A Day at the Shooting Range – Beijing, China

I’m not a big fan of guns. I’ve only tried them once before, during my university work placement in Indianapolis – a bunch of colleagues took me out to the local shooting range and showed off their large selection of handguns. After shooting a few rounds, I realised quite how easy it was to hit someone from a short distance and decided I was quite happy with the UK banning private gun ownership.

China is just as strict, so it’s no surprise that the shooting ranges in the area don’t let you bring your own guns. Instead, you pick a gun to borrow and buy ammunition by the magazine load.

There’s an aptly named ‘Gun Selection Room’ where the walls are lined with all sorts of ordnance. Our attendant showed us all the guns and explained which ones we could use. A few of the older firearms are still on show, but have run out of ammunition or been declared unsafe.

Guns, Lots of Guns

(1) Reference, sort of: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mrAhB_5rgI&feature=player_detailpage#t=100s

The guns ranged from those designed before World War II, to the Vietnam Era and more modern Chinese weapons along with a few well-balanced sporting rifles for those who were there intending to actually hit the target.

To rent a gun you have to buy a full clip of ammunition, so along with listing the guns we were told the magazine size, and price per bullet. Some quick mental arithmetic told me this could end up being an expensive day out.

Prices ranged from 10rmb per bullet in a 6-shooter pistol, to 20rmb per bullet in the 30 round magazine for an AK-47. Individually it didn’t seem too bad, but some of the guns with larger magazines would add up quickly. With this in mind, I picked out 3 Chinese guns I’d never heard of, each with 10 shots. These were

QSZ92 9mm Pistol

QBZ95 5.8mm Automatic Rifle

Type 85 7.62mm Sniper Rifle

Shaking their heads in disbelief that I’d picked out Chinese weapons, my Chinese friends grabbed all the foreign guns like the American M-4 and Russian rifles and we headed to the range.

First was the pistol range. Viewers have to sit in the main waiting area whilst the shooter stands in a soundproofed area with an instructor who prepares the guns. There’s also a random old gentleman slumped in a chair who just sits and watches, without commenting.

The ladies went first and did well, then all the Chinese men, who did equally well. I took the pistol and fired two shots into the shoulder of the target before the instructor came to life and made adequate pointing and shaking motions to indicate that I was incompetent. He showed me how to hold the pistol, how to stand and how to aim. I stood as instructed, took aim with both hands and fired. And missed entirely. As did the next 7 shots.

The others consoled me with “The first two were good”. Yes…

Moving onto the rifle range, everyone else fired their 8-12 rounds from their selected long rifles, all remarkably well. At this point, they explained to me that being Chinese they’d all had mandatory military training, including rifle practice, so I had a good excuse.

I went last and the magnified rifle scope made a huge difference – I was actually able to see the target and adjust my aiming accordingly after each shot.

Last were the automatic rifles, which are the guns everyone is there for really. This time I was first, and entered the shooting booth. The gun is loaded, then padlocked to a table, and shot from a seated position. By now I was somewhat dehydrated and couldn’t properly see the target, so gave up and just pointed up range, then pulled the trigger ten times in rapid succession. I sheepishly looked at the instructor and he was nodding in satisfaction. The last eight bullets had entered the target in a tight little grouping. Even the impassive old gentleman smiled at me from his seat.

Not a great score, but it's still quite dead

On exiting, the others congratulated me on not being so inept and said “Ah, too many movies I think”. The others then used their guns to get near perfect scores, using such underhand tactics as aiming before each shot, and knowing what they were doing.

With all our bullets depleted, we were led out to the clay pigeon range, but the costs were high and the queues long so we skipped it. Finally, we were shown their pièce de résistance, a four-barrelled anti-aircraft gun. This was £100/$160 for 100 rounds and I was tempted, but there were still no pictures allowed so again skipped it.

In the end, the whole day cost less than £40 each, most of which was spent in a very short time on the automatic rifles. The shooting range was good fun, and I’d like to do it again sometime, but am wary of the costs as I’d probably skip the cheaper pistols for the more enjoyable weapons. It’s worth taking a few people otherwise your day could be over quite quickly.

Once you escape the traffic, the China North International Shooting Range is only about an hour northwest of Beijing. There’s also a very decent Xinjiang restaurant in the nearby village.

Hopefully related posts:

Zhenbeibu China West Film Studio – Yinchuan, China Groceries – Beijing, China Making Out In Chinese – Beijing, China Grasping Chinese – Beijing, China