Inland Shooters

[ocabj]

I shoot on a very regular basis, usually every weekend, whether it be at my local club's range for general shooting or at another range for a match. When I am at my club's range just to get some rounds down range for my own personal benefit, I often observe other range patrons who are ill prepared for minor malfuctions or equipment issues. Many times I've been approached by another shooter who needs to borrow an allen wrench or a screwdriver. I'm always willing to oblige, but I am a bit perplexed with how ill equipped people can be when going to the shooting range.

If you are a shooter, avid or infrequent, you should make a small or medium tool box part of your standard range gear. Go to your favorite home improvement or department store and find yourself a decent portable toolbox that can hold miscellaneous tools. I use a 20" metal tool box with a single top tray. Small, handy, and rugged.

Once you get a portable tool box, it's time to fill it up with useful items.

First of all, get a decent driver and set of bits. You can go to any home improvement store and find a screwdriver set with interchangeable bits for under $30. You can even get fancy and order one of the speciality gunsmith screwdriver and bit sets from Brownells. Either way, you want a driver with varying bits such as small to large flathead and Phillips, the various torx sizes, and maybe some hex head bits.

If you don't have hex head bits for your driver, you'll definitely want a set of hex allen wrenches. At least get a set for US standard units since nearly all hex screws you'll enounter will be standard. But occasionally, you may encounter some that are metric, so it's wise to keep a set of metric hex allen wrenches in your tool box, too.

The next good item to have in a tool box is a small mallet with rubber and plastic ends. In combination with a decent set of punches and drifts, this will solve any issues you may have with any dovetail sights or pins you may have to adjust or uninstall/reinstall.

The tool box is also a good place to store your cleaning solvents, oils, solutions, and other lubrication. The small 2-8 ounce bottles that solvents tend to come in are excellent sizes for portable tool boxes. Keep the big 16oz bottles in the garage and use them to refill the small bottles in the tool box for range use. I keep Montana Xtreme, Montana Xtreme 50BMG, Montana Xtreme Bore Conditioner (oil), Militec-1, CLP, Loctite (blue and green), Lubriplate, moly lube, and isopropyl alcohol in my tool box. It sounds like a lot, but it's very easy to store all these in a portable tool box using small bottles and containers.

Along with the cleaning liquids and lube, the tool box can be used to store some cleaning patches of varying sizes (as needed), brushes, mops, and jags, along with bore guides (chamber and muzzle).