TargetTalk

Has anyone seen this article in on the Reuters new agency website? http://www.reuters.com/article/us-olymp ... SKCN10Q0P2

It makes reference to "internal strife in the U.S. federation". What's going on in USA Shooting? Curious foreigner here.

I hadn't seen this information, thank you for posting it. However, many of those that were 'sure' to make it to the finals, didn't. I think of the Russians, Ukraines. The only one that kept up the expectations was Reitz. Looking at the results of earlier matches it seems to me that Reitz has used the World Cups purely as a training.
I expected Sanderson and/or Milev in the finals. The only one that I guess has ice water in the veins is Jin Jo. Especially after missing the Air pistol medal. It seems he wasn't pleased at all!
It just shows how dreadful shooting can be. Maybe a consolation for the rest of the shooting world!

Regards,
Guy

Greetings,

International shooting is not very popular in the USA. It is too hard since you have to use iron sights and practice to achieve high levels of competitiveness.

I envy some of the European countries that have great turnouts at their matches, both local and National level.

A typical Precision Pistol match in my NorthWest region of the USA draws, perhaps, 15 competitors.

On the other hand, we have a shooting range that sponsors knocking down steel plates at 7 yards. Attendance is generally 50+ shooters.

Also, in the USA, most shooters rely on the optical sights claiming their vision is too weak to see iron sights. Personally, I have not seen their scores increase that much.

A greater problem was traveling to the Tryout Matches for National Team selection. The USA is a big Country, area-wise, and to attend a Try Out match, you need to have the financial resources to fly in, obtain lodging, meals, etc. Additionally, it helps if the local club sponsors a Rapid Fire bay with proper target equipment. There were some in my neighborhood back in the early 1980's; but not today.

For a Country that owns so many guns, competitive shooting is a very small niche.

Cheers,

Dave

Dave,
Interesting story.
Steel plates are fun and fairly easy. So satisfying.
We have quite a lot of 'Soft Air'-shooters'. It's like Practical but with CO2 repeaters.
I've tried to make the fun-shooters switch to AP target shooting, with a success of 1 out of 10, totally unsure if this 1 shooter will have enough courage to continue. They found it boring, difficult and no fun at all.
Admit 50-m pistol is a masochist-game.
It is true that the greatest adversary in ISSF target shooting is the guy shooting.

The anti-gun mentality (you do know that guns are dangerous!) and the surprise how difficult target shooting is, keeps many people away from the sport.

The only thing I (can) do is motivating the beginner and point him the (what I think) is the real challenge: control your mind to be able to surpass yourself.

Well, my 2 cents.
Keep up the good work.
Guy

fc60 wrote:A greater problem was traveling to the Tryout Matches for National Team selection.

This touches on a suggestion of mine that shooting federations should have club standards and some form of nation wide electronic score tracking. To give the associations a better view of all the shooters and give good shooters without the financial resources to have a shot at being selected.

SlartyBartFast wrote:..... some form of nation wide electronic score tracking. To give the associations a better view of all the shooters and give good shooters without the financial resources to have a shot at being selected.

The USA Shooting program has something called Preliminary Try Outs (PTOs). They really mean nothing since as long as I have been coaching (12 years now) the system has never worked giving a true feel for how a shooter is nationally ranked.

I'm not sure that this would work as everyone uses different targets, has good years and bad matches. The argument would be how long would you average, minimum number of matches , how many in the previous xxx months?

Or as we (in the US) do now take the shooters who have their Olympic Quad MQS(s) and bring them together for a head to head slugfest.
The MQSs are gained by shooting well in matches in the last few years of the Olympic quad and going to World Cups. You have to have the shooters go to the WCs, so it cannot be a single average or a single match.

Our (USA) shooters have to do well in a minimum of 3 matches:
1) A National WC selection match
2) Fire the min score at the WC ... puts you in the running for
3) The National selection match

It should also be noted that with #2 above, you must have demonstrated the ability to fire above the average Final qualifying score in the (approx) first 2 years WCs of the Olympic Quad ... OR YOU MUST SELF FUND to go to the WC to fire your MQS.

No one has ever said that this is an inexpensive sport .... and it never will be, it's only getting more expensive ... look at the smallbore gun prices now, money for even basic gear (Jacket, Pants, Boots), ammo testing, ammo to even shoot the scores at home. If you are going for ANY Olympic Sport, you had better have funding in some way to pull it off.

Traveling to a National Championship/Selection is the cheap part.
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Now on the topic of "Internal Strife in the US Federation" a bit of searching here can bring you to the links of the complaints and resolution info.

We are in the resolution mode now with selections of a new batch of some Board of Directors. See your "USA Shooting Today" magazine.

OPTIMISM is the current word ... we progress to set our goals and plans for TOKYO!

Well, it won't change my interest in the sport.

gn303 wrote:The only thing I (can) do is motivating the beginner and point him the (what I think) is the real challenge: control your mind to be able to surpass yourself.

This is precisely why I chose this sport over any other type of shooting. I want to keep a bit quiet for the moment, but I hope to raise awareness in at least one professional community about the nature of firearms and how the things actually work in the United States. I chose competition shooting for three reasons: one, the reason I stated above. Two, it is fairly politically neutral due to its small grouping (that and it's pretty hard to try and ban single shot pistols). Three, I just love target shooting. No idea why. I like "boring" things, I suppose.