TargetTalk

Hello everyone,

My son has a Daisy 888 and I'm looking for competitions other than the local club where he can shoot. I see that there is State Junior Olympics in Michigan at Bay City and Kalamazoo, but I don't know if it is limited to International Precision, if they shoot 3P, or Sporter.

I would like to have him staying with Sporter competitions if possible since that is what he has. I have signed him up to shoot in Illinois in October, but I can't seem to find any other Sporter events happening. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

There are actually two in Illinois this month:

Coming up this weekend Oct 14 & 15 is a match in Streator. 3P Air rifle and 3P smallbore. I only have a paper copy of the program, so can't post the whole thing here. Relays are: 3P Air rifle 0900, 1330, 1800; 3P Smallbore 1100, 1530 - both days. Contact Chuck Cantrell 815-672-6541 email: cantrell "at" crtelco "dot" com

The other is Oct 22 in Normal at Ill State Univ. It's been listed here in the Rifle forum. (maybe it's time to bump it up)

Streator also hosts the Ill State Air & Smallbore Championship in November. Ask Chuck about that too.

Also, please realize that your son's sporter air rifle can be used in any air rifle match - if he is enjoying matches, then by all means sign him up for any and all. "Precision" does not exclude sporters - he might not be in a specific extra class for awards, but he will still get to compete against everyone else. It is great experience to shoot as many matches as possible. Most of us (99.999%) are quite welcoming, regardless of equipment. We should not be drawing dividing lines amongst such a small group of air rifle shooters.

Thank you for the reply. I was just trying to find competitions that had other Sporter shooters competing so that he would enjoy it more. Being able to compete equally is a good motivator, knowing that you can't possibly place well is not.

I was looking at information on the Michigan Junior Olympics, and it stated you needed a score of 570. I think the National record for Sporter is 571, so I don't think they were talking about kids that shoot Sporter.

We are hoping to make it to Normal on Oct. 22, if we didn't already have plans for this weekend, I would have liked to make the one in Streator.

Seems like it is very hard to find information on competitions early enough to make plans, and then when you do, the information is written like you know exactly what they are talking about. They don't always spell out who it is intended for. I look for information on this site, USAS, NRA, and CMP, is there someplace else that I should be looking?

There are a couple of other sources of match info depending on what state you're looking at. Some of the state rifle associations have rather good listings - Wisconsin for example. The CMP director for each state may also have a good grip on the matches taking place. In Illinois, CMP director Tina Odle has a spreadsheet with as many air & sb matches that she knows about in Il. Contact her at: smbrifle "at" yahoo "dot" com

This will still leave you to call the match directors and beg for a program. SOAPBOX TIME: I think a lot of us coaching & running matches could use a good manager!! Some of these match programs have definitely NOT been proofread, are only sent to coaches instead of all shooters, and are hard to impossible to get on "a mailing list" for. I end up making multiple copies of the Streator match programs because nearly no one else at my club gets them. We can't complain about poor turnout at matches if we aren't using all available means to get the word out!!

As for scores versus equipment, the 570 was probably the min score for either an automatic invite to the JORC nationals, or the qualifying score to get to the USA Shooting championships. Most of us (aside from those whipper-snapper college kids - you know who you are. LOL :^) are rarely ever going to hit those heights. Beginning shooters, whether they use sporters or precision, will probably be shooting around the same scores. I don't want to push you or your kid, but don't hesitiate to go to a "precision" match if that's all the choice you have. You'll be welcome at any of them.

Paula, gotta watch out for those whipper snappers. hehe.

Now, to the OP...I have match programs right now for the matches that will be in Streator, IL through the end of March. If you'd like the information on them I'd be happy to give it to you. We're always looking for new faces around here (as the shooters in Illinois seem to be few and far between sometimes). There are also a few more matches that I know of and just don't have the information on yet (but could get it for you if you needed it). I know there will be a couple of matches in Arlington Heights (in the NW suburbs of Chicago), Gilman, IL, and Paula's club in Wheaton usually has a match during the winter. In January there will be a 3P air match in Pekin (about 45 minutes west of Normal).

