American Intl Pistol

[gwsb]

I know this sounds like a slam on the American shooters and I don't want it too, but how is it that we can't get anyone in the top 66 in Free Pistol?

[Rover]

I guess because my guinea pal Arnie Vitarbo isn't shooting any more.

Hell, I'VE shot higher scores than the American team just did in Spain.

[john bickar]

Oh joy, here comes the parade of know-it-alls.

Feel free to post your stellar records in international competition.

WCH is not a postal match.

[gwsb]

Well John I have never shot pistol in a match higher than club level but I have shot smallbore rifle for some decades with some success.

A careful inspection of my post will show that I was ASKING not telling.

I understand that it is different in the World Chmp. But it was not the first rodeo for our shooters either. One of whom has an Olympic medal and in dozens of international matches has never had a score as low as todays.

And your "stellar" record?

[john bickar]

Well John I have never shot pistol in a match higher than club level but I have shot smallbore rifle for some decades with some success.

A careful inspection of my post will show that I was ASKING not telling.

I understand that it is different in the World Chmp. But it was not the first rodeo for our shooters either. One of whom has an Olympic medal and in dozens of international matches has never had a score as low as todays.

And your "stellar" record?

If you could be arsed to type 6 letters in a search form on the ISSF website, you could find my results. They are what they are.

But the onus isn't on me, because I'm not the one going out of my way to denigrate the hard work of others.

There is a tendency on TargetTalk for people who have no concept of high-level competition to s**t on people who have a rough match at one competition or another. It's been going on as long as I have been on TT, which goes back 14 years or more.

It's not productive, and I can tell you for certain that it scares a lot of high-level shooters away from here.

These guys worked their asses off, and I assure you none of them are happy with their results.

If you want to do something helpful, start contributing to running matches in your area, or at the national level. We need more depth, and tougher competition in-country.

[Mike M.]

If you want to do something helpful, start contributing to running matches in your area, or at the national level. We need more depth, and tougher competition in-country.

Agree 100%.

I shoot International Black Powder (we get the range at Granada in about 2 weeks), and I can guarantee that much of our problem in ALL the International precision events stems from a very narrow base. More so in Free and Rapid Fire, where the events are radically different from anything else shot in this country.

And quite honestly, sometimes you just have a disastrous event. I've done it myself.

[David Levene]

And quite honestly, sometimes you just have a disastrous event. I've done it myself.

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.

[BEA]

It is always looks easier when on the outside looking in. There are lots of factors that contribute to the performance level required to be competitive at these high level competitions. These matches definitely have a different air to them which can be psychologically intimidating. It is one thing to be a big fish in a small pond and quite another to all of a sudden be cast into a lake. The psychological challenge is to truly feel you are prepared to stand shoulder to shoulder with the absolute best of your sport. Couple this with adapting to significantly different time zones and food, and it is quite a challenge at times to perform to ones expectations. Precision shooting requires a delicate balance of all factors. If any one of these factors is disturbed, the scales can tip quickly.

[RandomShotz]

We need more depth, and tougher competition in-country.

Okay. And how do we get there? It seems to me that Bullseye shooters decry the fact that younger shooters aren't going in for the "stand and deliver" shooting sports and are spending their time and money on the "run and gun" sports like IPSC, PPC, etc. Just a wild guess here, but maybe other countries may have greater depth because their restrictive gun laws and wholly different gun culture channel young people into AP (and AR) from which international and free pistol are natural extensions.

If, as John suggests, the problem in developing the next generation of internationally competitive shooters is insufficient participation and competition at home, then the question is what can be done to channel more people into the cerebral shooting sports in the face of competition from the adrenaline driven shooting sports?

Roger

[pilkguns]

good posts John and Roger

[Mike M.]

If, as John suggests, the problem in developing the next generation of internationally competitive shooters is insufficient participation and competition at home, then the question is what can be done to channel more people into the cerebral shooting sports in the face of competition from the adrenaline driven shooting sports?

Maybe that's the key.

