ronsatspokane
Gold $$ Contributor
I'm not so sure of that. I look at PRS as a large pool of future F Class shooters. Remember why F Class was created? So aging shooters had a class of competition to participate in once their eyes would not work with open sights at 1000 yards. It is enough of a challenge that it also attracted many younger people who may also shoot PRS. I shoot F Class with a number of people young enough to shoot and do well at PRS. Some of them do. But, once the PRS shooters blow out a knee or two and can no longer carry 40 pounds of gear along with their rifle from stage to stage or climb a roof line or crawl under a fence line without busting a ball, will they quit shooting sports? I don't think so. I think they will graduate to the more refined zen like sport of F Class. And by then they will have already spent 10's of thousands of dollars on shooting equipment and be ready for a real precision rifle.I’m not surprised by the outcome of the poll. Prs shooters out number all the F Open, bench rest and sling shooters put together. Most new shooters want to have a rifle that resembles some type of military weapon, anything that looks like a sniper rifle or AR.
They don’t want to spend $5000. on a rifle and another $2000 on a scope and have it look like something that has a wooden stock, McMillan colored injection red. The masses want something bad ass. If they are spending this type of money it has to look cool.
I shoot F Open and I see our target sport dying on the vine. Without the youth it will be dead. I’m 44 and have been shooting at my local club for 11 years, and one of the younger guys. I have tried to bring a bunch of friends into the game and it never works out. It’s a huge expense for a newer shooter. I had one friend spend $10000.00 for a complete competition F Open rig and he waited so long for the rifle that he lost interest and started shooing 3 gun. Now I take my 13 year old daughter and she is shooting my 6.5x47 Lapua and we are having a blast. I don’t have any suggestions for new blood into any of these old man shooting disciplines. Social media would help but the real sex appeal is in anything that has a magazine, pistol grip, attachments and can wear any type of operator clothing. I have not shot PRS and saying anything bad about that sport. ALL THE SHOOTING SPORTS NEED TO STICK TOGETHER. They are just doing it right and all of the other High Power and prone shooters better figure it out. The reason for nothing being said about F Class at shot show is the money. Only Savage makes a rifle for F open or TR, and Palma, and they still don’t have a 6.5 Creedmore in F class. It seems to be a no brainer, that caliber you can get match ammo and reasonable.I’m not saying this is the best choice but the easy button for a beginner. We as a group spend a ton of money buy not enough for the advertising. They know that we are going to come back because we just bought 3 rifle barrels and enough components for 2 season's. I’m sure we all have heard the same thing on the line.
My 2 cents are done.
Watch out the wind is tricky today.
Jason