Like I said before, any info you need on the matches here I'm sure either myself or Paula would be glad to help you. We're a real friendly group here.

I have found that the people we have met through shooting have been very friendly and helpful. I appreciate any and all match information I can find. Because this is something my son enjoys, I have tried to learn as much as possible to make this something he will want to stay with.
I have no prior experience with this sport and I am amazed at what I learn.

The biggest frustration is the impression that I should just know what is available, where it is located, when the competitve season is, how it is setup, and who is expected (sporter, precision, sb). I can find information on National matches, and that is great, but not for kids just starting out.

I keep looking for Regional competitions that maybe with hard work and time, a kid starting out can expect to do reasonably well before making a huge investment in equipment and travel. I can find NRA sectionals or State Junior Olympics qualifiers, but these seem to be only Once a year, and nothing in between. Last winter, my son shot in 2 of the NRA sectionals and because he enjoyed competing and could find out how he placed against his peers he is motivated to continue to work at improving.

Am I missing something? Is there really very little information available? Are you limited by the program your local club already has up and running, and trying to help with that? Our local club is setup for 4H. So I am looking to expand the into other areas and find it very hard to get information.

Sorry, I don't mean to step on any toes. I am helping at our local club and plan to continue trying to learn anything I can.

As a new coach/leader it can be a daunting task to discover what is going on. I signed on as a project leader two years ago, and I'm still learning what is what. Recognize that many coaches/leaders are in the same boat, but never fear to ask questions .... especially here, there are folks on this site that have helped me tremendously.

1) Find/call a local high school that shoots Air Rifle, probably an Army, Marine, or Navy JROTC unit. The Air Force is just beginning a program this year, and they will probably know as much/little as you do. If nothing else ask when one of their matches is and go watch it. You'll learn a lot just doing that. I've been blessed here in NM that we (a 4-H program) got invited into a league, and we shoot shoulder to shoulder matches each month at our different ranges. Ask these folks for a shooting schedule, and if it is a USA shooting, CMP, or NRA match, it should be open to all. If it is strictly a JROTC match, maybe not

2) Look at the NRA Postals, these are great because you can hold a shoulder to shoulder match to fire these in your practice sessions all alone
http://www.nrahq.com/compete/dept-postal.asp

3) Get on the American Legion website and look at their postal match. Mike Buss does a great job for the kids.
http://www.legion.org/?section=prog_evt ... t_shooting

4) After you've fired a postal and watched a regular match, well, hop on the pony and host one of your own. I started out hosting a state 4-H postal a month before the NRA postal was due so that we could use this as a "tuneup" for the NRA & American Legion postals we were going to fire. There is still time to do this. With the postal format, I just had to deal with the targets and not cramming in 50 shooters into a 6 lane range. They fire at their own facility, and then send in the targets or just the scores. I run ours like the NRA and American legion ... I print target stickers and have them send in the targets ... the coaches/leaders need training too, not just the shooters. Anything that they mess up in out postal can be corrected before they send in the NRA and AL targets. (One of the main issues we found was very old, outdated targets that were not acceptable)

5) Go back to item 1 and contact one of the JROTC instructors and ask if your kids can fire in one of their matches, or hold your own (multiple relays) and invite them .... If you have their schedule you can pick a weekend that won't conflict.

Also the minimum scores you saw for the JO's are not for the state matches ... these are to qualify for the national match in C Springs in March. I have 10 year old kids with 888's go in and shoot against the 17 year olds shooting precision guns. Talk with the match director (they should be on the match program) and it would not suprise me if they had a "local" state sporter category of awards. See if you can talk them into breaking that out for age groups as well (J1, J2 & J3). If there are enough kids to pay for the awards, I'll bet they do that. If nothing else they should get "participation" pins.

If you have a lot of younger shooters, I like the USA Shooting/4-H Passport program .... the USA Shooting/Daisy program is the same. Check it out and even the NRA program .... these little recognition pins keep the younger kids coming back. You'll even find quite a few of the older shooters that like this "extrinsic" motivation
http://www.usashooting.com/modules.php? ... load&cid=8

Good Shooting!

