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Hunter Class Score Competition

As to the weight issue and how it pertains to building a Hunter gun, here's a personal story. When I decided late last seaon to put together a Hunter gun for this season, the very first thing I did was to shake the trees for a decent 6X scope and a back up. I ended up with a steel tube Weaver T6, a Burris 6HBR, a Sightron 6HBR and a late model Leupold Competition Hunter. The Weaver is the heaviest at 18 oz. and the gun comes in 2 oz light with it.

With the proposed 10.5 lb weight, the Easy Button would have been a Sightron 3-16 STac with the MOA reticle.
 
I had to go back and read the original post again. You started off talking about hunter class and then expanding into promoting the sport as a whole.

So under the supporting the shooting sports, benchrest for score as a whole. I don’t have any sanctioned VFS matches close that I am aware of. I do however have local clubs close that host groundhog, deer, peeking groundhog, and modified UBR matches. I also talked one of our clubs into holding a PA 300 Yard Tack Driver Lite match. This will be the third year for it. Attendance and interest has grown for this match as it brings something different to the area. I talked with Jim Cline to get his blessing to run a modified version of his match and to use tack driver in the title of the match.

I bring this up because this is how we continue to try and promote in our area. Rules are simple and straight forward, shoot anything 30 caliber and below with a weight limit of 22 pounds or less. No 1 piece rests and no side discharge muzzle brakes.

So the idea of a TCL type league where the top 5 scores were submitted may catch on if it’s promoted to local clubs and the rules are simply and all inclusive. Basically follow rules like the Tack Driver. This would be something of a new concept, not governed by current organizations. Just good old fashion fun and love for the competition.

At the local matches stickers and cash could be given out for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place at a minimum.

This would leave the rules for the current organizations and classes unchanged and untouched, so there would be no reason to argue over class, weight, scope, caliber, etc. make it fun and then people might cross over and decide to build something to compete with in the other organizations and classes. Or it could catch on and become a whole new animal.

Not looking to derail the thread, just trying to think outside of the box and find ways to get more people interested in our sport.
 
jxb said:
I'm not sure I agree it's about awards or travel.

I could care less about some trophy, the score card is of interest and of course overall standing so I can see if I'm improving. The social part is of interest, learning what others have and do, travel to various places I might otherwise never go, and enjoying their local foods.

Travel, yeah I quit flying unless absolutely necessary. I could get on a rant about why, but what's the point. If I have time I like to drive and out west if you don't want to drive 8-12hrs then you should probably move. We love our wide open places, but yes that means distance between most everything.

silhouette sparks my interest. Why? I see a person with what is basically a hunting rifle standing there trying to hit targets of various sizes at various distances. Meaning assuming you have a rifle that will shoot 1/2moa or better (maybe even 1mo), it's more about shooting than the gear. If I was to shoot hunter or varminter I'd want the same, I should be able to shoot in a class that requires equipment that one would normally use for those activities and the rest is on the shooter to perform.

I have zero interest in having a bunch of hardware I line up and trip the trigger, should there be a class for that, of course and seems there is, I believe it's called BR. I'd be interested in F-TR except I have no interest in 223 or 308, how about that format, but for something in other calibers. Like separate classes for 6mm vs 7mm/30cal, meaning if 6mm can't buck the wind as well as heavier, then how about its own class so you're competing apples to apples. F-Open seems interesting, but to me it's really teetering on the edge of too much hardware vs the shooter, if it wasn't for reading wind and mirage, it would be mostly hardware IMO, but at LR reading those are key, again more about shooter's skill than hardware.

My point being most non-competitive shooters that might be interested are more likely to be interested in the raw shooting skills part of it than the equipment part. Why? because that's all they know. Especially those without the funds to get whatever. I have all the funds I need to do whatever I wish, I simply have zero interest in playing the hardware game any more than required to get out and have fun. I think it's interesting to see how they do it and clearly there's skill involved, but again my interests are more raw shooting, similar to what I could do in the field, but not necessarily to the degree that PRS goes as that requires a lot of travel.

In the end, I don't know what I don't know so there's that. You all that do it know because you've been doing it, chosen the parts you like and all that.
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Short range Benchrest is one of the Disciplines where you are no better than the Rifle. You can’t shoot at a sub .200 level with a .300 rifle.
That is why we spend so much time on the equipment end of it. Many of us build our own Rifles, chamber our own barrels, and more than a few like myself make their own bullets.

Possibly one of the sticking points many non BR shooters have with Short Range Benchrest is we sacrifice every aspect of ballistic performance toward one purpose. That being, the combinations ability to stack one bullet on top of the other.

