Didn't read the whole thread but here is how traditionally sling is structureJust 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.
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.