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Sling Class Structure

Just thinking out loud here & wanted to get some others opinions.

For sling you have Palma, Any/Irons, Any/Any & Optics only and there is only one overall winner. Except for Optics only. They can only win that class. This is very confusing for someone looking to get started.

In F-class you have 2 classes & 2 winners. You don't have any overall winner. Pretty simple.

Why not just have 2 classes in sling?

Using the Southwest Nationals as an example, if you want to shoot Any Rifle you have to have a Palma rifle for Friday, then an Any rifle with iron sights for Saturday & then have a scope for Sunday to be eligible to win the Agg. If you shoot Optics or Any on Friday or Saturday you are out of the Agg & basically shooting for fun.

For people who are just getting into the sport that is expensive & makes travel more of a hassle.

For our older shooters that can't see like they used to that may keep them at home.

If you just have 2 classes, our new could get into it cheaper & easier & our older shooters may keep coming to the matches. And would include the Optics only crowd to be eligible for for the Agg.

Palma is Palma! Nothing wrong with Palma. Leave Palma alone. Love me some Palma. But I've been lucky enough I don't have any vision problems (yet).

I know things are the way they are because that is the way it's always been done but with this one simple change we may be able to keep our older shooters shooting & may be easier to attract new shooters.

What say you? Am I way off base? Go ahead bash me if I wrong, I can take it.
Didn't read the whole thread but here is how traditionally sling is structure
Any, Palma and Service are all competing for the overall winner. But then you have High Any, Palma, and Service. So a Palma gun could win and be high Palma, but the top Any and Service rifle shooters would get the award.
The sights of the Any rifles are determined by the match programs so somewhere in the match they will probably have to fire iron sights.
In theory Palma is at disadvantage to Any rifle, and Service rifle (poor bastards) are at disadvantage to Palma and Any. Now nobody makes service fire irons, because the NRA messed that up when they allowed them to have optics putting it in the rifle definition instead of as defined by match program. But a 4.5x scope on a SR really is not any advantage over irons an an Any rifle or Palma gun.

Now for the older shooters questions yes that does happen. We have several at our club who have a hard time seeing the target, but they keep adjust playing with stuff to see, that is the nature of the beast.

Now Mid range is different because in 2018 the NRA messed that up and allowed people to shoot scope all the time and be national champ (use to be 50/50 and was originally all irons). So that kind of messed stuff up so some clubs allow optics all the time, some make people shoot irons. We decided to switch the single day mid range state championship from iron sights to any sights, but give a high iron sight award. Was talking with a Indiana shooter about this and she has just started shooting prone and just finally got a set of irons. Her comment was she is torn. A.) iron sights defines who is the better marksman as you just can't pick them up and shoot big scores. But B.) it's harder to see and lessons the competitive field.

In our club MR match people can shoot whatever they want we don't care. State and Regional match program defines what they use. LR matches people can shoot all 3 matches scope if they want but in order to be counted in our club season championship match 3 has to be iron sights. For the Regional and States the final match each day has to be irons.
 
this is an ongoing discussion among sling shooters and match directors, there has been no "any iron" rifle category in the NRA rule book for years, the CMP has had this sorted out for quite some time, they have three rifle categories
Service
Palma
Match (which combines "any/any" and highpower match rifles)
its long past time for NRA to follow suit
having a single sling shooter award makes no sense but this pretty much falls under the discretion of individual match directors.
There are plenty of XTC shooters (that pretty much all shoot optics) who have rifles perfectly capable of long range match competition but because some match directors insist on having an iron sight day are forced to spend lots of $$ to convert their rifles to iron sights (for one days use) or shoot out of competition, having sperate rifle category winners fixes this without penalizing anyone.
Gary
Any rifle is in the rule book, the sights being used are dictated by the match bulletin. Any/Any/Iron or Any/Iron/Iron as Oak Ridge (has ran) is saying what sights the Any rifles. Service rifle is the only rifle where the sights are in the definition of the rifle type allowing the shooter to choose. If you read rule 3.3 it doesn't say anything about optical sights for match rifles but yet they're allowed to in course. Would have been cool if they didn't put it in the rule book and you could have had two day course regionals one iron sight and the other day any sight.
The issue is when they allowed optics in course, the NRA didn't think how that would affect the prone game. I've always taken the stance that mid range and long range prone are like smallbore prone in that the best shooter should be the best at iron sights and scope (if they chose).
 
Just had cataract and retinal surgery in both eyes at age 71. My cataract lenses are for distance only so I still need reading prescriptions. My right eye vision is amazing to me. The scope reticle is sharp and so are the details of the target whether paper or metal. I can clearly see my front sight on my vintage military rifles as well as my Phoenix front aperture sight. Bullseye targets through irons are not absolutely perfect but are tremendously better than before - and stay the same shape.
If only I could get surgery for wobbles and twitches.
 
So, having read through this, some want all irons, others want optics, some just say its holding the rifle thats the hard part. 3 pages and I still don't know what you sling shooters want...

(Going to hide under my front rest now...)
It takes a great deal of dedication to shoot with a sling and most started with the service rifle and irons in Highpower. Others came into being via smallbore with irons and scope. Many who have reached their milestone of distinguished with the service rifle then progress usually into prone. In earlier years with irons. In recent years with scope. All have spent years refining and learning how to shoot with no artificial rest other than a sling; dealing with heatbeat, sweat, trigger squeeze and a position being influenced by wind, sun and sometimes rain, while maintaining the best visual sight process they can muster with decades old eyes.
So all are trying to obtain the best score they can achieve while maintaining a steady rifle based on bone, muscle, visual strength, condition awareness, while fighting the elements hammering the body and rifle with due diligence and patience to break the good shot.
They all come to the line trying to beat their selves while shooting the equipment that took years to perfect. It is not a easy journey but a rewarding one. That's what they want.
 
