Make Shooting Great Again!

[David Levene]

Or this:
Seed the shooters according to their 60-shot finish position. Then have head-to-head elimination matches pitting the highest against the lowest competitor. That keeps the element of competition front and center without the distraction of multiple shooters all on at the same time. It will take 7 10-shot matches to determine the champion from 8 finalists.

This is one of the biggest problems with the (current) 25m Pistol final, and the reason that it's being changed.

IMHO it's ridiculous to have finalists just waiting around for several minutes whilst others shoot.

[Xman]

How is this as an idea..maybe it has been tried already :

All finalists shoot one shot..lowest shot(s) are done. Remaining shooters shoot again, lowest shot(s) are done and so forth until one is left. Last shooter shoot 1 shot..they win. If more than one shooter keeps getting same shot values at the end ( unlikely) they keep shooting until someone shoots lower.

Remaining places are determined by totals of final shots.

[KatoomDownUnder]

Mmmm Someone must have forgotten to tell those of us here about this ban!

Pay attention... we learned from your ignorance
Really? Please let us know how you learned from our supposed ignorance.

Yep semi auto fire arms are not freely available, mind you there's no real reason for the average shooter/hunter to need them.

True... until he is being "shooter'd " AT or "hunter'd" ON.
Ohhh so your talking about combat eh? Because law abiding people in Australia don't tend to hunt humans these days (neither do most of the crims) maybe you can pass on your experience.

Do we miss the mass shootings? Nup.

But your crime stats went up... Yup. Nup

Oh and as for no shooting sports, funny how Australia just picked up Gold in the women's trap.

Congrats. That's very funny indeed. "Blind squirrel syndrome" comes to mind amidst the laughter.

Yeah, Nah. Is that really the best you can do?

[Neil H]

It's always colorful to read these reply's.

I was talking to a potential new shooter this summer and was trying to talk him into coming down and shooting in our league. I let him try my AW 93 and my Les Baer 1911, his reply was I would love to shoot but I can't afford guns like that to shoot. He wasn't the only person that was scared away from Bullseye shooting because of the "special target Guns". Yes I tried to convince him that you didn't have to have $2500 pistols to compete and have fun. His reply was why was I using them.

This got me to thinking (yes I did get a headache) about how new people are scared away for trying Bullseye because of the cost. So....

I decided to buy the cheapest Ruger 22/45 that I could find, the one that you can't even replace the grips on. I installed a bushnell red dot on it. Total cost less than $400. For center fire I broke out my S&W model 66 revolver and added a red dot. I have decided to shoot our winter league with these two pistols to show the new shooters you don't need "special expensive target guns" to have fun and be competitive. After 4 matches my average for 22 is low to mid 280's and center fire is pushing 280

Its hard to convince someone new that you don't need to mortgage the house to try Bullseye when nobody is using equipment that we are telling them "that's all you need to get started"

We need to bring more shooters in, not scare them off.

P.S. I told my fellow shooters why I was doing this and this season I was just going to have fun. Well like everyone else on this forum I am a little competitive, so now I'm thinking (oh Crap I'm getting a headache again) can I win the league against the "expensive target pistols"

[shaky hands]

Neil, the problem is that you, as an experienced shooter, are able to use crappy guns and get decent scores, because you have mastered the fundamentals. However, for a novice shooter it is especially important to have a good gun to begin with. Learning fundamentals using a shitty trigger is a road to disappointment.
http://www.bullseyepistol.com/cstomgun.htm

[Rover]

Hey Neil, why do think I have a "rep" on here as hating PCPs. All I do is promote top quality SSPs and used CO2 guns that more shooters can afford.

[Neil H]

Shaky Hands,
you are right a new shooter needs to have something he can have confidence in. The link you posted has a very valid point, but it assumes you are already a bullseye shooter to begin with.

My point is to show the new prospective shooter that he can try the sport with whatever he has available. When I first tried Bullseye all I had was a Ruger single six, I had a blast and that got me hooked on Bullseye shooting.

We have had new people come down and watch the matches but were afraid to try it because they felt they weren't good enough or were embarrassed to try with their "crappy" pistols. We tell them that they can't hurt the team if they shoot, in fact they can help the team. One thing our league does is count the 5 high scores in each stage for 22 and the 4 highest in center fire. This way if a shooter has low scores it doesn't hurt the team but if he has one good score it can help the team. This helps them not to feel bad if the are just starting out.

Not having high end equipment is the biggest discouragement to them. That is why I chose the cheapest Ruger I could get. I will confess the stock trigger did suck, so I did a trigger job on it with the original parts. The drop in kits are better but not IMO that great plus I wanted to keep the price down. It is now a nice clean 2lb -10 oz pull. I also offered anyone that had a Ruger and needed a better trigger that I would do a trigger job for them free if they will shoot in the league.

Once they realize that Bullseye shooting is fun and will help them become better shooters as it helps them improve on the fundamentals. Once they get hooked then we can get them to spend more money :)

Rover,
I didn't realize that you had a "rep" other then being a nice, kind, caring, did I mention shy? fellow shooter :)

PS last night at out league match I did manage to shoot a 292-6x with the "crappy" gun

[SlartyBartFast]

Learning fundamentals using a shitty trigger is a road to disappointment.

Seems the focus should be one the "shitty" trigger, not the "crappy" gun.

I got all kinds of contradictory advice when asking about what to purchase as a first gun. I was initially looking for an Olympic class pistol. And more than one member on here took to the fact that I was new and "unworthy" of such a gun and that there was no way to "buy points".

But then others, like your link, recommended getting the best gun I could afford.

I have to agree with Neil H. Unless it actually is Olympic class competition, anyone with any pistol should be encouraged to participate. Love the "best score counts" format competition too. Maker the experience as positive as possible for as many people as possible.

When someone asks about joining a competition ask what they have, or what they like and can afford. Encourage them to learn where limitations in their shooting lie. In their pistol or in their technique. Never say their pistol is "crappy". If they aren't shooting groups as good as their pistol can from a rest, there's improvements they can make by spending money and time on the range and not necessarily money upgrading their hardware.

If a shooter doesn't want to compete in competitions, encourage using competition targets and keep records of all targets shot. Then scores can be compared against others with a similar classification and against the shooter themselves to see if they are improving.