One thing about my club that can sometimes drive me nuts is that we’re limited to no more than five rounds in a magazine. I was wondering how common this kind of restriction is at clubs? What’s the rule at your local club?
When this rule was explained, they claimed the reason for it was to prevent accidents if a gun failed and started firing uncontrollably. In my experience, this doesn’t happen. Plus, in my experience with machine pistols, if you shot 5 rounds off automatically and didn’t expect it, you’re putting three rounds in the ceiling.
I find the rule to be particularly annoying with revolvers, and now, I understand that the standard M1 Garand clip would leave me in violation of my club’s rule.  That’s not even mentioning how annoying I think it is to have to switch magazines if I’m trying to shoot a string of 10, or if I want to practice with the Glock on the indoor pistol range.
I think the real reason for the rule is to keep people out of the club who just want a place to come blast away, and aren’t serious shooters. Â I can accept that there may be utility to weeding out people who just want to join so they can blast away at crap on the plinking range, but I think there are better ways to avoid that problem.
One disappointing thing about this club, is the leadership seems to want to bring everything down to the lowest common denominator, rather than weeding out the problem people, so the rest of the members can enjoy the facilities. In our last club newsletter, they threatened to shut down the plinking range for range violations, without mentioning what people were doing that was a problem. It seems to me the proper way to deal with this is to revoke memberships for violations, rather than mete out collective punishment. I wonder if it’s the same attitude behind the round restrictions.
