I'd like to see a new F class Category. "F-TAC"

[Dgd6mm]

The first match I went as a spectator with a friend that shot, long before there was and F class, I was having a great time watching. Then between distances I started hearing all this whining and crying about what this one was doing or what that one was shooting, and it spoiled a perfect day for me. They were arguing about who was going to come in 9th or 10th!!! Really? Just exactly what is going on here in this thread. Biggest bunch of cry babies I ever heard. All of this crap about muzzle brakes could end with a small thin piece of plywood let into a 2x6 for a screen. I heard Gandi said this about Christians but its appropriate for rifle matches, I would love to shoot a match if it weren't for the other shooters. I skipped church Fathers day to watch a match and it looked like a fashion show. If I decide to shoot, I am going to show up with my ugly purple gun and a pair of bibbers and bare foot and my home made rifle rest.

The Sid Turek of f class.

 

[ebb]

Yea I miss Sid. i go by the place he used to farm, and think I should stop and ask if they have a phone number. Rumor is when Donna retired they moved to GA where he farmed in the summer.

 

[Bob Mo]

At the range I shoot at, they have a piece of plywood up, everybody with muzzle breaks shoot on one side, everybody without them shoot on the other.

My first match was about a year and a half ago, shooting a prs rifle in what our club calls tactical/varmint. All rifles with breaks must shoot lanes 1-5. I got hooked bad, now am shooting a fairly nice open rig and enjoying every minute (mostly) lol. It it a great way to let more people see it F Class is for them.

 

[CharlieNC]

Most ranges I shoot have only 1ft separation between shooting mats, some have a bit of dirt below the barrel; not an environment conducive for muzzle brakes. It is not a big deal to remove the brake and tweak the load to maintain harmony, or allow brakes and run off existing shooters.

 

[DHuffman]

folding bipods are a must for this class in my opinion, not just brakes.

I'd say folding bipod or a pair of bags. No rests

 

[karrarararararar]

I've shot a couple matches next to f-class rifles with brakes. Getting blasted with dirt/muzzle gasses gets old pretty fast.

 

[Tangent]

The biggest issue with brakes is the noise. I have to use plugs and electronic defenders or I get ringing ears. The first thing I did was buy a moderator, not possible everywhere though. That said I wouldn't stop someone else using one but squadding brakes together makes sense. You can hardly complain about it if you're using one yourself We all need to find ways to coexist, there are too many external pressures working against our sport not to.

 

[hpshooter]

"I heard a different story. Up in Canada they were losing experienced shooters because of eye issues with the iron sight requirement for highpower at the time, so they allowed scopes and along with that rests."

Same thing I read and heard when "F" class first moved South of the border. Our club runs 300 yard "modified" f class matches and allow .22 rimfires and pretty much allow any rifle under .35 caliber.

 

[Laurie]

I heard a different story. Up in Canada they were losing experienced shooters because of eye issues with the iron sight requirement for highpower at the time, so they allowed scopes and along with that rests.

Quite so Boyd. What Americans have to remember is that British Commonwealth 'Target Rifle' (sling shooting) is entirely iron sights. (UK, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand.) There is the any sight 'Match Rifle' variant, but that is a minority discipline that is shot with 308 at 1,000 / 1,100 / 1,200 yards.

So UK and Commonwealth sling shooters faced enforced retirement as soon as their eyes deteriorated to the point where they couldn't get a good sight picture with conventional match aperture irons. There was no equivalent scoped rifle discipline.

George Farquarson envisaged and invented a modified TR rifle formula, basically a single shot 7.62 TR rifle continuing to meet ICFRA rules on things like (1.5kg) minimum trigger pull, and maximum weight was determined by the TR + ICFRA rifle maximum plus a Harris type bipod plus a decent target scope and still shooting on standard GB NRA / DCRA fullbore targets (2-MOA 5-ring / 1-MOA V-Bull) so that he and the many others like him could continue shooting competitively in what was a sub-class of their former discipline. TR and the new F-Class participants continued shooting mixed together as they used the same targets. (This was the case when I started in F, the only difference being that in the UK anyway, a V-Bull scored 6 points so we shot for 120 points HPS, not 100.20v.)

Since George's day, TR rules have been amended to allow optical lens type enhancements such as the Eagle Eye to apertures to extend the shooting life of older participants, but that was for the next generation of shooters, and even so many older shooters still struggle to continue.

As the discipline caught on and was adopted outside of Canada it was amended to create what we now call 'Open' class - any calibre, any trigger pull weight as long as safe, front-rest support, 22lb all-up weight. The 223 Rem and 308 Win F-Classers soon found they were hopelessly outclassed against a weird and wonderful range of very high MV / high BC cartridges with 6.5-284 soon rising to prominence. The NRA target quickly proved to be too easy - the (true) saying soon arose that the first shot that leaked out of the V-Bull into the Bull-5 ended your chance of a high match place. So, F/TR with a lower all-up weight; 223/308 only; bipod instead of frontrest was introduced and target ring diameters were halved compared to the NRA versions. The discipline morphed from Farquarson-Class into Free-Class allowing experimentation and innovation within a fairly wide set of parameters. I personally think that on balance this was the right move as F-Class has driven greater change and innovation and increased standards of precision etc far more in the last 10 years of my shooting experience than the previous 30. It also brought in younger participants who simply would never have adopted a discipline that saw them trussed up in leather jackets and saddled with a tight sling and restricted to iron sights. The downside is that higher standards / fancier kit increased costs, and not everyone wants to handload.

