TargetTalk

I find it interesting how concerned many of us are concerned about the top shooters, metal counts at the Olympics, and who gets selected for the National Team.

I have little room to talk, only holding my first PTO, but if you want to make a difference, Hold a PTO. A registered USAS PTO. There may only be three people in attendance, but it starts with roots, not the flowers on the top of the trees.

I have attended the last few Nationals with credit due not to the National Team but to two local shooters. The one introduced me to International shooting with some passion: the other held local PTOs and talked about the Nationals with some passion. The National Coaches, Bob Mitchell, USAS, the NRA, The CMP have had no influence, but the two local shooters, ten years apart, had everything to do with my interest.

I am holding the PTO and hope to hold more strictly because I owe these two shooters.

I agree. There are far too many good ranges anc clubs sitting around the country with very little in the way of competitive events being held on them. Many seem to feel that the club is there just for members to come out and plink around every so often. Also, too many people think that holding any kind of match or formal program is a lot of work. It may be at first, but with a little time, it becomes almost routine. Try to convince the relatively idle clubs/ranges in your areas to hold all sorts of events. It is really not that hard to do. It will spur interest and who knows, we may have a future Olympian or two because of it.

Just a quick question from an ignorant newbie who is suffering from a cranium leak at the moment.

What does PTO stand for?

-Hans

Hans wrote:Just a quick question from an ignorant newbie who is suffering from a cranium leak at the moment.

What does PTO stand for?

-Hans

Preliminary Try Out

Stan Pace wrote:

Don wrote:I agree. There are far too many good ranges anc clubs sitting around the country with very little in the way of competitive events being held on them.quote]

In this regard, I notice that there are several clubs still running NRA International Pistol matches, but not USAS/ISSF. I understand the collegiate thing and applaud it, but does anyone know why clubs running non-collegiate matches have not converted over to USAS?

The NRA has two levels of competition, registered matches and approved matches. You don't have to be an NRA member to shoot in an approved match. The NRA still keeps track of the shooter's scores and issues classifications. USAS requires that all shooters be members to shoot in any of their matches.

If you have lots of NRA members and few to no USAS members that would attend a match (the usual case when trying to get a program started), then you sanction with the NRA or you won't have anybody show up. Even if you don't have a lot of NRA members interested, you can still run an approved match so that prospective shooters can at least try it out. Most clubs and commercial ranges don't like having a range shut down for two or three shooters. If you don't get a respectable turn out, you won't get permission to run a second match.

USAS could do us all a favor by adopting the NRA match system, but they haven't seen fit to do so, even though it has been suggested many times. The fact that shooters like trinkets is lost on USAS, and they don't even provide a certificate to state champions... The NRA does. The NRA has an indoor championship program called sectionals that hands out medals to local winners, as well as award points, pins, and even more stuff to the national winners. There are lots of reasons for the legions of bullseye shooters to cross over and shoot NRA sanctioned international matches. Getting shooters to fork over the membership fee for one or two matches a years is hard. It can be done, but it takes a lot of dedication from someone to get things going.

We have been working on rebuilding an international pistol program for several years. This year we bit the bullet and sanctioned with USAS. We ended up selling 9 memberships and had a decent turn out at two of the three matches. We'll try it again next year, maybe even putting in for a zone championship too. One other club will try to sanction some air pistol with USAS next year instead of the NRA. Maybe we have turned the corner on this. I sure hope so. But if we had had to sanction with USAS to start with and demanded people join USAS before even shooting their first match, we would still be shooting informal practice matches. Given a choice between a NRA sanctioned free pistol match and none at all, I'll sanction with the NRA. At least people are shooting the sport.

Larry Lohkamp

Larry,

I appreciate what you are doing with running matches in your area. However, I don't appreciate the tone you take when you denigrate USA Shooting for the way they do things.

USA Shooting does not have 4 million members to help subsidize the "trinkets" and certificates. The NRA is made up of members who are there to show the body politic that there is a strong support for the second amendment. USA Shooting exists solely to promote target shooting. The NRA has an entire staff to produce your classifications and send out your trinkets and make your certificates. USA Shooting has just 2 people to register your matches, produce your classification cards, organize and operate the Nationals and World Cups and help people to do their first PTO.

If the NRA took out the target shooters and put them in an organization by themselves, funded solely by their annual dues and match fees, you wouldn't see any trinkets or certificates from them either.

Please try to understand that each of these organizations is doing a fine job with the resources they have available. We have enough enemies on the outside of this sport without trying to create enemies within.

Rant mode off.

Marc Orvin

In this regard, I notice that there are several clubs still running NRA International Pistol matches, but not USAS/ISSF. I understand the collegiate thing and applaud it, but does anyone know why clubs running non-collegiate matches have not converted over to USAS?

What Larry said. I was a USAS member for a year. It was fun to go shoot the Nationals, but it was my first (and only) official USAS match. It just didn't seem to be worth the money. A not too distant club hosts a PTO/club match every month or two. If I'm a USAS member and want my scores sent in, it costs something like $15 to shoot the match. If I only want to shoot it for fun, it costs $5 to shoot air, free, standard, and rapid. Since it doesn't really mean that much to me to have my scores sent in, and I'm receiving virtually zero benefits, it seemed crazy to: a. pay more for a membership. and b. pay higher match fees.

