Another reason that "Old Guard" sling-shooters may look askance at F shooters is that they may see their sport declining in their area and wonder why the new and younger shooters are not shooting sling so that the number of sling shooter does not decline.
Any states finding F-Class too popular?
- Thread starter effendude
- Start date
I'm based in the UK and Europe and a lot of the comments sound familiar. Although I'm a sling shooter I've followed F Class closely over the years. I’ve enjoyed visiting F Class matches, supporting the GB Team and have plenty of friends and training partners who shoot F Class.
A lot of our events for sling shooters include F Class entries, but it became clear that these events were not appealing to F Class shooters, who were choosing dedicated F Class events that better reflected the current state of the discipline, rather than what it was 15 years ago.
My turn came to organize one of the larger events that comes to our club every 4 years, so I decided to identify what could be done to turn things around, because if nothing was done it was clear that the F Class entry at this type of match would decline to the point of being practically unsustainable. I spoke to a lot of F Class shooters to find out what was going wrong, carefully examined the conduct of modern F Class matches, and made it a priority amongst our match organizers and the rest of the club that we would focus on delivering a first-rate F Class event (we could already do that for sling shooters easily). I worked with F Class clubs and associations around the UK and beyond to get feedback on our plans and to promote the event. We had to take a big risk (triple the prize money payout by including a full program for F/TR and F Open - my club chairman was pretty shocked when I gave him the cash requirements to draw from the bank!).
The result was that the F Class component of the match entry rose from about 10% to 50%. F Class shooters hugely appreciated the effort (in stark contrast to the 'second class citizen' comments I'd heard about previous matches of this type). Our club did very well from the increased entries plus bar, catering & accomodation revenue. We gained a number of long term members and now have F Class representation on the committee, a new annual F Class championship event and plans for more. In subsequent years other clubs have followed our lead. More importantly, a lot of bridges were built, and I like to think we pulled back a little from the brink of F Class and sling shooters going our separate ways.
All it takes is to have some mutual respect & understanding and to be prepared to work together, then, as others have commented, we all get along just great. We are, after all, trying to do the same thing, just going about it in what amounts to a very slightly different way, and whatever way you choose it takes huge skill and dedication to come out on top.
I hope we can continue moving in the right direction.
..
A lot of our events for sling shooters include F Class entries, but it became clear that these events were not appealing to F Class shooters, who were choosing dedicated F Class events that better reflected the current state of the discipline, rather than what it was 15 years ago.
My turn came to organize one of the larger events that comes to our club every 4 years, so I decided to identify what could be done to turn things around, because if nothing was done it was clear that the F Class entry at this type of match would decline to the point of being practically unsustainable. I spoke to a lot of F Class shooters to find out what was going wrong, carefully examined the conduct of modern F Class matches, and made it a priority amongst our match organizers and the rest of the club that we would focus on delivering a first-rate F Class event (we could already do that for sling shooters easily). I worked with F Class clubs and associations around the UK and beyond to get feedback on our plans and to promote the event. We had to take a big risk (triple the prize money payout by including a full program for F/TR and F Open - my club chairman was pretty shocked when I gave him the cash requirements to draw from the bank!).
The result was that the F Class component of the match entry rose from about 10% to 50%. F Class shooters hugely appreciated the effort (in stark contrast to the 'second class citizen' comments I'd heard about previous matches of this type). Our club did very well from the increased entries plus bar, catering & accomodation revenue. We gained a number of long term members and now have F Class representation on the committee, a new annual F Class championship event and plans for more. In subsequent years other clubs have followed our lead. More importantly, a lot of bridges were built, and I like to think we pulled back a little from the brink of F Class and sling shooters going our separate ways.
All it takes is to have some mutual respect & understanding and to be prepared to work together, then, as others have commented, we all get along just great. We are, after all, trying to do the same thing, just going about it in what amounts to a very slightly different way, and whatever way you choose it takes huge skill and dedication to come out on top.
I hope we can continue moving in the right direction.
..
Wade, just want to say thank you so much for the compliment! I am going to shoot the Tennessee F-Class Championship in Tullahoma F/TR with irons (read that Mike).
Wade, your rifle shoots very good!
Wade, your rifle shoots very good!
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