Urban legend or problem

[jhmartin]

Bill Poole wrote:

ABSOLUTELY NOT due to racism on our part.
I have never met a competition shooting director who would not enthusiastically welcome minority new shooters!!!!! and women too!
WHERE ARE THEY?!?!?!?!

I agree, here in New Mexico, West Texas, Eastern/Northern AZ, we have a whole lot of non-anglo faces shooting.

What I do see is that unless there is a STRONG family influence in keeping the kids in school and learning (for the trades or college prep), it is so damned easy for these kids (all races) to fall into and under the influence of gangs, and if not "actual" gangs, then "less than noteworthy" friends. That age seems to be about 14-15.
Heck .... some of the parents are part of the gangs

We had a shooter here in NM a few years ago, as a freshman, was shooting 580's (3x20 Air) and did not shoot after that .... she was more interested in hanging out with her "friends" and her goal was having a baby by 17 ... I kid you not .... that was the circle she was in. We had a whole bunch of coaches, athletes, school councelors, everybody .... try and talk with her, but the gang was way too important in her life.

I've personally had two of my shooters drop out to hang with the "buds" right around the time they are that age.

It just kills ya.

[Bill Poole]

that kid of mine started shooting service rifle at 11 went to Camp Perry with the team 4 years in a row, WON the state junior championship when he was 15, turned 16, discovered girls and QUIT SHOOTING

Poole

[jhmartin]

Damn them hormones ......!!!

"The Coach" has a really ugly dirty XL loose sweatshirt that they get to wear at practice if I see too much skin. They learn not to wear them lo-cut jeans to my practice ..........

Two of coach Martin's quotes ...
"This ain't the plumbers academy"
"We're not tryin' out for the Brittny Spears show"

[Mike M.]

+1 to a lot of the comments.

American shooters are notoriously stingy when it comes to range facilities...amongst other things. When you come right down to it, you could characterize the American firearms community more as gun collectors than serious shooters.

Getting more than two or three shooters in a club interested in RF is difficult.

And while I don't dispute the convenience of the electronic targets, I have to reluctantly agree that they have to be kept under roof, lock, and key. The TV footage that I've seen of the Suis-Ascor targets at Fort Benning indicates that they are mounted on retractable mounts with a sealed top...and are raised out of the berm only for competition. Maybe the final few weeks of practice.

However, I will agree that if somebody comes up with a CHEAP electronic scoring unit, they will sell like hotcakes. And it is the cost element that has made me such an advocate of using shot timers for RF. It's not the best solution, but it's a good solution at a very attractive price.

[rrpc]

I would never consider Sius Ascor targets as an option, they are horrendously expensive and IMO they are slightly dated. The thermal printer system is expensive and unnecessary and I never liked the monitors.

This is the target unit we have:



That front cover plate is hardox steel and pretty much protects all the important bits, it can be shot with impunity with anything up to jacketed 9mm, though Megalink say that it's preferrable to use unjacketed rounds. Each target head weighs 25kg!

The monitor is LCD and can be folded neatly away. For pistol, they are great for practice becuase you can individually control the lights from your monitor.



tbh, I can understand why you're having difficulty keeping people in the sport. If I had to think of running and scoring a pistol competition on paper, I probably would think twice about doing it. The time involved would be simply too much and everyone would lose patience. I know of another range that has turning targets and ran a standard pistol match on them, but when the turning target system broke down, the whole thing became a shambles.

[2650 Plus]

Could this whole bru-ha-ha have been started by some disgruntaled individual whose scores simply didn't justify him / her a training slot at the center ? And why would what seems to be a reputable news source fall for such drivel ? A simple phone call to Gary Anderson would have instantly resolved the issue. Even a call to a real shooter would have fixed the problem. I would mention John McNally as one who was really there. The press and the blogs are seldom to be believed. Good Shooting Bill Horton

[Alexander]

At our last 25m pistol match (standard pistol) we had 4 IPSC shooters enter. One of them was pretty good for a beginner (scored about 490) on his first attempt and two others were in the 470 range.

Very interesting! Thanks for the notice; this nicely answers to my earlier question within this thread:

Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 3:02 pm

I wonder - would excellent IPSC shooters (such as those named above) maybe fare better in ISSF standard pistol than in ISSF rapid fire?

Alexander