TargetTalk

I think there are a variety of issues affection international shooting in the US:

1) The largest national shooting organization is not the governing body for Olympic shooting. I'm sure there are people who can trot out all sorts of reasons why they felt it was necessary to split up, but in the long run, I think it was a bad move for both sides. The NRA lost the most squeeky clean politically correct form of shooting they could brag about, and the Olympic crowd lost the backing of a very large & well established organization. If someone learns to shoot in the US, it's almost exclusively at an NRA course, where the instructors generally know NOTHING about international shooting. There were a lot more local international competitions in the New England area before the split. You only had to belong to one organization, and it just made life simpler. If you were already hooked on international shooting, it was no big deal to join USAS. If you were trying to convince somebody new to the sport to take it up, it is just another hurdle.

2) If you want to compete in pistol shooting, there are WAY too many options. Long ago, there was just NRA bullseye & international shooting. Now, you have NRA bullseye, bowling pin shoots, falling plate shoots, cowboy action shooting, IPSC, PPC, silhouette, etc. Interest in NRA bullseye is also way down. In the 1970's, the Greater Boston Pistol League had A,B,C,D,E, and F divisions, with at least four teams in a division. We now have A & B divisions, with a total of 13 teams.

3) Politics. When schools systems are expelling kids for just drawing a picture of a firearm, it's really hard to convince them that ANY sort of shooting is a good thing. The number of high schools that still have rifle teams is WAY down as well. The gun laws are a lot tougher in many states. It has been illegal to sell almost any new Olympic target pistol in Massachusetts for about 15 years.

4) More politics. The mere mention of lead is enough to give lots of people fits. If you mention lead & children, the knee jerk reaction is to trot out lawyers & pass bans. Trying to keep an existing range going isn't easy, and getting a new one established is extremely difficult, especially near any large urban area.

5) The media. The only thing most people know about guns is what they see on television & in the movies. Given what they portray, Olympic style target shooting is something from another planet. If someone wants to learn about pistol shooting, it is almost invariably from a personal defense standpoint, and all they want to shoot is centerfire autos at FBI silhouette targets. The idea that you would stand around for a couple hours shooting with one hand at tiny targets is a totally foreign concept.

The good news is that more people ARE getting into shooting. I think things will improve (slowly) as more clubs set up junior air pistol programs. My club started a program a year ago, and they have more kids who want to sign up than they can handle. The bad news is that all they could afford was Crosman 2300T pistols, which are junk. Despite that, the kids are having fun, they are learning about shooting, and the ones that really get the bug are asking questions about getting better pistols & competing.

International pistol competitors are, unfortunately, few and far between. Narrowing that down to those shooting a particular event (air pistol, standard pistol, air pistol) exacerbates the problem. Many of us can't make either a USAS or NRA match in international pistol with a single day round-trip.

I've often said that if you randomly selected 100 competitive shooters in the US, you probably won't have more than three of them firing any one event (and probably none of them would be shooting international pistol). We have a lot of shooters, but few competitors and they are splintered into a large number of events.

Postal matches are a viable starting point to bringing competition to our widely scattered fellow competitors. I know that the NRA will sanction these competitions, meaning that we can not only compete from our own home range in competition with others throughout the nation (or world), but we can earn NRA competitive classifications at the same time.

I’ve participated in such postal leagues in NRA indoor conventional pistol and air pistol in the past, but to my knowledge no such league exists for air pistol competitors today. I am constantly amazed that an organization (club, state association, NRA etc) or a commercial entity (maybe Pilkguns?) haven’t taken the opportunity to organize such a league to either grow the sport or attract competitors to their website (or both).

Northwestern AP wrote:...a particular event (air pistol, standard pistol, air pistol) exacerbates the problem...

SIGH...
Rapid Fire Pistol and Center Fire Pistol forgotten again!

I don't think there are more than two dozen RF bays in the entire United States. It's a major problem for the discipline.

Back to the main topic...