Particulars such as BC, ES, SD, and even velocity take a back seat. External ballistics only have meaning as it pertains to a bullets precision as it flys through the conditions.

In short, we sacrifice all aspects of internal and external ballistics for a combinations ability to Agg at a competitive level.

It’s not about hunting, combat skills, tactical abilities, sniping, athletic prowess while handling a firearm, etc, is simply pure accuracy and precision and how to achieve them.

None of this makes Benchrest any more difficult than any other Competitive Discipline. Every Competitive Endeavor has a certain built in level of difficulty that requires attention to every detail in order to be competitive.
 
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jackieschmidt said:
Short range Benchrest is one of the Disciplines where you are no better than the Rifle. You can’t shoot at a sub .200 level with a .300 rifle.
That is why we spend so much time on the equipment end of it. Many of us build our own Rifles, chamber our own barrels, and more than a few like myself make their own bullets.

Possibly one of the sticking points many non BR shooters have with Short Range Benchrest is we sacrifice every aspect of ballistic performance toward one purpose. That being, the combinations ability to stack one bullet on top of the other.

Particulars such as BC, ES, SD, and even velocity take a back seat. External ballistics only have meaning as it pertains to a bullets precision as it flys through the conditions.

In short, we sacrifice all aspects of internal and external ballistics for a combinations ability to Agg at a competitive level.

It’s not about hunting, combat skills, tactical abilities, sniping, athletic prowess while handling a firearm, etc, is simply pure accuracy and precision and how to achieve them.

None of this makes Benchrest any more difficult than any other Competitive Discipline. Every Competitive Endeavor has a certain built in level of difficulty that requires attention to every detail in order to be competitive.
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Yep I understood that much, BR is probably the one discipline I kinda understand. It's all the others that I have no idea what they are.

I apparently wasn't getting my point across. I have no interest (today) in something like BR, but I might in shooting 100, 200, 300 with hunting or varmint rifles. Meaning ones that traditionally fit the use, including the accessories one might normally use, regardless of cost if you wouldn't take it in the field, then it's for something else. That's all I meant. I view BR as a whole different animal and very specialized. You can take your car and run them in the drags, but you wouldn't take your dedicated drag racer on the street. Kinda like that.
 
re
jxb said:
Yep I understood that much, BR is probably the one discipline I kinda understand. It's all the others that I have no idea what they are.

I apparently wasn't getting my point across. I have no interest (today) in something like BR, but I might in shooting 100, 200, 300 with hunting or varmint rifles. Meaning ones that traditionally fit the use, including the accessories one might normally use, regardless of cost if you wouldn't take it in the field, then it's for something else. That's all I meant. I view BR as a whole different animal and very specialized. You can take your car and run them in the drags, but you wouldn't take your dedicated drag racer on the street. Kinda like that.
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Your last sentence nails it.
 
I had done a lot of shooting off a bench with hunting rifles but my introduction to true benchrest competition was when a friend/gunsmith let me shoot his 6PPC lite varmint rifle at a 300 yard NBRSA hunter target. I only put 10 shots down range but it was a revelation. Together we started NBRSA Hunter Bench Rest at our Club. We never did attract many shooters, usually 5-7 at a match but we had a hell of a lot of fun. My first HBR rifle was a Mauser action in 243 Win. with a cheap Adams&Bennett short chamber. My scope was a Weaver Grand Slam 6X20 AO and a McMillan HBR stock, On his scale it weighed exactly 10#. I shot that setup for 2 years and then re-barreled to a Hart 1:14 Light Varmint in tight necked 308. In order to make weight I was left with a 21.5" barrel. That sucker had a muzzle flash and blast that was truly awesome. My scores improved quite a bit but when my friend left the Club it looked like Bench Rest for Score was dead. A small group that wanted to keep some form of centerfire benchrest going decided to go our own way. The principal complaint about our matches was that they took the whole day. We now have 2 classes of competition, VFS and HBR. The only difference is that HBR is limited to 6X scope power. We are not sanctioned by anyone so weight limits, forend width, and cartridge type don't matter. We do limit bullets to 30 cal. max. We do not allow loading at the range and at 100 yards we shoot 3 shots per target + sighters on one target with a 15 minute time limit, then cease fire put up a second target and after 15 minutes to allow barrels to cool we shoot 2 shots per target in 15 minutes. While 2 people score the two 100 yard targets, the rest of us move the target holders to 200 yards and put up one 200 yard target per shooter and rearrange wind flags. By then the barrels have cooled and we shoot 5 shots per target for 15 minutes, pause for 15 minutes to again let barrels cool and then finish up the 5 targets in 15 minutes. As a practical matter we almost never have anyone use all the time we allow. Then while the scorers are scoring we put everything away, then add up the scores and off to lunch we go. Starting at 0900 we are usually finished by 1130-1200. We have several shooters compete in HBR but most shoot VFS. One of our HBR shooters has a legal NBRSA HBR rifle in 30 BR and is planning to attend the 2024 NBRSA Score Nationals in HBR and VFS. Others are shooting everything from a 20 Cal wildcat off a 223 Rem parent case to 6PPC's, 6BR's 6 Creedmoores, 30BR's, and one guy once shot a Thompson Arms 17 Hornady RF Magnum with a 3X9 Tasco scope. He didn't do bad at 100 yards but 200 ate that little pill up. We average about 7-9 shooters but occasionally get as many as 10.
 