In the UK many clubs successfully added a factory rifle only class, but it has generally either failed after a while or been restricted to modest numbers. F-Tactical / military, call it what you like, has in the UK anyway seen greater enthusiasm, largely because the various tactical disciplines. and now PRS, have caught on in a big way and people are having very good rifles built for them, using very high quality glass etc which shoot just as well in single-shot prone comps. Many of my club's tactical shooters now have a match every weekend when you include F and even get two matches into a single day (mid range F fixtures usually have a 200/300 yard McQueens comp on a parallel range, so they book in to one match in the morning, the other in the afternoon or vice versa which we can manage with e-targets not needing large butt crews).

 

[drop_point]

They can shoot PRS then. Muzzle brakes have no place on a firing line

I disagree with you. If you don’t want to hear gunshots, stay home.

 

[miningshawn]

We keep on having the same argument.

It isn't muzzle brakes. It is somebody showing up with a rifle and gear that is not part of the cool kids club.

It took me all of a half hour to screw some plywood together and make two shields that I place on the outside of my lane. I even painted them. It still wasn't good enough.

I changed my whole attitude. I worked the pits harder than anyone, did range cleanup, brought a cooler of ice & water bottles big enough to slake the thirst of an army. I even bought a bunch of gear that I did not want to support an event where I couldn't even score because my rifle wasn't up to their standard. I tried all of this for an entire season, without ever complaining or fighting back. I just nodded my head and ate humble pie. It still wasn't enough.

It is being different and daring to show up at their sacrosanct event. I have given up on ever shooting BR. So have my friends. We created an event just for us as an "add-on" shooting for best groups at range before a PRS event.

I spend just as much time developing a load and tuning my rifle as the next guy, I don't want to change the harmonics of my rifle adding and subtracting weight from the most critical area. As far as running without a brake? Have fun spotting those short and mid range shots.

I refuse to conform just for the sake of sparing feelings and prejudices. They can enjoy their hobby by themselves until it is gone due to lack of new members; or, until they change the rules and attitudes to include a broader range of people and gear.

Simple as.

 

[CharlieNC]

I disagree with you. If you don’t want to hear gunshots, stay home.

Nobody cares about the noise of gunshots. But a muzzle blast when pulling the trigger is enough to throw a shot off.

 

[Tempest]

Could care less about brakes or not for 30 cal either way.

I do wish suppressors were allowed in NRA matches.

 

[mike mccormick]

I disagree with you. If you don’t want to hear gunshots, stay home.

Has nothing to do with gunshots. It has to do with concussion waves to the face. If you can't handle a little recoil, try air rifle

 

[Don Shelton]

Years ago I shot BR with a .284, under the rules I was allowed to shoot a brake that did not send the blast back toward the shooter, a radial style brake. It really helped to tame the recoil and the shooter’s on either side of me didn’t seem to mind or at least didn’t say anything. Never the less I would ask the match director to put me on one end of the line or if possible to have an empty bench next to me.
I say give the PRS guys their own relay, shoot a couple of matches and figure it out along the way. Maybe the plywood idea has some merit?? The main thing is you will have more shooters being introduced to a different discipline which is always a good thing. E

I shoot a 284 with a brake now in 1000 benchrest,lots of brakes on the line. It must be a radial style but it’s not an issue.

 

[Warren Dean]

I disagree with you. If you don’t want to hear gunshots, stay home.

If you need to run a brake, go shoot PRS.

 

[DR_2297]

If you are the only shooter on the line brake is fine. If not then negative to brakes. It’s about being a good neighbor.

Go ahead and run a brake and then the guys on either side of you 2 firing points each direction should be able to at any random time during live fire reach over and hit and your gear with something of their choice. Sling shooters by default get a baseball bat but can upgrade if they choose.

Brakes are rude when used on a shooting like with other ppl, period.

 

[Rset]

77 posts later and it would seem to me that F Class shooters don't want another F-class division that allows muzzle breaks because they serve no purpose in the discipline and cause other unwanted issues.
PRS shooters want to compete in everything with a single rifle, and there should be no rules against their participation because it might create some kind of hardship on their time or finances.
Match directors want more participation but can't seem to attract people to their discipline so they want to bastardize the whole thing rather than allow limited participation to improve it.
Few people have any respect for any rules and expect everyone to adapt to their particular requirements to keep them happy. Sounds to me like we need to start giving out participation trophy's for people showing up. Probably need to start giving extra points to men who identify as women too.
Pick a sport. Play by the rules, go home, or create a new sport.
F Class started this same way. Another sport was needed to meet shooters needs, so one was created
PRS started just a dozen years ago and has seen tremendous success.
IHMSA where I got my competitive shooting introduction is all but dead.
There have been many people who started in F-Class with a hunting riffle or an AR 15 and went on to embrace the sport in order to compete. Stop with the "we need a new F-Class" and welcome those who come with what they have and encourage them to learn the sport and to adapt to it.
F-Class will either thrive, die, or stagnate, Those involved today will shape its future, but if it it's future is unrecognizable from the past is it the same?
Guns are tools. For those that say they should only have one, you are no mechanic. A wrench is not a screwdriver, and neither are a hammer. Get the appropriate tool for the job.

 

[Dgd6mm]

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[sfinn1]

I think you may be thinking in the wrong direction. Your opinion that muzzle brakes (which are not NRA sanctioned), should be allowed in a F Class match, It may actually reduce the F class competitors. I for one and other F'ers would probably stop coming if the brakes show up and ruin our day. Brakes have their place and discipline. Take it off as Dgd6mm says and come enjoy our sport.
Now I do allow suppressors in "Out Of Competition" status. Suppressors do not impose on anyone. And a good time is had by all.