I think it's going to take a major combined push for the precision disciplines. The Dirty Little Secret is that the NRA is a fine organization when it comes to legislative issues and general safety, but is a near-complete loss as a competitive shooting organization. Twenty years ago, you'd see articles on the precision disciplines in the American Rifleman. Today? Zilch. All you get is an e-magazine, and Heaven help you if you want to find a match.

What's needed is an across-the-board push for the precision disciplines. BE, International, MLAIC - everything. And frankly, it's needed. Precision is the foundation on which all other shooting sports build. I think we need to pick some people who we can run for the NRA Board of Directors, and get some representation.

The Chichkovs seem to have figured out what it takes.

Congratulations to Alex on a stellar performance at the World Championships!

md123180 wrote: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.

And that's where I disagree. To increase the pool of international shooters, I think you need to be more beer league like. Make it seem ordinary to shoot a weekly match then go for a beer or two. Make a friendly wager or something.

Mike M. wrote:I don't think there are more than two dozen RF bays in the entire United States. It's a major problem for the discipline.

Back to the main topic...

I think it's going to take a major combined push for the precision disciplines. The Dirty Little Secret is that the NRA is a fine organization when it comes to legislative issues and general safety, but is a near-complete loss as a competitive shooting organization. Twenty years ago, you'd see articles on the precision disciplines in the American Rifleman. Today? Zilch. All you get is an e-magazine, and Heaven help you if you want to find a match.

What's needed is an across-the-board push for the precision disciplines. BE, International, MLAIC - everything. And frankly, it's needed. Precision is the foundation on which all other shooting sports build. I think we need to pick some people who we can run for the NRA Board of Directors, and get some representation.

For local matches, a serviceable able RF bay is easy to make, as long as you don't get hung up on turning targets. You can set up a frame to hold five targets and use a regular shot timer. Cheap and easy.

And NRA not good at competition shooting? I'm willing to bet it's a heck of a lot easier to find an NRA bullseye match near you than it is to find *any* ISSF discipline match. They tend to do halfway decent with PPC and high power rifle matches too.

sparky wrote:For local matches, a serviceable able RF bay is easy to make, as long as you don't get hung up on turning targets. You can set up a frame to hold five targets and use a regular shot timer. Cheap and easy.

^^ This cannot be repeated enough.

For rapid fire, do this:

1. Staple targets to something in front of the backstop
2. Use action pistol shot timer to track time
3. There is no Step 3

The thing about rapid fire (and international pistol as a whole) is that it's a lot of HFW for not much money - that's what sets it apart from the action pistol disciplines. We tried this in the early 2000s - we brought in a bunch of (extremely good) action pistol shooters to try rapid fire. A few of them stayed with it for a bit and found some success; that program is also what led to the extremely profitable arrangement between Kimber and USAS.

However, the best quote that I remember came from Bruce Piatt, who was actually doing quite well in IRF: "I can't do this in addition to action pistol, and stay married." (paraphrased)

I can't blame him. I can't shoot international pistol at the world level any more because I can't make a living doing it, and I can't put up the numbers while doing it part time.

I don't know the answer to making the US pistol program a powerhouse. I've been struggling with that for 20+ years and haven't yet found a solution.

What I can do is contribute to running local matches, leagues, and clinics, and try to give back a little bit to a sport that has given me much more than I can ever repay. And I still don't do as much as I would like to do.

john bickar wrote:The Chichkovs seem to have figured out what it takes.

Congratulations to Alex on a stellar performance at the World Championships!

On the other hand, Alex does have an advantage ...his dad runs Pardini USA along with Emil. I am sure he knows everything about a Pardini.

conradin wrote:

john bickar wrote:The Chichkovs seem to have figured out what it takes.

Congratulations to Alex on a stellar performance at the World Championships!

On the other hand, Alex does have an advantage ...his dad runs Pardini USA along with Emil. I am sure he knows everything about a Pardini.

And do you think that's an alternative to hard work?

If you're not prepared to put in the required training then it doesn't matter how much you know about your gun.