DonM wrote: ↑Thu Mar 07, 2019 6:50 am I'm curious to the revolution of a scope class by some.
If someone went thru the process to petition the silhouette committee for the addition of a scope class, and if the silhouette committee approved it then it would be a simple matter of choosing to shoot in it or not.. We make the decision all the time in BPCR and 22 BPCR.

You mean instead of bickering about it online? That is what I put this thread here for...

If ya'll (no one in particular) are serious, you really need to do the leg work FOR the NRA and that way you have a package you can drop in their lap to approve or not....

Match directors can choose to allow participation today. It's not a big deal.

No one is going to respond to "you need to..." or "you ought to..." or "we should..."

Yeh pretty much..
It's not an easy process to bring forward a change in the "class" process, but if someone is passionate enough about that rule change they can certainly pursue it.
If that new class does get approved then it's then up to each individual to either gear up for that class , or ignore it.

DonM wrote: ↑Thu Mar 07, 2019 9:12 am Yeh pretty much..
It's not an easy process to bring forward a change in the "class" process, but if someone is passionate enough about that rule change they can certainly pursue it.
If that new class does get approved then it's then up to each individual to either gear up for that class , or ignore it.

Exactly.

A lens in the rear sight makes far more sense especially for us old farts with poor vision. It's not a major change to the rifle and doesn't require a gunsmith to drill and tap it. I would support that 100%
As far as a scoped class it most definitely should be discussed. No ones right to an idea should be suppressed but lets do it in a civil manner. Some things take time to digest before you wonder why you didn't like it. I'm still in the don't like group as I feel there is a tradition with the lever guns that shouldn't be tampered with. Even if it's an improvement. I like cars built before 1973 with carburetors not EFI. I'm just that way. To quote The fiddler on the roof. "TRADITION!"
I'll now step down from my soap box. Thank you.

I'm not sure about the "tradition" of no scopes on lever guns. Winchester spent no small amount of advertising for their telescopic sights back before they had any bolt gun other than the Hotckiss. Back in the late 60's and early 70's I spent a considerable amount of time guiding deer hunters in the Black Hills of Wyoming, most of the hunters were from the midwest. I was somewhat always amazed at how many of those guys carrying lever guns had scopes on them. The guys with Marlins had scopes top mounted, the ones with Winchester's either used the Weaver and Lyman side mounts, or the ones really up to speed had their 94's mounted with Bushnells Phantom scopes, that were for lack of better comparison the fore father of today's "scout scope" craze.

DonM scopes back then were at best 1or 2X and two foot long with a 1/2 tube. You want that on your gun be my guest but I'll stick to iron sights.

The Bob Jones lens are like +/- 2.0 and such. I just dont want to see someone using a 6x lens in the rear site is all i am saying.

Another Dang 9 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 07, 2019 12:27 pm DonM scopes back then were at best 1or 2X and two foot long with a 1/2 tube. You want that on your gun be my guest but I'll stick to iron sights.

According to the 1916 Winchester catalog page 108, their scopes were available in 3,4 and 5 power. They were also only about 18 inches long.
The long Malcolm scopes most often mounted on the Sharps and other single shots from back in the day were available up to 20.

The scopes I saw most often on the lever guns the hunters I guided were largely Weaver K series, and Lyman in. 2.5 or 4 x.
Personally I prefer my Winchester and Marlin lever guns with the factory sights. Altho I do have a scope mounted on a Marlin. I do have one 94 AE that I did mount a nice 4x on but it didn't balance well. The rest of my Winchesters are all pre AE design.

Most of those original scope go for big bucks today. Which is another reason I'm not in favor of scope class. I like shooting on the cheap and a 30-30 is about as cheap a gun as you can have these days.

But that's the beauty of it, should someone actually petition for and get a scope class approved.... If you don't want to set up for it, then don't.

Amazing to see this thread topic here. Good deal and about time.

I think there are lots of ways a scope class could be regulated, but one of the easiest ways would be to simply borrow what is known to work from the BPCR rules. Make the scope tubes 3/4" and oculars of not more than 1" and you will solve the power struggle right there. Scope magnification is not regulated in BPCR -you can use 100X scopes if you want - but they have to fit in that package of 3/4" tubes and 1" oculars. That is all that is needed. Easily enforced too, so you dont have to worry about cheating (such with barrels for example).

In addition to the 3/4" and 1" rule, one could specify external adjustment (or not), no clicks (or not). etc. AND one could may specific excepts to these rules with a list (.22bpcr does this) to allow things like Weaver K4's or whatever.

So there is a set of proven rules that work well for things like this. Steal from them.

Another Dang 9 and richard, why the heck do you guys even care? Really - if you don't like it, you can not shoot it. How simple is that? Why are you trying to interfere with other people's desires to shoot? Do you object to ALL shooting that you do not personally participate in? I am genuinely interested to know what your motivation and rational is for objecting to other people creating and shooting a match in which you will never be forced to participate. What gives? Do you not like seeing other people have fun with a gun?

