I think you've just made an excellent argument for Sniper and Tactical Class rifles and disciplines - which already exist of course. What some of these guys want is a Tactical / F/TR class to let them compete at long ranges without losing out to 30" barrel rifles, and if there is enough
real demand for this, fair enough.
One of the things you soon find out about .308 Win at very long ranges is that it is an excellent 800yd cartridge, starts to struggle a bit at 900 and unless conditions are ideal is in trouble at 1,000yd. Yes, I know that Target, Fullbore, Palma and Match Rifle have used .308W at 1,000, and in some cases beyond that, but that's why these rifles all use 30-32" barrels and have done so for a full half-century now. They also use 2-MOA Bull targets with rings going out beyond that in MOA steps. As soon as F Class (Open that is) got too good for this target size, and went onto the one-MOA Bull with half-MOA rings, it was inevitable that F/TR would have to make as big a ballistic jump just to be worth shooting it. The easiest way of killing the discipline is to make it too hard to get a decent score especially for the tyro shooter.
What constantly staggers me is how far F/TR standards have risen each and every season for the last few years. I can remember a GB league round at windy old Diggle in the English Pennine Hills in what must be only around 2007 or 2008 where even with 30" barrel rifles, F/TR people finished the last match (1,000yd) of the weekend in despair after running out of scope windage adjustment, having received multiple complete misses, not even sure where some shots had gone.
Bi-pods aside (and as a .223 Rem shooter I use a Versa-Pod tactical model not an 'F Class model', one reason I like the cartridge) the kit doesn't have to be that fancy. Russell Simmonds the reigning World F/TR Champion uses a Barnard 'S' action in a Choate Ultimate Sniper stock, one of the cheaper models to be had. Stuart Anselm (Osprey Rifles) the UK's Savage specialist is building very successful rifles on the savage PT action, some with factory savage stocks, others with good quality but by no means exotic laminate jobs.
What would you remove / restrict? Too many people look at the bi-pods alone and say the rifles are too complex, too expensive, too something ... but many are plain Jane rifles with a relatively exotic bit of aluminium stuck on front. While the Sinclair and Centershot models seem to have taken a strong hold in the USA, simpler and often home-made bi-pods are widely used here. While I never expect to see police and military sharpshooters using something like a Sinclair, I'd lay money that some F/TR bi-pod innovations will become standard on 'tactical' models in due course. We're already seeing tactical models now that are as expensive as out and out specialist F/TR items, much more expensive than the Spanish Fito models and Dolphin Gun Co. 'Trakker' model that both retail at around £165 here (about 200 USD).
http://www.dolphinguncompany.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=71&Itemid=157
The latest tactical pods are using a U-shape frame with the leg pivots on either side of the rifle forend / barrel and set high to give greater stability. I was shown one recently by an avid McQueens and Tactical competitor that retails around £400 or £450 here, same price as the John Weill Centershot.
Even on scopes. While many of the F Class boys have moved onto 50 and 60 power March scopes and similar, the 8-32X Sightron and Nightforce NXS models are overwhelmingly used by top GB FCA F/TR competitors. One could restrict scope power in F/TR, say to 24X, but this would be an entirely artificial constraint and again when the aiming mark is the half-MOA V-Bull could detract severely from scores and the shooting pleasure for many under some conditions. Hunter BR suggests you would soon have specialist (expensive) F/TR scopes too that would still reward the wealthy competitor.
I think you're focussing too much on the .223 and .308 cartridge issue as
every day military cartridges
to use your phrase. It's a purely historical accident that sees F/TR linked to this pair going back to the transition from non-US Service Rifle to Target Rifle in the 1960s. Target shooting including the long-range deliberate fire stuff was regarded as an adjunct to military training from the late 19th / early 20th century in most countries using the nation's primary service cartridge. The US has kept this tradition going with its Service Rifle and use of developed M14s, then AR15s- but everywhere else the link started to weaken in 1967/8 when 7.62X51mm replaced .303 British, 6.5X55mm etc and the move was made to single-shot rifles away from true service rifles like the Number 4 Enfield. Our TR shooters had to use milspec 7.62 ammo for decades at anything above club level - and it stopped technical development of the discipline for nigh on 40 years as a result. When F Class started it was very much an adjunct or development of TR, but quickly moved on from that. However, it still made perfect sense to stick with the cartridges accepted in all international competition even though the military links had long since been broken everywhere except the USA that (sensibly in my view) has retained co-operation between civilian and military shooters. Officially, we've long had it made clear to us in the UK that the military obtains NO benefit from anything that we do and that we're a sport like any other - in fact not like any other as we use these nasty gun things! (Funny how the British forces have discovered that their riflecraft is lacking in open country asymmetric warfare!)
Yes, .223 and .308 are used by the police and military, as they are also used in Fullbore / target and Palma Rifle. Nobody has said, not at least for a long time, that these disciplines should use rifles that look like police tactical or military sniper rifles, or conform to their specs in any way. Like these three disciplines, F/TR is a specialist long-range single-shot rifle one at targets at known distances. I and most competitors see it as a highly developed and more technical version of Target Rifle using scoped and supported rifles. if I want to use a military or police type rifle, I'd shoot Service, Tactical, or Sniper Rifle instead.
) be considered as upgrades that unlevel even the "factory" class...