And there aren't that many matches around either! Matter of fact, back when I lived in northern Virginia, the nearest match to me was something like 4 hours away! I get just as much enjoyment shooting in the monthly HIGH NOON online match than in anything USAS has shown me so far.

I know there's some old politics involved or something, but I have very hard time believing NRA couldn't run things better.

I will be running 10m & 50m Rifle PTO's in Phoenix this coming year.

and I plan to have a category for non-ISSF shooters, same target, but I'll permit NRA coats etc.

Those scores won't be entered as part of the PTO, but will give NRA or unaffiliated shooters a chance to try ISSF shooting.

We will have more 10m, 25m and 50m pistol PTO's too.

Poole
http://arizona.rifleshooting.com/

Larry,

I have been shooting this sport since '95 and every year we have USAS matches and the token NRA matches (Sectionals and State Championships). The USA shooting matches we shoot Free, STD, Air, and Center. The NRA the same but not Center on Sat and then Sun we have indoor conventional pistol. For all of the international matches both NRA and USAS we have the same 3-4 people shooting. The benifit of the USAS matches is we normally have some rifle shooters join us and as far as I understand the paper work is less, the hassel of running and getting a match set up is much eaiser and the fees are cheaper. we have had so many problems over the years with the NRA and running matches. It takes forever to get one little mistake fixed. Some times you never have a problem and other times it takes a while to get everything worked out.

The USAS matches we have run over the last 9 years it has not be perfect either but most problems were solved with one phone call. USAS is getting better at supporting matches being run. You have to remember that the NRA has been around supporting many matches every year and they have a system that has been developed over the years to support many matches.

The best thing we can do is to convert to run USAS matches so that people can join one and support USAS which supports our sport. In my club the people that shoot could care less about the rewards at the end. If you have enough people shooting and you want to give out rewards then run a USAS match and charge a little more and buy the rewards and hand them out at the end.

We all need to work together toward the same goal.

Bill: I was going to hold some PTO's once a month (alternate 3x20 smallbore and air rifle) this year in leau of or friday night practices. Good idea on the NRA class. We have several folks who are NRA highpower shooters and NRA prone shooters. They own an air rifle and smallbore rifles so maybe I can get some of those folks to come play too. Those folks don't take well to kneeling though.

Starting September 11, 2004, the New York Rifle & Pistol Association will be holding monthly Air Rifle & Air Pistol PTOs at the RPI Rifle Range it Troy, NY. They used to hold monthly Free Rifle Prone PTOs in Rotterdam, NY, as well, but I don't think they will be happening this year. Check out USA Shooting's Web site for more details & contact info.

See you on the range!

Jim

funtoz wrote:The NRA has two levels of competition, registered matches and approved matches. You don't have to be an NRA member to shoot in an approved match. The NRA still keeps track of the shooter's scores and issues classifications.

You can shoot in an approved match as a non-NRA member if the match director allows it, and your scores will not be tracked by the NRA unless you are a member. You must have a membership number to be entered in the NRA's shooter classification system.

NRA vs USAS

In a NRA match the people running the match cannot shoot in the match
In a USAS match all can particiapte

In a NRA match you pay for each gun you shoot
In a USAS match you pay the same cost for one or 5 guns.

I USAS membership is not that expensive and you many not see all of the benifits but there are other shooters that do see that benifit. After I am done shooting, if that ever happens, I will continue to pay to keep my membership so that our sport can continue well into the future.

It seems very self centered that because someone does not see a personal benifit they would choose not to pay a small fee every year.

Sparky, You seem to have some numbers off or something. This last year a USAS match cost was $8 for the entire weekend of 4 matches and that included scores being sent in. An NRA match I went to was shooting 3 guns on Sat and that would have cost me $28. I am a member of both.

We all need to work together to make our sport succesful.

Holding matches is in part dependant on participation. If you are using a public range or a club range for a match and you turn out 3 or 4 and tie up the range, while 15 or 20 are waiting the match won't continue. On the other hand if you find a place that isn't very busy they will welcome 3 or 4 shooters.

10 meter air gun matches should be easy to hold in less used places but that can be tricky to get ones foot in the door.

While a sanctioned dot every I and Cross every T match is a grand idea, any match is better than none. No one is "trying out" at a PTO unless their scores are at least the minimum to qualify. The real need is to grow the base that is capable of at shooting the minimum qualifing score. How you get to that point is up to you.

Chris wrote:NRA vs USAS

In a NRA match the people running the match cannot shoot in the match
In a USAS match all can particiapte

In a NRA match you pay for each gun you shoot
In a USAS match you pay the same cost for one or 5 guns.

I USAS membership is not that expensive and you many not see all of the benifits but there are other shooters that do see that benifit. After I am done shooting, if that ever happens, I will continue to pay to keep my membership so that our sport can continue well into the future.

It seems very self centered that because someone does not see a personal benifit they would choose not to pay a small fee every year.

Sparky, You seem to have some numbers off or something. This last year a USAS match cost was $8 for the entire weekend of 4 matches and that included scores being sent in. An NRA match I went to was shooting 3 guns on Sat and that would have cost me $28. I am a member of both.

We all need to work together to make our sport succesful.