TargetTalk

ISSF Seems intent on turning shooting into a bizarre circus unrelated to historical matches, incomprehensible to spectators.

The finals changes, decimal scoring, breach-flag nonsense, equipment changes, destruction of shooting in Modern Pentathlon all seem like suicide. Maybe I'm getting old, whatever.

National representatives seem to have no input to the direction the ISSF takes - it seems to be an organisation run by non-shooters who don't care about shooters or shooting, in a bubble.

British Shooting did not get behind British Shooters, their behaviour seems to have been bizarre.
(Why John Rolfe was passed over previously - by the NSRA? - is still a mystery)

I don't know what the options are, fix the ISSF, form a breakaway, merge with something else?

(I don't intend this discussion to cover the US NRA, just international target shooting organisations related to the Olympcs, world cups etc, I don't know much about USA Shooting but feel free to bring it in)

On the other hand, Free Pistol and Rapid Fire are archaic, and not remotely representative of grass-roots shooting, not even compared with Air Pistol which is moderately popular at the club level.

It's probably more complex than that. I think I can see what they are trying to do, but I'm really sceptical about the chances of shooting developing into a TV sport. I do not agree with the ISSF about the way they are doing the changes - it's like that Gr*** guy, the one who "tests" the shoes for flexibility - it's a nutty idea, nobody can see the problem that the ISSF wants to "solve", but his company "invents" and sells a machine for it and he can't let it fall for fear that his career in the ISSF would be over (plus, it's personal income for him), so a big fuss has to be made over it. And it's like that on every "front" they are opening up. The guys with the ties know that as soon as they drop out of the olympics, it's over for them - no more banquets. The industry (that basically provides all the money in shooting) dreams of the old days, when everybody updated their stuff every two years, because of technical progress. They don't realize that this is over, and that I can easily shoot a modern AP for years, so they support all rule changes that lead to more revenue - until the shooters stop shooting, and then we are not back to zero, but well below. What we are seeing now is that some (big) national bodies are not adopting all ISSF rules anymore, at least not immediately, and my hope is that this will give the ISSF something to think about.

No-one seems very interested, but nevertheless:

We need some better matches to get behind - club shooters are barely interested in the Olympic matches, the public certainly isn't.
Compared with rifle there is a big disconnect between what is shot in the average ISSF club and what is shot at the Olympics.
We need for more representative matches to be shot at the top level.

FP - Requiring 50m ranges, and RF, requiring 5 bays, just aren't popular club level shoots or matches the average member of the public can get their head around. The equipment is esoteric, the range requirements - for clubs and olympic/comm games organisers excessive.

Sport Pistol and Air - They're far more like what the average club shooter shoots, and maybe nearer to what the typical spectator could envision themselves doing.
Centrefire seems to be dying internationally, but in the clubs its highly popular. I would like to see it brought back.

Standard Pistol is very similar to US Bullseye and is a popular club level match. Its a varied course, the progression in difficulty is obvious.
It could be split into three shoots, .22, .32, .38 - as fencing is with foil, epee and sabre - or left as a .22 shoot for the Olympics, maybe .32 for men.

Whether it were Sport Pistol/Centrefire or Standard Pistol/Bullseye or both I don't really care, but we need to get behind something or everything is going to fade away.

If it means bending the ISSF to our collective will, aligning with a different organisation or creating a whole new one then so be it.