Is silhouette dying?

[Daddio!]

Kevin,

If you're in the southern WI or northern IL area be sure to get in touch with teetertotter and attend one of their shoots. They have a really nice dedicated silhouette range and they're really nice folks too. I'm hoping to make it to most of their monthly matches and some of their weekly Thursday night matches too. I hope to see you there.

Daddio!

[kevinbear]

I am looking forward to it, that would jazz up an otherwise boring visit with the inlaws.

[teetertotter]

Daddio,

We changed our pistol Silhouette night to run right after the Rifle on Thursday nights. Later in the year, it will be to dark, but we decided to do all in one night rather than 2 nights this year. We'll see what happens. I know it might be to late for you due to the drive. I will be doing a posting on our website directed at all club members to come out and join us on Thursday eve's in a few weeks. Who would have figured we'd have hi 70's temp when normal is 40's this time of year?
Jon

[tenx9]

Boy oh Boy!! Have I heard this story about a million times. Silhouette is hard because its supposed to be hard. People will use any excuse to try and get competitors to the matches. Make the targets bigger, longer time limits, decrease magnification on scopes, make the guns heavier, lighter, or use any gun. We do that all the time at our club, so we can MAYBE get a couple more at matches. OH! maybe the'll like it, Maybe the'll come back. Well you know what? I've been running matches for about 25years, running everything from Olympic Pistol (talk about no turnout, run one of them) to Registered NRA High Power (where we got 50 or more shooters almost everytime) and everything in between. Now, no one shoots it anymore and they were taken off the calender.The ANSWSER? Every shooting type is cyclical. For 10 years we had 2 relays of NRA Bullseye and 5 guys showed up at our silhuette matches. For the last 10years smallbore Silo is popular, but Hi power silo is down. Before that we had more at the Hi-power than the smallbore. After short decline in Bullseye shooting, its becoming popular again. Rules are great and amazing because they're there to compare yourself against an established norm. Can I shoot silohuette like Sanchez, shoot Hi power like Bernoski or shoot Action Pistol like Koenig? Sorry to say I can't but I have tried. Dumbing down the test results doesn't make students smarter, in fact its worse. It makes them complacent and not very smart. I say, keep the targets small and the rules the way they are. Shooters will come because some just like to compete. The occasional shooter while necessary doesn't really factor into anything but paying the bills for the club. As far as age goes, it takes money and time to gather the necessary equipment and the desire to compete. Its also a mentally tough game, and unless born into it, most young people dont have the desire unless their friends are doing it. And frankly, most people don't even know the shooting sports exist. Keep it hard and tough and the real competitors will show up. If you get 1 or 2 a year, you're well ahead of the curve. Everybody is afraid of hurting peoples feelings. To me, if you don't show up with the right equipment, either borrow it or buy it. The match will be here next year. Nothing is more fun to me than putting together a truly competitve piece. It takes time, money and the satisfaction that there are no excuses when you keep missing the fifth animal on the bank. It usually sails about a 1 1/2 ft over the back. Man, it must be my 36x Luepold. Crumby scope, gottta send it back.

[kevinbear]

Agreed

[quote="tenx9"]Boy oh Boy!! Have I heard this story about a million times. Silhouette is hard because its supposed to be hard. People will use any excuse to try and get competitors to the matches. Make the targets bigger, longer time limits, decrease magnification on scopes, make the guns heavier, lighter, or use any gun. We do that all the time at our club, so we can MAYBE get a couple more at matches. OH! maybe the'll like it, Maybe the'll come back. Well you know what? I've been running matches for about 25years, running everything from Olympic Pistol (talk about no turnout, run one of them) to Registered NRA High Power (where we got 50 or more shooters almost everytime) and everything in between. Now, no one shoots it anymore and they were taken off the calender.The ANSWSER? Every shooting type is cyclical. For 10 years we had 2 relays of NRA Bullseye and 5 guys showed up at our silhuette matches. For the last 10years smallbore Silo is popular, but Hi power silo is down. Before that we had more at the Hi-power than the smallbore. After short decline in Bullseye shooting, its becoming popular again. Rules are great and amazing because they're there to compare yourself against an established norm. Can I shoot silohuette like Sanchez, shoot Hi power like Bernoski or shoot Action Pistol like Koenig? Sorry to say I can't but I have tried. Dumbing down the test results doesn't make students smarter, in fact its worse. It makes them complacent and not very smart. I say, keep the targets small and the rules the way they are. Shooters will come because some just like to compete. The occasional shooter while necessary doesn't really factor into anything but paying the bills for the club. As far as age goes, it takes money and time to gather the necessary equipment and the desire to compete. Its also a mentally tough game, and unless born into it, most young people dont have the desire unless their friends are doing it. And frankly, most people don't even know the shooting sports exist. Keep it hard and tough and the real competitors will show up. If you get 1 or 2 a year, you're well ahead of the curve. Everybody is afraid of hurting peoples feelings. To me, if you don't show up with the right equipment, either borrow it or buy it. The match will be here next year. Nothing is more fun to me than putting together a truly competitve piece. It takes time, money and the satisfaction that there are no excuses when you keep missing the fifth animal on the bank. It usually sails about a 1 1/2 ft over the back. Man, it must be my 36x Luepold. Crumby scope, gottta send it back.[/quote]

