TargetTalk

The Blue Grass State Games - Shooting Sports will be this coming weekend, July 16:

http://www.bgsg.org/shooting/

I suspect that the publicity has been somewhat lax. I didn't find out about it until a couple of days ago. And with an unfortunate lack of foresight, the shooting sports are held on the same weekend as the Camp Perry pistol matches, so the best competitors are likely to be out of state.

However, for anyone in the area who wants to have a go at an AP competition that is likely to be very low-key this is a good opportunity. I spoke with George Mountjoy, Tournament Coordinator, this afternoon and he has registered very few pistol competitors. I was going to attend as a spectator, since I have only been shooting about 6 months and am doing well to keep 10 consecutive shots in the black, but I may just have a go.

Even the rifle competition will probably be sparse since the National Guard is not sending a team, seeing as how they are busy elsewhere (and may they all come home safe for some future games).

The web site does not note the time of the AP and AR competition, but I was told that the registration will start at 8 AM, with the matches starting at 8:30.

Roger

You are right. An earlier posting of a few weeks and at least two of
us from NC probably would have made the match. Still possible but a
real priority problem now. Thanks for the posting. More matchs this
year?

philip_T wrote:More matchs this year?

Are you asking ME? I am obviously out of any loop there might be on the subject. I'll keep my ear to the ground, but as far as I know the community of 10M AP and/or FP shooters in Lexington, KY has one member. The fact that there is no FP competition in the BG State Games suggests that there are few in the whole commonwealth. Maybe I'll meet someone at the match who will be able to fill me in on what is going on.

Competition and meet listings is one thing I wish I would see more of on this forum. There are occasional mentions, but maybe some sort of announcement forum or calendar function might be appropriate. However, I hate to suggest that our host put even more time into this project. It's easy to have ideas for "improving" something when someone else is doing the work.

Roger

Roger,

Did you attend the games? I am a new shooter in Cincinnati and had planned to come, but circumstances prevented me. Just wondering how the turn out was, and what type of scores people posted.

Dave

The long and short of it is, there were only 4 people who showed up, and 3 of them were from a high school air rifle team; I was the only one with a pistol.

Consequently, I am the Kentucky State Champion at 10M AP.

Woo-Hoo!

All I had to do was hit the paper once, but I gave it my best and ended with a 536-5X. Not top-tier, but as someone who has been shooting AP for ~7 months, I'm not unhappy.

I don't know why the turnout was so poor. I think the publicity was pathetic, but it may also be that most people, even shooters, don't know diddly about AP. The event was held at the Anderson County Sportsman's League facility which was built around handgun silhouette and trap shooting. The pistol ranges were set up recently and are more for Practical Pistol, i.e., outdoors, gravel and high berms all around, which I suspect are not typical for AP competitions.

Let's be sure to keep in touch on this forum, and if there are any other meets in this region please publicize them.

In the meantime, I'm going to contact the BGSG and see what can be done about raising the profile of the air powered shooting sports here.

I'm also a little confused as to why, if a high school or college has a shooting team at all, it is a rifle team. The kids that were out there on Sunday were wearing ill-fitting second-hand gear, one guy only had the jacket, none of them had shoes . A school can put together a pistol shooting program that costs the same as far as range and guns and not burden the students with the extra expense of all that other gear.

Roger

My personal best since starting this last january is only 519, so your
state championship is not in danger for awhile. Maybe next year.

Congratulations! 536 seems very good to me. I have only put together one 60 shot sequence, and it was 489. Do they score with decimals (like 7.5, etc)? I do not know how I would determine that on the paper targets I am using. In any case, well done!!!

Dave

Thanks for the congrats.

The scoring was done with whole numbers; the judge used a gage like one of these:

http://www.championshooters.com/store/home.php?cat=254

There are more complicated devices with a sort of vernier scale on a clear strip attached that can be used for the decimal part of the score, but that was obviously not necessary here.

I was a bit worried about getting into a competition. I enjoy shooting so much that I wondered if making it competitive would take some of the fun out of it. As it happens, I was disappointed in not seeing other shooters there. I have learned a lot from the people on this forum, but seeing how others do it would have been a bonus. Now I'm up for a go at a real meet. Maybe next year ...

Roger