As an aside, those of you than think bpcr will become a some sort of cake walk with a scope should take a close look at BPCR irons and scopes so you know what you are talking about. AT MOST people who shoot both scopes and irons might average a point higher with scopes over irons. Of course, there are people who shoot only scopes that can't even see the iron sights targets -they do a lot better that the big fat zero they score while sitting at home before scope matches were invented.

Check out bpcr and .22 bpcr before you rant about how scopes would work for lever gun.

Summary:
From my own testing, even 4X magnification makes the lever action targets too easy to hit. You don't need target turrets, or even clicks, or a holdover estimating reticle to hit every target. It's the magnification that makes the massive difference. Either the targets have to be smaller or magnification can't be allowed unless you want skilled silhouette shooters to frequently shoot perfect scores.

Edited to add this comment: The BPCR rifle analogy doesn't equate to lever action because BPCR isn't shot standing at large/close targets.

Verbose (novella for Emmett):
The challenge of the lever action matches is the lack of precise, magnified sighting used. With the permitted cheekpads, recoil pads, and sights the rifles are plenty accurate and ergonomic enough to center punch every target on every rail. Even the lever action triggers are a trigger job away from being really good, even if not great in comparison to a precision bolt action rifle trigger. The relatively slow, clunky actions are also one trip to a quality gunsmith away from being a lot smoother and quicker.

I'm only 45 (I say "only" because I'm often the youngest person at our lever matches) but I don't have the greatest vision, with floaters and other issues due to poorly done lasik surgery about 15 years ago. The lever action matches are seeing competitions more than shooting competitions for me. It's rare that I'm unsteady enough to miss the lever targets that are so large compared to the targets we shoot at similar distances with scoped rifles. It's also rare that I make it through an entire match clearly seeing the front sight and mostly clearly seeing the target. On a good vision day, a score in the upper 30s in a 40-shot match is relatively easy. On a bad vision day, it's a struggle to get to 30.

Due to that inconsistent vision, I do ammo testing with a target scope on my lever action rifles. On one really bad vision day, I decided to shoot the smallbore lever action targets with the scope on my Marlin 39A. With the magnification, I could pick a spot on the targets just like I do when I'm shooting with my scoped bolt action rifles. It was no real challenge to hit every target.. every single one. I head shot the last two turkeys. I spun the chickens on purpose. That's how easy it was. That was with a high magnification scope with target turrets and adjustable objective. I am not an exceptional shooter compared with most on this forum or at our matches. I'm a master in smallbore hunter and standard classes, but don't shoot master scores consistently and am not in danger of bringing home trophies from big matches that I won't have space for in my house.

That day made me wonder enough to experiment. Even with a power down to 4x, there was enough magnification to easily hit all lever targets if I adjusted the scope at each distance like we do with sights in matches. I couldn't do stuff like the turkey head shots as consistently, but just shooting them in the center was still no major challenge. If I didn't adjust between distances (I chose to use a turkey setting and hold under/over for the others), I occasionally missed one or two out of 10 but only if I didn't really focus on the right point of aim. That was with the objective focused on pigs, I think. The focus really didn't matter that much down at 4x magnification, though. I also didn't need any special reticle like a mil-dot because the targets are all the same shape and therefore have built-in aiming points.

The next experiment was to not use any magnification at all, and I mean truly no magnification at all. The goal was to simulate sights on the best vision day ever. Without unlimited resources at hand, my best attempt at this was mounting a relatively high quality red dot sight with a small dot, and it worked out great. The non-magnified sight picture was basically a red version of the bead front sight insert that I usually use on my lever guns, except perfectly clearly focused. I could almost always hit the target, but it wasn't effortless, just like a good vision day. I could call my shots by area on the target hit, but not "two o'clock on the edge of that darker spot in the center" accurately. I didn't have time to test enough with hold under/over,as I was trying to replicate adjusting sights for each animal. Since I assumed that I likely could not trust the adjustment system in the red dot sight to be reliable, I sighted in at each distance and then shot standing. I would guess that not being allowed to adjust a non-magnified scope during the match would likely reduce scores by target or two in a 40-shot match.

Since all of that was to provide an alternative to shoot when I was having a really bad vision day and I wouldn't care about shooting for official score, I now have this Sig Sauer Romeo 5 red dot sight on a little Smith & Wesson 15-22 carbine for smallbore and another one on a 9mm carbine for pistol cartridge. It's a heck of a lot of fun, but is still challenging unlike shooting the big lever gun targets with a magnified scope.

Jason wrote: ↑Fri Mar 08, 2019 2:30 pm Either the targets have to be smaller or magnification can't be allowed unless you want skilled silhouette shooters to frequently shoot perfect scores.

Shhhh.... Now your raining on the parade.... that is my job....

This should be discussed in Raton. At the competators meeting.
That'll kill it for sure! Nothing modern allowed!

Michael

Any cartridge, rifle, sight or not from the 19th centry (1800s) won't get anyone's attention. Actually, I'm kinda surprised they let us use modern .22lr ammo..
Guess black powder rimfire is hard to find.
M