[Daddio!]

Daddio,

We changed our pistol Silhouette night to run right after the Rifle on Thursday nights. Later in the year, it will be to dark, but we decided to do all in one night rather than 2 nights this year. We'll see what happens. I know it might be to late for you due to the drive. I will be doing a posting on our website directed at all club members to come out and join us on Thursday eve's in a few weeks. Who would have figured we'd have hi 70's temp when normal is 40's this time of year?
Jon

The one problem I had with driving up for your Thursday night matches was the fact that I was driving all that way for only one 40 shot match. That's not meant to sound like a complaint. I love shooting with you guys so it's worth it. But maybe shooting some pistol silhouette might make the long drive more worth while.

I assume they're shooting rimfire pistols? Does anyone shoot open sights or is it all scopes? I have a Ruger MKII Gov't that I'd like to get some more use out of but it only has open sights and I don't want to scope it. The guys down at my club shoot action pistol with rimfires and I've been thinking about trying that (all I need is another discipline to shoot ). But I think I'd like to give pistol silhouette a try sometime.

I'm loving the early warm weather and I'm looking forward to your first weekend match in May.

Take care,

Pat

[kevinbear]

It's been the coldest winter I can remember here in Colorado, there is still snow on the ground in shady spots that started accumulating in November. On tuesday there calling for rain mixed with snow and I'm hoping for rain, were sick of the cold weather here, come on spring!

[teetertotter]

Steve, the short heavy set fellow, shoots .22LR pistol w iron sight. Yes, bring the Ruger and try it out. The more the merrier!

[dondlhmn]

Yes...silhouette is dying. It is not dying because it, intrinsically, is unhealthy or that there is anything wrong with it. But, rather, it is dying because it is a game that, in order to be successful at it, requires practice and discipline because it is inherently difficult. And that is the problem. Nowdays, the mentality, here in the USA especially, is that if any particular endeavor requires actual effort, it is not something that anyone wants to do. Everyone wants everything to just fall into their laps with no effort, no commitment and nothing invested on their own parts.

This attitude is indicative of why our great nation is going to crash and burn sooner or later. Things worth having require effort and when no one is willing to put forth the effort, the rewards are comensurate with the time and effort invested. The average citizen of the USA is doomed to be an inconsequential slave.

[dondlhmn]

I guess I should add one more thought here....I know and have known many, many folks that have volunteered their time as match directors and most of these people have been totally turned off by the NRA and all of their rules, regulations, requirements and demands if a club thinks they want to have an NRA Registered Match. So many ranges, organizations and clubs have just decided to not mess with all the effort that goes into having an NRA registered match. That is not to say that a lot of places have not gone to more casual, less burdensome forms of competition, no matter what the type of course, because that is often the case. Often the sport or competition has had to be "dumbed down" in order to attract today's lazy people that don't want to invest the time or trouble to actually become good at what may be a difficult discipline.

I have been involved in shooting for more years than I care to remember, but I can think of many, many places that no longer have any matches, MUCH LESS registered matches just due to the complication and having to deal with the NRA bureaucracy. Another reason is that shooting seeems to not be currently experiencing any sort of friendly reception by laws, lawyers and local regulations of many types for many reasons.

I know this all sounds quite negative, but it is my observation over the years.

The reality is that marksmanship is no longer a valued skill or ability and is no longer encouraged in our country or by any branch of our military (with very minor exceptions) and we, eventually, will pay for that with our freedom.