No, I'm quite serious. The nearest thing to the run-n-gun stuff we have is Rapid Fire...which may be fast-paced, but is still quite demanding.

From my perspective, the precision events have several virtues. Among them are:
1. Builds fundamental shooting skills. Go read books on combat shooting written before the big-money shooting schools were organized. Every last one of them recommended a firm background in the precision events. Precision shooting is the ballet of the shooting sports - it lays a foundation on which everything else can be built.

2. Safer. You can build a no-blue-sky precision range easily. Doing the same for run-n-gun is much harder.

3. More shooting, especially on a shots-per-hour basis. Run-n-gun is really Wait-to-shoot. Shoot precision, and you shoot, not wait.

4. The chance to go to the Big Dance. The Olympic Games may be effectively restricted to the paid professional teams, but other events aren't. FWIW, this is why I'd like to see USAS try to identify a "B Team" for non-Olympic-slot matches. They would travel on their own dime, but with USAS administrative support and their blessing. And, of course, the U.S. International Muzzle-Loading Team is recruiting.

5. Suitable for competitors who aren't track stars. Some of us are not the young, athletic types. We've got no hope of being competitive in a track event...but we're quite capable of standing still and shooting straight.

6. Fun! The precision shooting events are fun. They're a challenge. It's shooting for the person for whom "good enough" isn't good enough. Once in a while, though, you can touch perfection. Make the perfect shot that you know is a center-punched 10 before you even lower the pistol. And that makes it all worthwhile.

[conradin]

IIRC Jason barely got his hands on his pistol just in time before the date of the competition, thanks to the customs (French?).

[sparky]

I really think the key is expanding the current focus of attracting shooters from strictly Olympic/college folks. I wonder how many shooters quit the ISSF disciplines once they graduate? It seems a lot of the matches available are collegiate competitions, but once you graduate, there's nothing. The whole emphasis on only focusing on the National Team and collegiate competitions was one of the factors that led me to not renew my USAS membership.

Of course, it's not just the national body, we all should all be doing more to be setting up and running local matches at our gun clubs.

[Greg Derr]

Until all the parties involved take this seriously, we have little chance of winning anything.

[md123180]

Here's my two cents:

First off, our national pistol program isn't what it needs to be. That's no fault of USAS, because they're trying hard to bring more shooters to the sport. The problems stem from a lack of participation in our country. People don't want to spend $2-3k on a pistol, then have to train with it. We (as in generally) want to pick up a gun or three, lace our shoes up, and run with it. This isn't to mention the wholly unbalanced rewards between the sports. If I place 4th at a USAS event, I drive home with nothing. If I place 53rd at a 3GN event, I'll probably go home with $100 in swag (or money). I can spend years chasing a medal, but I can start 'winning' stuff within a year in the other sport. Also, NCAA dropped pistol a few years back, which significantly hurt the pool. (Sent a lot of people over to rifle because of the scholarships)

Look at the support in other countries as well. Germany starts with a 1/2 million shooters in the pipeline (approximately). China literally OWNS their athletes, and a lot of them. We give people their freedom of choice, and they choose to not shoot for the harder sport. It takes hard work and determination, which most of us find difficult to apply once we're done with work and family.

The competitors at the WC shot what they shot. It's not an easy match, and I'm sure they're not happy with the results either. I may be new to TT, but the lack of support and understanding for world-class competitors is already getting old. They shot a match, and we know that matches are unpredictable and evil little creatures sometimes. We've all got a match that we didn't perform as well as we'd hoped. I'm sure none of them took it lightly, either.

[RandomShotz]

md123180, you are quite right - patience and respect for practice are in short supply. I know someone who worked at Bud's Gun Shop call center and he was just telling me about how many calls he got from people who were upset that their new gun was not very accurate. By their standard, the first .45 I ever shot was a piece of crap - it couldn't stay on the paper. (It was a Springfield Range Officer, BTW.)

