TargetTalk

Hello all, new member, long time shooter. I'm not sure if I am contributing to rumors or what, but I read on anaother forum that small bore rifle diciplines are on the way out - can that possibly be true? Do any of the more experienced/international shooters have any thoughts on this.

I am getting close to investing in new equipment and have decide to wait a while and watch. Is it possible that the Gods would replace small bore rifle with air rifle? Could this actually happen?

Any thoughts and/or comments would be appreciated.


Thanx,
G.

I don't know where you got your information but there is no movement that I am aware of that would indicate a "dropping" of smallbore shooting, either nationally in the US or internationally.

Certainly, we face some challenges, especially in the US concerning ranges. Noise from large caliber guns (very little from smallbore) and encroachment on existing ranges and the environmentalists claiming (generally falsely) that we are polluting the ground water with lead contribute to the closing of outdoor ranges.

Indoor ranges have their own set of problems concerning ventilation and cleanliness.

But...there are always those who will jump to conclusions that with the growth of air gun shooting the smallbore must be dying.

Don't believe it. Buy that new equipment! and get involved by helping run more matches in your area!! that will help grow the sport instead of sitting on the sidelines waiting for the self fulfilling prophecy.

Marcus

ChefG wrote:Hello all, new member, long time shooter. I'm not sure if I am contributing to rumors or what, but I read on anaother forum that small bore rifle diciplines are on the way out - can that possibly be true? Do any of the more experienced/international shooters have any thoughts on this.

I am getting close to investing in new equipment and have decide to wait a while and watch. Is it possible that the Gods would replace small bore rifle with air rifle? Could this actually happen?

Any thoughts and/or comments would be appreciated.


Thanx,
G.

On the way out of what? Popuarlity? The Olympics?, World Cup? University?

Have to agree with Marcus if everyone takes the attitude of sitting and waiting to see what will happen then it will certainly die, get out there and shoot.

I would also agree with Marcus. I'd say buy that equipment and start running some matches too!

I live in Massachusetts and we have a decent number of smallbore matches for juniors, but there isn't a lot of open matches. I decided that I would host some open matches on Thursday nights at my club. I had never run a match before in my life! So far, the matches have been a great success. All sorts of people are coming out of the woodwork saying "boy I haven't shot in a while, but I think I'll dig out the old Anschutz."

We get a good mix of newer shooters as well as some seasoned veterans.

You can learn more about the matches at http://pronematch.com

Dan Holmes

Thanx to all of you for replying in such a civilized manner. I am actually quite involved in both pistol and rifle shooting and practice 6 days a week and try and get into any match I can down here in Florida.

I think I've managed to get to a level where I need to spend real money to get any better and was doing some online research when I came across this thread (maybe it was rumor mongering from the air guys). As I mentioned, I really am trying to get as informed as I can be before I invest another 4K on some good stuff.

Thanx again for all the encouraging words, I did go on to the International site - but these guys do not do a very effective job of communicating their intentions - a perfect example is when they changed pistol formats from short to long rifle! Ouch, there are a lot of worthless pistols out there looking for a match!

Thanx again for your input and vote of confidence.
G.

See a similar thread in the Shooters Lounge, "Where have all the shooters gone?" It begins with some statistics from NRA smallbore matches for the past 20 years.

From where I stand, it looks as if all the traditional disciplines are going the way of the dinosaur. Shooting events that are not mostly social gatherings (90% social, 10% shooting according to a post on the other thread) are not attracting participants. It seems like folks don't have the desire to focus their minds and bodies for more than 60 seconds. Sixty shots with the air rifle takes 2 hours; a full-course smallbore match takes half the day, and the National Prone Championship at Camp Perry takes 4 days.

Also, while it's easy to say, "Hold more matches!" but without a range to hold them on, it's not going to happen. I can shoot my air rifle in my appartment, but I sure can't hold a match there.

Not to be a voice of gloom, but I don't see a lot of reason for optimism.

OldCoot wrote:Not to be a voice of gloom, but I don't see a lot of reason for optimism.

That's the sort of attitude that will kill it though. If people say "oh, I'll hold off, see if it's dying and if I should invest in an up and coming discipline rather than this one", then of course that discipline will decline because it will have no new blood!
Yes, "Practical Shooting" is booming at the moment, probably because of the Playstation generation who don't have an attention span past 30 seconds unless something blows up on their screen to keep them interested. Not that I'm knocking Practical shooters - the rate the top guys knock those targets down is phenomenal, but the playstation era is surely part of the reason many kids don't have patience for international "bullseye" disciplines.

Times are hard at the moment, and shooting in general is getting a lot of flak because the media don't generally know what they're on about/refuse to show anything positive about shooting whatsoever, but that's no reason to prop up the bar and be gloomy, 'tis a reason to get out, spread the good word and recruit new members.

Prime example came up on another forum I'm on. They were discussing gallery rifle (semi-auto .22 rimfire - became popular in the UK after the hand-gun ban when a lot of pistol courses were adapted for it). A guy on this forum asked "so what's this gallery rifle stuff then?". We explained, and it transpires that he had no idea about it, and he hadn't set foot in his old gun club since the pistol ban. Anyway, he went back, had a blat, loved it and is shooting again - but he's lost 10years, and all because of a lack of information and education from the governing bodies about what is available.
Well, if they won't tell people about what's available, we should damn well make sure we do...it's becoming more obvious to me that we, the shooters, and not our governing bodies (in the UK at least) are responsible for the future of our sport...