jhmartin wrote:The point is that MANY of our junior shooters here use rifles that do not conform.
Some will be selected in December to to World level events ... Some will be selected in April to events in Suhl only 3 weeks later .... Ginny is one who came into the game with pretty good equipment. Many of our others are shooting older club rifles and will have to do the quick 2 step change.
USA Shooting will not provide the gear, they must come up with it.
Making the sport more rarefied does not help it ... as Randy mentioned, making it a sport with fewer folks interested in it will only make it easier for the Olympic Committee to keep >>MAYBE SHOTGUN<< and dump the rest for a more "Visual Broadcast Friendly" or more "PC" activity.
As an American living in the Western US (as does Randy), the fewer rules I have to live with the better.
If some nitwit drives 100mph down the highway, that is no reason to lower the already 75mph limit to 60.
This is exactly what ISSF has done with all the rifle rules ... they WILL NOT enforce the rules already on the books, especially if that enforcement is broadcast, instead they will continue to over-regulate the equipment.
Incidently these are now official rules as of this week as they are now approved changes for 2017, see the ISSF website, so thats it, we are stuck with them!
I whole heartedly support you, I have two junior girls I'm working with, one with a wooden stock, on a tight budget, who has gone from never having shot to 390+ in four months, with a wooden rifle, and now I have to work out a way to make it legal, as she simply can not afford a new one or a new stock. The other had a new wood stock rifle on order and fortunately we have been able to change it to an alloy.
The jacket seam rule was in the same vein and crazy, but this change is madness! On the ISSF site they say they consulted the manufacturers, that is a down right lie, a major manufacturer I'm close to has stated categorically that they were NOT consulted, they found out through the internet and have object strongly, and to only recieve a justification from Anderson, about stopping people resting the rifle.
As for the guy that sarcastically who said how do you stop people resting then? By looking of course, if they rest its b****y obvious!
As for the UK, we shall have to see how much lee way we get for our Air Championships in Feb, if the last change was any thing to go by, none, the only concession will likely be to have no EC for non championship shooters, i.e. those doing the class aggregates, but I suspect the Championships will be strictly enforced as they are national team qualifiers. Good old GB, worst shooting facilities in world, and the strictest EC seen!
As a 70 year old working hard to develop, mentor and coach young shooters to reach top level, I despair of the constant desire of the old men, ex champions, in the ISSF heirachy, to change the rules, which then hampers young shooters and achieves nothing else at all, the scores will not go down, the same people will win, why make change, other than to justify their own positions.
And at short notice!!! How can rules be changed at just over two months notice, they are announced but still not in print!!! This is total madness!!!
What about the manufacturers who may be still making rfles which now will not conform in 10 weeks, do they stop producing? Redesign? Do they scap certain models? What about their produced stock not delivered? What about shops with stocks of now non compliant models? Any change of this magnatude should have at the minimum a year lead in, if not much more.
I dispair at our national bodies who allow the ISSF to continue, its taken many years for the various national bodies to get to grips with FIFA, its about time the ISSF was revised or shut.
Rant over, I'll return to the workshop and try and devise a simple way to modify a wood stock to comply!