Side Effects of Sudden Interest in Olympic Shooting

[Gwhite]

The college team I help coach has sixteen Benelli Kite air pistols. We have a dozen Kite Juniors, which are perfect for our smaller female shooters. I decided we needed a few more XS and XXS sized grips, and placed an order with Rink last night.

I've bought a LOT of grips from them over the years. The typical wait is 2 to 2 1/2 months. I don't ever recall it taking 3 months. The delivery date I was quoted was February 3rd!

I've noticed we have a general increase in forum postings to the tune of "I want to shoot Olympic air pistol. How do I start.", but I hadn't thought about its impact on getting parts & cylinders. We aren't in the market for new pistols, but I bet the stock of high end air pistols is also depleted, with long delivery times.

I expect the used pistol market to improve in about two to three years when people discover it's not as easy as it looks...

[KDZ]

"I expect the used pistol market to improve in about two to three years when people discover it's not as easy as it looks..."

(Voice of experience)

[Ramon OP]

Are there machinist, engineering or other related courses in the college ? (I'm sure gunsmithing is not a possibility) You could try to get the students in those courses to make them with wood or 3D printing.

[Gwhite]

3D printing good grips is not trivial due to all the curved surfaces involved in fitting something squishy & irregular like the human hand. We have purchased 3D printed grips in the past from a vendor who specializes in it, but his business model is geared towards individuals. He prints them with fixed heel rests. For a college team, we need the adjustable heel rests to maximize the number of students they will fit over many years.

I have a 3D printer, and have printed replacement heel rests for several pistols where the students have crushed/broken the factory ones. I've also printed "booster" heel rests for our Hammerli AP20's to fit smaller hands. I have designs for right & left handed heel rests with an extra 5, 10 or even 15 mm of height to accommodate some of the very small women we occasionally get on the team.

[Gwhite]

To me it’s interesting to watch. I started shooting on two different college teams in 1989 - 1994, coached and captained the teams from 1990 - 1994. Neither university had a football team and I never had any funds available, so we bought everything on our own. It never seemed like there was ever any used equipment out there that was affordable, so many of us bought new equipment. I still shot competitively from 1995 - 2022 and it was hard to find a good range where I was living as well as trying to find anyone who could be a coach to assist me with that next level. In the United States, unfortunately I do not see this changing much in this area. I also do not see any funds from USA Shooting to assist anyone who is trying to get on the U.S. Team or keeping a college team active. Both my college teams are long gone and I am sure they are not the only ones who have folded. I hope I am wrong on this prediction.

Now that SASP is in charge of collegiate international-style pistol shooting, they are working hard to add schools. The NRA basically dropped the ball on collegiate competition when COVID hit by laying off the woman who kept it all going. The schools didn't want to just roll over & play dead, so we looked around for a new governing organization to work with. SASP was already looking into expanding from their action shooting programs into International shooting, so it all worked out for both sides.

There is a peculiar side-effect of "Title 9", which is a federal law that requires colleges maintain some level of equity between men's & women's sports. Big universities with massive men's sports programs make LOTS of money off football & basketball, but they get in trouble if they don't have enough co-ed, or better yet, women's sports to balance things. This encourages schools to have shooting teams, which are usually co-ed. I don't understand all the nuances of the law, but apparently Ohio State's pistol team will be switching to women only in order to fulfill their Title 9 requirements better. Other colleges have gotten wind of using pistol as a way to deal with their Title 9 headaches, and have expressed interest in getting programs going. There are lots of schools that have rifle teams, so they already have range facilities. It's a bit of a harder sell if they don't, but air pistol doesn't require much.

[M-1903A4]

When I was running the teams, the NRA was taking all the money for Sectionals and putting it towards the lobbying arm which did not even allow us to cover match expenses. I am glad someone else is organizationally over the Collegiate shooting pistol programs. The problem many have not faced, is that universities and colleges will not provide a budget to a pistol team due to it not being an NCAA sport, or not having an ROTC program (or ROTC members who want to compete), and the perceived liability. I heard all of those excuses while I was running the team as a student. Since neither school had a real athletic program at that time, (and one still doesn't) the Title IX issue was a moot point. We had female students on our Free Pistol and Standard Pistol Teams, which back in 1991 - 1995 was pretty rare. The first school had the range shut down due to lead contamination and they would not fix it, and the second school had no range so we had to rent lane space for practice and to even hold a match or two. We were also not permitted to set up an air pistol range on campus either due to the perceived liability issue.

[Peter Lovett]

For me the side effect has been increasingly watching ISSF videos of rapid fire shooting on YouTube. I continue to be fascinated by the different styles of shooting and the inanity of the commentary.

[thirdwheel]

As you know if you have ordered Rink grips when they give a delivery date that is months away they do stick to it and are very reliable, Thomas has added more products to what his business makes so perhaps that has hit delivery times a bit. We have seen a jump in enquiries at our club to try pistol shooting since the Olympics which is great and we are now at full capacity with a long waiting list. I was chatting to a Indian competitor a couple of weeks ago and she too was talking about the time it takes to get new equipment and that her supplier sells 200 10m target air pistols month and there is a long wait too. 10m air is alive and kicking and clubs really do need tap into this and not continue to go pander to the race to the bottom brigade.