The key is to get to people as early as possible. I have gotten the impression that youth shooting programs are biased toward rifle. I don't know if that is true and anyone involved in such programs is welcome to set me straight. However, it seems to me that pistol would be more welcoming to young shooters since the cost of gear is much less. The cost to get started might be similar, but pistoleers don't have to invest in the whole jacket/pants/boots thing to be competitive as they advance.

So, is there a pro-rifle bias? Is it rooted in some practical consideration, or is there a political aspect to teaching young people to use a handgun? Is there a way to encourage expansion of AR shooting to include AP?

Roger

[md123180]

md123180, you are quite right - patience and respect for practice are in short supply. I know someone who worked at Bud's Gun Shop call center and he was just telling me about how many calls he got from people who were upset that their new gun was not very accurate. By their standard, the first .45 I ever shot was a piece of crap - it couldn't stay on the paper. (It was a Springfield Range Officer, BTW.)

The key is to get to people as early as possible. I have gotten the impression that youth shooting programs are biased toward rifle. I don't know if that is true and anyone involved in such programs is welcome to set me straight. However, it seems to me that pistol would be more welcoming to young shooters since the cost of gear is much less. The cost to get started might be similar, but pistoleers don't have to invest in the whole jacket/pants/boots thing to be competitive as they advance.

So, is there a pro-rifle bias? Is it rooted in some practical consideration, or is there a political aspect to teaching young people to use a handgun? Is there a way to encourage expansion of AR shooting to include AP?

Roger

Yeah, I've heard plenty of people tell me how inaccurate their pistol is. I've had some crappy guns in the past, but I kept oiling and feeding 'em, and they seemed to tighten up over time. :)

Pistol is a cheaper sport to get into, but it's harder to explain to a parent that little Billy is going to need some work to stay in the rings, then we'll talk about the black. We don't have the support of the rest of our body, so a little twitch in fundamentals sends lead flying in all kinds of fun directions. That's also why rifle targets are smaller, so it's pretty evened out. It is absolutely better to teach them young and correctly, yes.

I wouldn't say a bias, but look at your JROTCs. Find one that has a pistol program. Find a college (yes, there are a few) that has a pistol program. Those few colleges offer scholarships, but it's not a NCAA sport like rifle is. I'm still scratching my head on it, since having a 10 m air rifle range means you have a 10 m air pistol range. Smallbore is essentially the same too, though we don't go 300 m. I would guess there's a political side, but I will leave complete speculation out of this. The only thing I can think is that, yes, it's cheaper, but it's also harder to work your fundamentals out quickly enough to get competitive. Other than that, I'm still confused why this sport isn't as popular. Maybe some Aaron Burr haters still around?

[RandomShotz]

... (pistol is) not a NCAA sport like rifle is.

Maybe that's one of the keys. NCAA is a training ground and also drives sports at the public school level by offering the ability to continue competing as well as the possibility for scholarships. What would it take to motivate the NCAA to sanction pistol shooting either BE or Int'l? It seems that the NSSF should have an interest in this.

Would someone with experience with these institutions care to jump in with the real-world considerations?

Roger

[Freepistol]

It's MONEY

How much does it pay to win a 50M pistol match?

https://www.trijicon.com/na_en/communit ... D=news_134

Bang/clang guns wear quickly; Ammo goes quickly; Latest gadgets get purchased---So manufacturers can afford to pay the winners which attracts new shooters. Wouldn't it be great to have a sponsor buy your guns and ammo for you and a shirt that tells everyone who sponsors you?

[md123180]

Yes, but some of us don't care about the money. I mean, yeah, it's great, but I like precious medals. No, I didn't spell that wrong.

I've been shooting NRA Conventional Pistol for a while. The air of competition isn't there. I equate it to beer league. No, I have never won a national title, but I don't feel like I'm on the spot to perform there. A win would be great, but I consider USAS/ISSF events to hold a LOT more challenge and competition. I would take a gold medal from a World Cup over $50,000 any day. Maybe I'm a purist, maybe I'm odd, but I hold an Olympic Champion with much higher regard than an "international" run-n-gun champion.

That is to say that you are right in many ways, since not everyone believes the same way I do.