That kind of prank? That's a hard "no". That's childish and exposes a lack of competence in the instructor.
The closest I've gotten to that was at a .mil course. You and another guy would PT behind a wall, and on "go" you'd run around the wall to your shooting position. Your rifle would be there along with instructions for the course of fire. On some iterations it would be exactly as you left it so it was just a matter of completing the exercise faster than the other guy. Other times you'd find it in pieces so you'd have to reassemble, unloaded or loaded with some dummy rounds (so as to force you to tap-rack your way to success), batteries removed from the optics (so you switch to irons), or otherwise un-shootable so the mini rifle comp became a pistol comp. And on and on. Each iteration was an exercise in shooting and problem solving under self-induced stress (PT and trying to beat the other guy). It was fun and I think I got something out of it.
There's a time and a place for that sort of thing and randomly throughout the day as a "prank" is not it. Have we, in a training environment, added rocks to a guy's rucksack as a joke, replaced some of the rifle mags in his kit with big purple dildos when he wasn't looking, or given role players a new script to purposely mess with those not in the know? Sure, but you draw a line at safety stuff and changing someone's zero is a safety issue. Some guy was messing with my personal guns at a civilian course better be prepared to apologize or accompany me to the woodline.
Got all my gear in. Really impressed with the Ares Gear belt, it is super stiff.
Last edited by J-Dub; 01-18-18 at 06:53.
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