TargetTalk

I see some talk, both on here and locally in my area, of postal competitions. How exactly do these work?

They have various formats, off the top of my head here are a few

CMP Aces - They mail you bar-coded targets which you shoot and mail in
Target Shooting Canada - Shoot your targets and post an aggregate score via their website
Others - Shoot a subset of a full match and email the score every couple weeks

In the UK, postal comps are the backbone of NSRA shooting. There are national, regional , and local leagues, both for individual entries and teams (club and regional). Competition organisers send out stickers to clubs/competitors which must be stuck to targets before shooting. Cards are shot, signed, and countersigned. In some competitions the shot targets are sent back to the competition organiser for scoring, but others allow cards to be scored at the club (often by a nominated and accredited official) and scores sent to the organiser.

The system relies greatly on trust. In my county clubs can only self score if they have an accredited scorer. The organiser will ask for a random set of cards for checking. Mathematical errors seem the most common.

My air gun postal is pretty simple. It is set up for the shooter to send in scores from 20-shots every two weeks for 8 rounds. The high 6 scores figure into your final average and standings. I have several catagories for people and you win an award for placing in your group. Everyone also gets 2 decals each year for your gun box or whatever. Cost is only $14 for US and $18 for outside the country. I mail results on Wed. after the Sat. deadline just to make sure that everyone has the chance to get their score in. I do not!!! have anything online for you to look at. I mail out the summer or winter flyer to anyone who asks for it. Contact me by my email if you want to be put on the list for summer when I begin to get it going. I will need your name and mailing address. Thanks. Don in Oregon

Check the thread on "VT Winter Postal". It explains how that smallbore and air rifle League works.

we have 27 teams and 191 shooters this year so far. We even have a shooters from Poland and a team from Canada so Australia is not to far away for a postal league

You log into vtwinter.postalleague.com to register and you submit all your scores on line, mail in only your match 10 targets for verification. Cost is $6 US and you can pay that on line when you register.

The VT Winter Postal League is well worth your consideration. Peter does a wonderful job running it. If I had more reliable access to a range, I would not hesitate to participate. Spending time across multiple states an impediment.