After having watched this string run for several days, there are a number of excellent posts showing insight into rifle competition in general, benchrest shooting as a discipline, and Hunter Score Benchrest in particular. Moving forward, I would like to narrow the discussion down to short range score competition in particular. That being "Hunter Class" and "Varmint for Score" class competition as defined by NBRSA and IBS rules.

In the original post, I stated that there were only 13 Hunter class competitors from the Gulf Coast region at the Nationals last year. The Gulf Coast Region used to be a hot bed of Hunter competition with many clubs participating. The class isn't dead here yet but it certainly is on life support.

The question going forward is: Do you think a postal league competition between local clubs would be beneficial and does it stand a good chance of increasing interest and drawing new competitors into this particular discipline?
 
JoeDuke said:
After having watched this string run for several days, there are a number of excellent posts showing insight into rifle competition in general, benchrest shooting as a discipline, and Hunter Score Benchrest in particular. Moving forward, I would like to narrow the discussion down to short range score competition in particular. That being "Hunter Class" and "Varmint for Score" class competition as defined by NBRSA and IBS rules.

In the original post, I stated that there were only 13 Hunter class competitors from the Gulf Coast region at the Nationals last year. The Gulf Coast Region used to be a hot bed of Hunter competition with many clubs participating. The class isn't dead here yet but it certainly is on life support.

The question going forward is: Do you think a postal league competition between local clubs would be beneficial and does it stand a good chance of increasing interest and drawing new competitors into this particular discipline?
Click to expand...

At ASC (Dallas area) we have a few of us that are dedicated to only shooting our HUNTER class rifles at our monthly VFS match. This month we had 4 shooters. Its not much, but it's 4 more than we had all last year.
 
Joining this thread late…
Big yes to postal/TCL league. A lot of clubs do their own “shooter of the year” recognition already. Could this practice be integrated into TCL/postal? Maybe the top 5 shooters of the year for each club?
An idea to gain/increase shooter participation overall: allow for 100 yard sanctioned matches. There are far more 100 yard ranges than 200+ yard ranges. A lot of “club” matches held at 100 yards COULD be sanctioned matches if rules allowed. I think this could increase overall shooter participation.
Next, I’ll use Kelbly’s as an example. They used to be focused on the benchrest crowd, now they’re big-time into PRS and similar. They don’t even make their remarkable KLP stock any more. And I’m not dogging Kelbly’s - they are a business and need to be profitable, so they go where the sales are. All of this to say, maybe we need to reimagine Hunter Class as a gateway for the PRS-type crowd to get into short-range benchrest. Set up rules to allow for the PRS-type rifles to compete in Hunter class.
The $$$ and the market are in PRS type competition, so let’s acknowledge that and provide a way for them to use their expensive gear in our game.
Just my .02…
 
@Websurfer I like how you're thinking, but PRS rifles can't be competitive in a benchrest match, the same that benchrest rifles can't be competitive in PRS matches. Some clubs have a "factory" class in their matches, but when a factory rifle turns in a 225 3X, when on the score sheet is 1 line away from a 250 21X, they usually dont come back.

Our sport is dying cause it's not fast, sexy, and the youth can't afford it.

Let's keep talking. We may find some gateway into our sport.
 
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I have not shot hunter for nearly twenty years. I could see removing the scope restriction but would favor leaving the weight the same. If one wants to mount a 2 1/2 pound scope, he can lose weight elsewhere. In Metallic Silhouette, our hunter rifle class is nine pounds, with no restriction on scope power, so ten pounds, with no scope restriction seems reasonable to me.
Way back, when Sporter class was considered redundant, there were various proposals made in an attempt to save the class and the three gun agg. One proposal included a scope power restriction. My proposal was a weight reduction to nine pounds, with no other change. While it's true that I have actual hunting rifles over nine pounds, it wouldn't hurt my feelings to not be able to shoot the 338 in a BR match. WH
 
