Sad but true.

So, if you go to any public range, you can see the marks from bullet impacts all over the place downrange. Some of the target carriers will be dinged. The tiles covering the ceiling baffles will have holes. There'll be divots in the floor and walls.

The vast majority of this is because most people just can't shoot worth a damn, but some of it is for a different reason.

It turns out that some folks...usually people who just come in to rent a gun, but sometimes even people who you'd think would know better...think that it's like a BB gun shooting gallery: that anything downrange is fair game to be shot at. They'll get bored with missing their target and deliberately shoot at the wall or floor or whatever until yelled at by range staff. Some people's kids, I swear.

Look, pretty much all that stuff downrange is, of necessity, bullet-resistant to a greater or lesser degree, but the only part of the whole ensemble that's actually designed to be shot is the backstop. Try and ensure all of your bullets land there, okay?

Also, although it pains me to have to point it out, there's a Rule Four angle here, too. Y'all remember Rule Four, right? "Be sure of your target and what is beyond it"? This means that if you're five foot one and you hang a B27 target at five yards and try and shoot it in the noggin, your bullet is going to impact the range ceiling just a few yards behind it. Similarly, almost anybody trying to shoot a Casino Drill on a standard target is going to wind up skipping bullets off the floor.

There's a reason that in a class like this on an indoor range, all the shooting is done with the targets right in front of the backstop.

So please, when using a public indoor range, be mindful of where your bullets will impact after passing through the target. This helps keep maintenance costs down and keeps the place from looking like hammered crap.