I plan to go in as infantry in a year. I'll be in college, but happy and ready to deploy and serve. I wanna be the best soldier i can be, in addition to PT and the usual drills, if it possible to go to the range with the M16 more often? I know guard units have full time personell...would this allow for extra shooting? Also, my cousin is in the Core, and of course his rifle is his life. In the guard, do you have any connection, or is it simply pull one off the rack when it's time to deploy? Do you clean them, etc? Thanks!

quote:

Originally posted by 11916416:
I plan to go in as infantry in a year. I'll be in college, but happy and ready to deploy and serve. I wanna be the best soldier i can be, in addition to PT and the usual drills, if it possible to go to the range with the M16 more often? I know guard units have full time personell...would this allow for extra shooting? Also, my cousin is in the Core, and of course his rifle is his life. In the guard, do you have any connection, or is it simply pull one off the rack when it's time to deploy? Do you clean them, etc? Thanks!

It depends on your National Guard unit and Armory. Some National Guard Armories have a firing range in the basement others you have to take a bus to a post and fire the weapon.

Here is the answer to your question though. It used to be allowed to draw your weapon and go qualify and all you needed was the unit admin to unlock the arms room and a second NCO to supervise you while you had the rifle checked out. That was 1982-1983. What happened is several National Guardsman walked off with their weapons into public and scared the behesus out of them. I would be surprised if this practice is still allowed.

Only your local National Guard unit would know and you should ask them. If your joining as Infantry you should be able to pull out the Blue Pages part of the phone book and see which NG Infantry unit is closest to you on a map.

Cool, thanks

No you cant draw your weapon to go do "extra" shooting. I know in TN all the indoor ranges have been shutdown/dismantled(Lead levels).

Showing your age there Erich...LOL

quote:

Originally posted by 11916416:
. . . if it possible to go to the range with the M16 more often? I know guard units have full time personell...would this allow for extra shooting?

I would be very surprised if you could do this, for several reasons:
- The number of trained support/safety personnel required when live firing would be more than the # of full-timers most units have;
- Unit full-timers already have a full day of work activities to do;
- Ammo at units is few & far between due to the storage/handling requirments that come with ammo; and
- Ammo costs $$ which is closely monitored.
At best you may be able to dry-fire practice your aiming technique. Also, your state may have the video/air gun training set-up which costs much less than live-fire. But, use of such is by appointment and is coordinated/performed at the unit level.
Good luck; cul8r.

Ranges closed in Wisconsin also....for lead and noise