Maybe 2 Hunter classes: Precision (based on current rules) and Tactical (with broader rules allowing for more rifles)?
My point being that the market has moved, the crowds are elsewhere, and we should consider a gateway through which other types of competitors can use their expensive gear to start playing in our sandbox.
Good point about PRS types not being competitive vs our precision rifles, but perhaps the (a possible) solution is give them a way to compete in a version of our game…
 
Websurfer said:
Joining this thread late…
Big yes to postal/TCL league. A lot of clubs do their own “shooter of the year” recognition already. Could this practice be integrated into TCL/postal? Maybe the top 5 shooters of the year for each club?
An idea to gain/increase shooter participation overall: allow for 100 yard sanctioned matches. There are far more 100 yard ranges than 200+ yard ranges. A lot of “club” matches held at 100 yards COULD be sanctioned matches if rules allowed. I think this could increase overall shooter participation.
Next, I’ll use Kelbly’s as an example. They used to be focused on the benchrest crowd, now they’re big-time into PRS and similar. They don’t even make their remarkable KLP stock any more. And I’m not dogging Kelbly’s - they are a business and need to be profitable, so they go where the sales are. All of this to say, maybe we need to reimagine Hunter Class as a gateway for the PRS-type crowd to get into short-range benchrest. Set up rules to allow for the PRS-type rifles to compete in Hunter class.
The $$$ and the market are in PRS type competition, so let’s acknowledge that and provide a way for them to use their expensive gear in our game.
Just my .02…
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At our Tomball Club Match’s, we have a class that dos allow PRS style rifls to shoot. It is our Modified Class,
We have had several F-Class and PRS bring their rifles out to compete, and reality sets in pretty quick.

The simple fact is the rifles are not accurate enough. Much of this revolves around the cartridges. Most of our regular shooters in the Modified Class chamber their rifles in one of the short 30 caliber rounds that are proven to be some of the most accurate chamberings ever conceived. They are in truth a purpose built rifle for the class.

So discouragement can set in. It’s more difficult to hit that 1/2 inch 10 ring that most think, and the X can just about be unobtainable.. So they don’t come back.

By the way. Our top class, which we simply call the Benchrest Class, is open to any legal firearm.
here are the rules for the three classes.

 
LHSmith said:
Long time IBS competitor in the NE shooting both VFS and HC. For those who don't know, Hunter Class was created to establish a formal competition for the typical hunter - big game = Hunter, varmint = Varmint Hunter, so that the typical hunter could compete with his factory rifle (typically a .308 for Hunter) with a typical low power scope using simple sand-filled shot bags from a fixed bench at a fixed short range 100,200, & 300 yds. It was a simple concept-shoot at 5 separate bulls for each relay which avoided the moving backer as needed for group shooting. It started off simple , but ended up with rules that conflicted with it's original intent- to attract shooters with basic equipment they already have. IMHO when custom actions were allowed, it killed the class. Where HC shooters outnumbered VFS 3 years previous, most elected to switch to VFS or quit competition.
Here in the NE (with the exception of Maine) it is dead with VFS barely holding it's own. I used to shoot both VFS and HC, but the last couple years the shooter numbers have declined to where we just barely get enough for 1 relay. The past couple years I shot HC almost always as the sole HC competitor. Why? It's the level of difficulty that comes with a 6x scope and the 10 # gun. When you shoot a decent score you get satisfaction that you earned it the hard way. When fellow VFS shooters shoot a HC gun they invariably say "How the #&%$ do you manage to hit anything with this set-up? Must be an acquired taste.
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In Kali in the 90s hunter bench became popular and the group called themselves the Bozo's. .30 cal customs,bald eagle rests, and then came the cryo barrels. Unless you had the pockets to afford it.
Now,with the cost of components,when you find them, has pushed shooting sports out.
Sometimes fun matches where you use what ya bring, shooting skills,not equipment makes the match. At one time in my life the most accurate rifle I had was a military Mauser in 7mm rem mag,3-9 Burris and Sierra match kings.
 
It probably will be most difficult to meld in PRS style equipment with Hunter class score competition. The equipment an objectives of the two competitions are almost diametrically opposed.
That being said, as Jackie explained above, there is nothing to keep a PRS shooter from competing in a designated class as sponsored and defined by any local club. But, it probably won't compete with the hunter class rifles. Same as the Hunter rifles also would not compete at a PRS match.
My hat is off to those who still have the physical skills to compete in those PRS events. My days doing that are long since gone.
 
JoeDuke said:
My hat is off to those who still have the physical skills to compete in those PRS events. My days doing that are long since gone.
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^^^^^^^^^
Even though I am in pretty good shape for my 77 years, but I would look pretty pathetic attempting to “run” through a typical PRS course of fire.:)
 
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