FYI... Blog #3... this was shared by Walt...he's allowed us to share...
Thank you Walt!
As far as matches being held, things around here are pretty quiet so this time around I am going to give y?all some food for thought on the future direction this sport should take. Let?s concentrate on F-sbr first. A while back I read a forum discussion on semi-auto rifles in the F-sbr discipline. A couple of points to clear up. Semi-auto rifles are allowed they are just required to follow the rules of single loading each round. Where did the rule come from and why. The early competitors wanted the sport to remain an individual/personal accomplishment versus an equipment competition. Originally cost was also a consideration. Single loading meant you had to be able to read the wind for each shot fired. Being able to maintain a solid position and shoot each shot the same was also a personal goal of each shooter. Along came improved technology and guns and equipment got better. As each new improvements came along competitors asked for the rule changes needed to be legal with his change. The rulebook increased from one page to today where it is now some 90 pages. Nothing wrong with that but people didn?t adapt to the rules, the people forced the rules to adapt to the people and technology. Rule changes should always be fair to all competitors. Having said all that I believe maintaining the single shot rule was driven by forcing the competitor to develop their wind/wx condition reading skills and applying them to their shot delivery. If you doubt my words just ask anyone who fired Bristol last summer. If you were not a good wind and mirage reader you lost quite a few points. In my opinion that is why the single shot rule should remain. I read some comments on that forum which said single shot shooters were afraid of semi-auto rifles. I for one don?t really care what you bring and how you shoot, just be required to use your wind reading skills.
I also heard there was a suggestion to have another rifle category, ?Semi-automatic.? I don?t feel like that is a viable move. F-sbr is not like high power F-class where the two shooting disciplines fire very different rifles and cartridges. In that case there is a distinct advantage because of the difference in ballistics. Equipment plays a small role in the difference also. In F-sbr all rifles fire the same cartridge with almost the same ballistics. That is one reason we did not differentiate between F-open and F-TR but remained with F-sbr as one shooting discipline. Those competitors shooting with a bipod vs a rest don?t seem to be much different and each competes well against the other. Two smalbore F-class disciplines would be hard to handle and three would be unworkable. I see us sticking with the current setup for a while.
Down the road I would like to see a postal match at the nationals. To do that we must encourage other countries to establish F-sbr. I am contacting the Irish and hopefully Canada as a start. Perhaps in a couple of years we can get that approved. It will take the establishment of a trophy to put up for that kind of a match and perhaps medallions similar to the Drew Cup.
One thing we all need to be careful of is how we put our rifle in the rest. The open rest rule reads that the rifle must be able to be lifted from the rest without moving the rest and it should not be locked in so it doesn?t move with the recoil.
Perhaps in the future I was thinking we should maybe add a 200 yard course of fire. For sling shooters 200 yards is not recognized officially although there is a target for 200 yard shooting. I will design and submit to the smallbore committee a new F21 f-sbr target for 200 yard shooting.
Another thing we need to do is swell the numbers and then encourage clubs to run regionals just for F-sbr but also continue to shoot alongside sling smallbore rifle
For the nationals I am hoping we can reestablish a junior camp and collegiate night for our high school juniors. We need to push for those two events to be restored at the 3P nationals which should help us to attract more juniors.
In the discipline of smallbore rifle(sling), I have been thinking about a possible Invitational Match to be held at Camp Atterbury on Labor day weekend. It could consist of one day for 3P and one day for Prone. Invitations could include CMP, ASSA, AMU, USA Shooting and NCAA Schools. Each organization would have a limited number of invitees, although I believe we will have 200 firing points available for one relay. Just something to think about. I know many organizations like to send their team to matches but only if it includes a couple of days shooting. Need to think more about his idea.
On a closing note I am still working on trying to get the smallbore rulebook posted on the web site. As soon as it is posted nationals records will begin (remember the one year caveat) and mini-palma will become effective for all smalbore disciplines and distinguished steps shall commence for F-sbr. Everybody set your sights on the nationals. They will be run in a professional and enjoyable manner, with great awards and beautiful timeless trophies awarded to the winners. It will be an experience to be remembered for a lifetime and worth repeating every year. Also a chance to get experience on the range for the upcoming Pershing Team in 2021.
We are making good progress with this program. I recently had a CEO of a company pledge his whole Amazon ordering program to Amazon Smile. This program is important. Everyone needs to sign up a shooting friend for this program. It doesn?t cost anything and benefits the International U.S. teams
Amazon Smile. This is a method we are using to raise money for our International Rifle Teams. Here is how it works. You can go on Amazon Smile and select your charity, in this case it would be ?Palma Promotions, Inc.? After you do this, everything you buy through Amazon will result in Amazon donating 0.05% of your purchase price to Palma Promotions, Inc. It cost you absolutely nothing and the International teams benefit from the plan. We need you to sign up for this charity program. The more people who sign up the more we benefit from Amazon?s charitable donation. Here is the link to sign up. Please pass this on to all your friends and club members. We will be eternally grateful:
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/chpf/hom...rig=/&ie=UTF-8
Please share this blog with other F-class and Sling smallbore shooters.
