Please bear with me as a largely ignorant, old high-power competitor now coaching a county-wide junior small-bore program, but what I am having trouble finding is a proper scorebook for small-bore competitors.
The store-bought high-power and service rifle scorebooks I'm intimate with require the "call" to be plotted as the target is pulled and scored, with the "hit" plotted after the scored target rises from the butts.
IMHO learning to "call" one's shots is a critical component to improvement, if not the single most critical component. Yet I haven't been able to find a small-bore scorebook or diary that accomplishes the same task.
I can draw one up from scratch, but I'm sure I'm not the first guy to tackle this. Any suggestions?
I NRA has a 5x8 loose leaf combination diary and scorebook for junior smallbore shooters.
Search the site and you will find it.
Or call the junior shooting programs director.
What you want sounds more like training drill than a match requirement. Your shooters need to be able to call their shots accurately but it's not something to worry about in a match, that's when shot execution matters. By that I mean if they've trained it properly beforehand they'll know where the shot went and why.
Don't know if you looked at NLU-703 "Shooters Journal" from the CMP, but that is what most of the junior 3-P air rifle & 3-P smallbore shooters start out with. (CMP used to ship them to me for free since we are a CMP affiliated organization.)
(Note if you are not, you should do so ... it is free for 4-H orgs)
Unless you are grooming them for high power, which 4-H does not and never will support, you probably are not going to need a journal with individual shot calling records ... I think you'll be more interested in them keeping track of what they are learning/changing in the positions.
With the new rules falling into place, the timelines do not allow the shooters to record each and every shot and how they called it.
As technology shifts and more orgs move to either electronic or electronically scored targets they have a very accurate record of how they shot. Only the most experienced will be able to have a solid enough hold to accurately tell you where the shot was let off anyway. I've found with 4-H only about 5% will stick with a program long enough to get to that point. Nothing wrong with 4-H here, there are just a lot of projects/activities that pull the kids to different interests and they find out competitive shooting is not as easy as it first looks.
As these shooters move onto higher levels of skill/competition they will most likely move to a more free form of journal ... most of my shooters head down to an office supply store and get a regular journal or a spiral notebook and keep their practice/competition notes in there.
Y'all are correct these are for training purposes. Even with relatively new beginners, the act of attempting to "call" the shot and then comparing it to where it actually hits is a drill I use to keep them concentrating on their shooting shot by shot rather than burning powder to finish the string. That it takes them a while to become competent at it is also part of the drill.
And I finally found what I was looking for, circa Colonel Todd Sloan, the 1931 US Rifle Champion and former DCM, published in 1958. The targets are out of date, but it will serve my purpose. Off to Kinko's, and thanks again.
