Modelgun "shooting" safety - how do YOU do it?

Fine Folks of Forum,

If you do shoot your modelguns, how do you secure the area?

Cartridges are usually ejected even up to 2-3m away, with quite a force, and they are heavy and tough.
A cartridge hitting an object will damage it - dent wood (floor or furniture), punch a hole in a plaster wall, scratch metallic or painted surfaces, make fall down or break up smaller objects.

If you can shoot outdoors, it is probably ideal sitation, but when having fun indoor one needs some preparations.
Floor should be covered with something soft, absorbing impact (even if cartridge just falls out of ejection port it can do damage) like carpet. Ideally there would be a soft "wall" (larger piece of material) to catch flying cartridges gently and bring them down in a controlled way to the floor.
As a minimum - make sure that along the axis of expected (sic!) cartridge flypath you have something on the floor: carpet, sofa, bed, to soften the impact. This doesn't take care of unexpected paths though.

Some replicas (machine guns rather than pistols) have shell catchers - this is useful, although it obscures the action.

Please note that different modelguns eject cartridges in different ways/directions: while most tend to eject in right&slightly up direction (MGC 1911, Berettas), some eject to the left&up (Marushin P-38), some upwards (Marushin M712, MGC Winchester 1873), some straight to the side (MGC Automag). Some even don't eject at all, and if those are revolvers, everything's fine!

Apart from cartridges one should also take care to not have anything flammable near barrel exit (for the models with open barrel) and chamber area, as hot gases can cause damage too. This is usually not a big issue, unless you experiment with magnesium.

There is also the noise. Modelguns have different loudness, ranging from a quiet click (Marushin P-38) that doesn't even disturb a small child in the same room, through repeated shots (full automatics) up to a loud bang (MGC 1911) that makes your ears ring if fired in a closed space (such as a room). I consider impact of noise on surroundings (am I going to scare someone in the flat? are neighbours sleeping already?) as part of security of this hobby - not making trouble.

Shooting a replica for the first time is more nervous, as you don't know yet exactly what to expect for noise and cartridge flying out (observe extractor/ejector placement).

What are your thought on this subject?

Having come extremely close to smashing a TV with an ejected .45ACP PFC cartridge once, I quickly learned how wise it was to secure a "firing area"

Damage prevention is one thing, but retrieving fired cartridges is an other. Spending hours looking for lost cartridges isn't my idea of fun and believe me, I've spent hours searching through furniture and rooms before now

Easiest way I've found now is to use a large piece of cardboard packing that's about 5ft high x 6ft wide. It was wrapped around some flat-packed furniture I'd bought. It's ideal, being a "box" of sorts it fold in the middle so all I need do is stand it up, open it out and make myself a cartridge catcher that's positioned about 2-3ft away from the gun's ejection port.

Every cartridge (usually) ejects and strikes the cardboard, falls to the floor and is contained in that area.

If needs be, I might put an old sheet or blanket on the floor too.

For general safety, being careful where, and in which direction the cartridges are going to go needs checking... TVs, Cameras, wives, girlfriends and pet budgerigars should be kept out of the line of fire... (depending on how brave you're feeling )

A couple of things to check though, especially if a friend or someone unfamiliar with guns of any description is firing your gun, is to make certain they don't touch or go near the trigger until they're ready to shoot, and that their fingers are clear of ejection ports...

Cerwyn wrote:

A couple of things to check though, especially if a friend or someone unfamiliar with guns of any description is firing your gun, is to make certain they don't touch or go near the trigger until they're ready to shoot, and that their fingers are clear of ejection ports...

Very good point!
For some reason many people just immediately squeeze the trigger as soon as they get a gun in their hand, without any thinking at all. This seems as common as looking into the barrel.
That's also why I will not have any real blades (knifes, katanas etc) in my house - those can easily slice off your finger, and there is no way of preventing your guest from grabbing one from wall and "just checking if it's sharp". With modelgun, at least you can keep it unloaded.

After breaking ornaments, picture frame glass, countless dents in the wall and loosing cartridges I hang a towel or sheet on a hanger which absorbs the force very well

One problem is shooting one for the first time and trying to find out which way the rounds come out.

8ace