[kevinbear]

Wow, Mr. glass half empty, that's pessimistic.
I swear that when I seen that someone had posted on this again in my email I was already thinking that silhouette is alive and well and was going to post that declaration. Our clubs are seeing quite a resurgance of interest in silhouette around here, the club I belong to which is sort of the farm club has over 20 kids showing up for monthly matches. The main silhouette club in the Denver area has had a few lulls over the years like anything but has really been strong and growing for the last couple seasons. The difference as I see it is that we work hard and make sacrifices to bring new people to the game. We talk alot about prospective silhouette shooters and then act on it, I've introduced 2 people to silhouette in the last two years, thats my goal, one per year, I shoot like crap when I'm holding a rookies hand at a match but that's fine if I can get them hooked. Scott and Dave both long time silhouette shooters here have done even better than myself with 3 and 4 to there credit. That's what it takes, I have two people in mind for this years recruitment, there's a good chance one of them will fall in love with knocking those little white targets down.
Kb

Everytime I hear negative talk about our country I try to think back to the Carter administration when the gas prices were through the roof, the economy was in the toilet, longhaired dopesmoking maggot infested hippies everywhere and all the naysayers on both sides were convinced that the end was near. Along comes Ronald Reagan and turned the whole country around with a positive attitude mostly.

[teetertotter]

Well said Kevinb........I will be continually be on the lookout for any new potentials and be as friendly as possible in and around our club. I am still tinkering with thought process to try and get members at our club to come out and try this coming season.
I don't have any problem with the NRA and don't know what that is all about. I submit for classification books in January and in 4 weeks, I have. Along with that is the list of dates for matches and copy of State Championship request date approval. End of the season, I send money back to the NRA and state NRA. No Big Deal. The rest pitch in and help with the matches. No BIG DEAL. A few of us do range maintenance when called for. NO BIG DEAL. My most recent request to the NRA rules committee has to do with raising the scope height to 2 inches like in high power. Otherwise need a medical excuse presented to the committee. I will be following that up in October when rules committee meets in November. Two of our members had been in charge of our discipline for several years and wanted someone else to take over last year. I volunteered and my assistant will keep the stats...etc. I have only been involved with this sport for 3 years when I retired 4 years ago. I am only an A class Hunter with needing one more score to make AA and shoot once a week and sometimes practice. We have one fellow been shooting for 8 years and still B class who is my assistant. He is happy as a lark. It is all what you make of the sport or any other sport for that matter. I like golf too, but I don't get all bent out of shape because I can't shoot an 80 anymore. I still enjoy the game and be with good company and have great conversation. Any sport is NOT always about winning and I encourage that with anyone new or thinking about trying Silhouette. It is a HOBBY for me. Anything negative, I will try and turn it around and make it a positive......just my nature in growing up. No body will drag me down to their mentality.

[kevinbear]

And well said back to you TT, I love silhouette and the NRA both, are the way either one of them run perfect.....hardly, but that's ok, few things in life are. Am I ready to throw in the towel on our country......noooo, Jeez, this country has been through alot worse in the last 200 years and been just fine.
Kb

[Trent]

Leave your politics out of this Kevin!

[tenx9]

Most of America percieves shooters and hunters as tobacco chewing, pu driving, no teeth, and marrying your sister rednecks. Unfortunate but true. With Rosie and Oprah permiating the air waves 24/7 thats the stigma attached to it. Most people dont even know that shooting is in the Olympics and that colleges pay tuitions for promising shooting candidates. Its also unfortunate that we have to defend and sometime make excuses for the thing we like to do. Here in the NE, its so difficult and expensive to get a rifle and or pistol license that we treasure our sport. The NRA has all but given up in this part of town. To me, the NRA is a rules maker and a stat keeper, nothing more. When I first joined my club, they used different targets every year and different courses of fire every year. I made it a point to consoldate the records and have a consistant course of fire for every particular event. Our early silo matches were 20 shot affairs, 5 shots at 25,50,75 and 100yds with targets that were hand welded and generally the right size. After taking over, I read books learned the correct way of doing things. Since then (over 15years ago) others have taken over. We're up to (2) 40's or (1) 60 shot courses of fire monthly, lots of shooters and a couple of Masters. So, when i say that WE have to keep the sport true (as per rules) and NOT dumb it down, as competitors we have earned that right. If a guy or gal shows up with the wrong equipment, either borrow it or buy it. Our match will be here next month. You have to earn your wings.