pushed the fire parallel to populated areas most of the day, by Friday night it was moving directly toward some houses, said Jason Curry of the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands.

Two shooters sparked the blaze, named for a landfill popular with target shooters, late Thursday afternoon, Curry said. They tried to put it out, then called 911. They won’t face charges, Curry said, because they were not breaking any laws.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Joe Salt said:
All oneflyer is trying to tell people is there pointing fingers again!
Click to expand...
Again? Joe, when did it ever stop? Having said that, we all know some stupid, inconsiderate, airheads who happen to use firearms. I won't call them shooters. Not saying these guys were such. But I believe the "inconsiderate airheads" do more damage than half the left-wingers with the knee-jerk reaction against anything to do with firearms.

* * *

I'll allow that when I was a young man, I use to roam the southwestern deserts a bit. Sometimes hunting, but more often just enjoying the land. Now I'll also allow I probably would have enjoyed it more if I'd run into pretty girls wearing dresses that only came halfway to their knees. Never did, though. Just what kind of myths we busting here?

Edit: OK, I exaggerated. Went & watched the video again. Her dress comes almost to her knees... Need more wind...
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top