See you guys and gals next time around.
Walt
Thank you Walt!
As far as matches being held, things around here are pretty quiet so this time around I am going to give y?all some food for thought on the future direction this sport should take. Let?s concentrate on F-sbr first. A while back I read a forum discussion on semi-auto rifles in the F-sbr discipline. A couple of points to clear up. Semi-auto rifles are allowed they are just required to follow the rules of single loading each round. Where did the rule come from and why. The early competitors wanted the sport to remain an individual/personal accomplishment versus an equipment competition. Originally cost was also a consideration. Single loading meant you had to be able to read the wind for each shot fired. Being able to maintain a solid position and shoot each shot the same was also a personal goal of each shooter. Along came improved technology and guns and equipment got better. As each new improvements came along competitors asked for the rule changes needed to be legal with his change. The rulebook increased from one page to today where it is now some 90 pages. Nothing wrong with that but people didn?t adapt to the rules, the people forced the rules to adapt to the people and technology. Rule changes should always be fair to all competitors. Having said all that I believe maintaining the single shot rule was driven by forcing the competitor to develop their wind/wx condition reading skills and applying them to their shot delivery. If you doubt my words just ask anyone who fired Bristol last summer. If you were not a good wind and mirage reader you lost quite a few points. In my opinion that is why the single shot rule should remain. I read some comments on that forum which said single shot shooters were afraid of semi-auto rifles. I for one don?t really care what you bring and how you shoot, just be required to use your wind reading skills.
I also heard there was a suggestion to have another rifle category, ?Semi-automatic.? I don?t feel like that is a viable move. F-sbr is not like high power F-class where the two shooting disciplines fire very different rifles and cartridges. In that case there is a distinct advantage because of the difference in ballistics. Equipment plays a small role in the difference also. In F-sbr all rifles fire the same cartridge with almost the same ballistics. That is one reason we did not differentiate between F-open and F-TR but remained with F-sbr as one shooting discipline. Those competitors shooting with a bipod vs a rest don?t seem to be much different and each competes well against the other. Two smalbore F-class disciplines would be hard to handle and three would be unworkable. I see us sticking with the current setup for a while.
Down the road I would like to see a postal match at the nationals. To do that we must encourage other countries to establish F-sbr. I am contacting the Irish and hopefully Canada as a start. Perhaps in a couple of years we can get that approved. It will take the establishment of a trophy to put up for that kind of a match and perhaps medallions similar to the Drew Cup.
One thing we all need to be careful of is how we put our rifle in the rest. The open rest rule reads that the rifle must be able to be lifted from the rest without moving the rest and it should not be locked in so it doesn?t move with the recoil.
Perhaps in the future I was thinking we should maybe add a 200 yard course of fire. For sling shooters 200 yards is not recognized officially although there is a target for 200 yard shooting. I will design and submit to the smallbore committee a new F21 f-sbr target for 200 yard shooting.
Another thing we need to do is swell the numbers and then encourage clubs to run regionals just for F-sbr but also continue to shoot alongside sling smallbore rifle
For the nationals I am hoping we can reestablish a junior camp and collegiate night for our high school juniors. We need to push for those two events to be restored at the 3P nationals which should help us to attract more juniors.
In the discipline of smallbore rifle(sling), I have been thinking about a possible Invitational Match to be held at Camp Atterbury on Labor day weekend. It could consist of one day for 3P and one day for Prone. Invitations could include CMP, ASSA, AMU, USA Shooting and NCAA Schools. Each organization would have a limited number of invitees, although I believe we will have 200 firing points available for one relay. Just something to think about. I know many organizations like to send their team to matches but only if it includes a couple of days shooting. Need to think more about his idea.
On a closing note I am still working on trying to get the smallbore rulebook posted on the web site. As soon as it is posted nationals records will begin (remember the one year caveat) and mini-palma will become effective for all smalbore disciplines and distinguished steps shall commence for F-sbr. Everybody set your sights on the nationals. They will be run in a professional and enjoyable manner, with great awards and beautiful timeless trophies awarded to the winners. It will be an experience to be remembered for a lifetime and worth repeating every year. Also a chance to get experience on the range for the upcoming Pershing Team in 2021.
We are making good progress with this program. I recently had a CEO of a company pledge his whole Amazon ordering program to Amazon Smile. This program is important. Everyone needs to sign up a shooting friend for this program. It doesn?t cost anything and benefits the International U.S. teams
Amazon Smile. This is a method we are using to raise money for our International Rifle Teams. Here is how it works. You can go on Amazon Smile and select your charity, in this case it would be ?Palma Promotions, Inc.? After you do this, everything you buy through Amazon will result in Amazon donating 0.05% of your purchase price to Palma Promotions, Inc. It cost you absolutely nothing and the International teams benefit from the plan. We need you to sign up for this charity program. The more people who sign up the more we benefit from Amazon?s charitable donation. Here is the link to sign up. Please pass this on to all your friends and club members. We will be eternally grateful:
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/chpf/hom...rig=/&ie=UTF-8
Please share this blog with other F-class and Sling smallbore shooters.
See you guys and gals next time around.
Walt