It takes a great deal of dedication to shoot with a sling and most started with the service rifle and irons in Highpower. Others came into being via smallbore with irons and scope. Many who have reached their milestone of distinguished with the service rifle then progress usually into prone. In earlier years with irons. In recent years with scope. All have spent years refining and learning how to shoot with no artificial rest other than a sling; dealing with heatbeat, sweat, trigger squeeze and a position being influenced by wind, sun and sometimes rain, while maintaining the best visual sight process they can muster with decades old eyes.
So all are trying to obtain the best score they can achieve while maintaining a steady rifle based on bone, muscle, visual strength, condition awareness, while fighting the elements hammering the body and rifle with due diligence and patience to break the good shot.
They all come to the line trying to beat their selves while shooting the equipment that took years to perfect. It is not a easy journey but a rewarding one. That's what they want.

Well put. I still have my NMA2 service rifle and am currently building an any/any rifle that has scope and irons available, but its in 6x250 and when that barrel is shot out, going to 260AI. I just couldn't do 3 position anymore and went to F/class. I do enjoy shooting irons and would like to play on the big targets from time to time so thats why I'm building my sling gun.
 
Well put. I still have my NMA2 service rifle and am currently building an any/any rifle that has scope and irons available, but its in 6x250 and when that barrel is shot out, going to 260AI. I just couldn't do 3 position anymore and went to F/class. I do enjoy shooting irons and would like to play on the big targets from time to time so thats why I'm building my sling gun.
They only look big when you are shooting from a rest.
 
This isn’t that big a mystery.

For 3 position you have two categories.

Service rifle and Match Rifle

For prone disciplines you have 3 categories

Target (Palma) rifle, Any (Match) rifle and Service rifle.

Within each of those rifle categories are sight, trigger and caliber requirements. Any / Match rifle is pretty much run whatcha brung if it doesn’t fall into Service rifle or Target (Palma) Rifle.

Now match programs may dictate that Any (Match) rifles use irons in certain matches and then allow optics in others. Irons being legal for use in all matches.
 
They only look big when you are shooting from a rest.
I laugh every time I hear the term "Big Target". On a day when it isn't blazing hot my wobble I'd say is 6", on a hot day like we had past couple weeks it can get up to 12 or 14". Why there is a difference in target size as the sling guns don't sit perfectly still.

Best comment was from a former f-t/r shooter (member on here) about how there should be more cleans on offhand because that is roughly a 1.5MOA shooter. Told him to bring an AR out and shoot a course match. To his credit he did. Afterwards he said that was the most humbling experience he's ever experienced
 
For 3 position you have two categories.

Service rifle and Match Rifle
"3 position" usually refers to smallbore [OH, Kneeling, Prone]
For Service/Match rifle we do fire from three positions [OH, Sitting and Prone], but sitting is a 'rapid fire' stage and there are two prone stages - one rapid fire and one slow fire.
 
Yeah - it may look big in prone but stand on your hind legs and tell be how big that 6 moa black ball looks to you as the gun waves past it.
Jeff,
I have to give the F-Class a little Lee way as many of them have never shot in competition without a front rest and rear big. Actually supporting the gun with their hands, elbows, knees, n legs is out of their wheel house. No experience there. Iron sights n aligning three objects at once along with recoil management ( position building) is not the “Easy Button” in MR or LR shooting. Kudos to those who have actually sampled sling n irons ( or scope) and learned a thing or two about the skills required to be a” Rifleman”.
Anyone who has shot 1000 yds with a service rifle, my hat is off to them. A post front sight on a mostly gray square is a “ character building experience”!
Bob
 
This is turning into a discussion of disciplines and diverging from the original question, and I’m going to help it…:eek:

One of the biggest challenges for Service Rifle shooting for me (F-TR to the core) when I dabbled in it was trigger control. Going from a single stage trigger with a 2 Oz break to a 2 stage 4.5 lb SR trigger was like going from shifting a sports car to a dump truck. My second match I broke a shot offhand into the number board. Then again, I have another one about a PRS-ish stage I shot with a standing barricade and my SR brain kicked in and I tried to take up the “first stage” in my Jewel….don’t know where that one went.

On topic, if the field of shooters doesn’t support the full range, esp for club matches, I think doing 2 with Palma and Any makes sense.

Always disliked “overall winner” awards. There are some classes where good shooters have an insurmountable advantage (F open and Sling). As for Any vs Palma, I can’t count the number of times I saw a Palma shooter winning in Oak Ridge, then again, when I was there they had some of the best sling shooters in the country shooting there.
 
Same for NRA Mid-Range the last two years
NRA Mid Range wasn't won with a palma this year. Believe he was shooting 6GT (Any Rifle) with Iron sights. Iron sights doesn't mean its a palma rifle :)

As far as overall I think its good. You pick your tool and you compete, if you're at a disadvantage so be it. You can give a high "Rifle Type" award and that helps that. In reality there should be one national champion. Giving multiple(s) ends up being an everyone gets an award type thing.
 
NRA Mid Range wasn't won with a palma this year. Believe he was shooting 6GT (Any Rifle) with Iron sights. Iron sights doesn't mean its a palma rifle :)

As far as overall I think it’s good. You pick your tool and you compete, if you're at a disadvantage so be it. You can give a high "Rifle Type" award and that helps that. In reality there should be one national champion. Giving multiple(s) ends up being an everyone gets an award type thing.
Not positive, but I think that Tpb guy might know a thing or two about Palma rifles and Mid Range Championships
 

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