Go ahead and keep asking questions and seeking answers. It is always a pleasure to work with parents that are interested enough to be helpful to their children and their children's programs! That's the only way our programs are going to survive.

The skill levels of people running junior programs are varied, indeed. (I'm trying to be diplomatic here). As you can get to matches, ask around to determine the most experienced leaders & those willing to mentor new people. Your local program may be set up to adhere to only a particular type of shooting (4H, NRA Qualifications Course, etc), and your local leader may not be accomplished at the other portions of the shooting sports. See the post above for a taste of the junior world.

Gathering data - another story from the little old shooter, me:

In the old days, when you went to a match, the results bulletin would be mailed to you after a while. It included not only scores, but really important data such as names and complete addresses (this was before email LOL). Your name & address would passed along via other shooters seeing it in the bulletin, and you'd magically start getting match programs to enter other matches. This system worked quite well. It seems like in these modern times, volunteers are unable to type up complete match results, resulting in incomplete databases, resulting in mailing lists that have been reduced to tatters. Word doesn't spread that easily anymore. Programs are mailed or emailed to coaches, but not necessarily to the shooters themselves. A good leader passes the word along when they can; someone else may just put it aside.
Which is the soapbox way of telling you that, yes, you are looking in all the right places, but it is easy enough to miss matches due to bad communication. (This includes mailing out the programs too close to the match date, not responding to inquiries in a timely fashion, having confusing info on the bulletin, etc. You are right that some are written in a sort of shorthand. A good instructor or experienced competitor can translate for you!)

You may find that visiting another junior (or senior) club that has shooters that COMPETE in air or smallbore, would be beneficial. Rather like going to matches & asking & observing. At this point, if you can tell us your general location, perhaps some of the experienced coaches could give you some good club contacts. Definitely talk to people like Joe Miller and Tina Odle when you get to ISU Normal for the match.

PL - Wheaton (Il) Rifle Club

I applaud you for being so involved in your son's shooting (especially with him being a new shooter). I agree that it is too hard to "just know" what everyone is talking about with these matches.

Here in the midwest (in my opinion) it is really easy to miss matches simply because there aren't a lot of them and sometimes you may only find out the week before, that is if you find out about the match at all.

You're definitely on the right track to seek out these matches and try to exhaust every option you can come across to find out more information. Once you get used to the shooting scene things will definitely become less confusing and then it's just a matter of seeking out the matches.

From the sounds of it, I'm one of the lucky ones here to be on Jim's mailing list out of Streator AND Tina's.

Make sure that when you do go to matches, talk to the coaches, other parents, even some of the shooters...see how they got started, how they learned what they know, etc. I would encourage your son to do the same. Many shooters are more than happy to share what knowledge they have with other shooters. We just want to see the sport grow.

Also, make sure you get names, phone numbers, email addresses, anything. I know you'll meet a lot of people along the way and sometimes names and/or phone numbers get lost, but they're important. During the summer months start emailing or calling the people you KNOW are going to have matches...ask them if they're having the match again, when, etc. Ask them also if they know of other matches nearby and the contact info. for those. Most matches are planned many months ahead of time so it's really never too early to start inquiring for the next season.

-Diana

The other side of the issue are those people hosting matches. We're always trying to get the word out to as many people as possible. It takes a lot of work and organization to host a match, and then 10 people show up. So when you go to a match, drop off a card or something like it with your contact info. You'll be surprised how many people will start dropping you info. on their matches. Some of us contact the coaches of clubs we know about, because the shooters themselves change over a year or two.

The flow of info. is a two sided issue, but with email, and forums like this we can keep the growth of air rifle matches on a positive track.

Heres a new idea, maybe Target Talk could open a new Forum on shoot programs only! ! ! ! !

Am sure Scott would love that one, but it would be a great central location of match schedules and shoot programs.

squirtsdad, if we haven't scared you off (!) please take note of Indiana matches posted in the Shooters Lounge forum.