Low Attendance

[Snake]

I know our weather (Missouri) has been a problem...but I have never seen attendance so low. Anybody got any insight...suggestions..amulets...talisman....

[Bob Mc Alice]

I never heard of those last two words....

Our HP game here in CO is also on life support. There was a time when we could draw 25 plus shooters, now we are lucky to have 4-5 show up. We recently went from a monthly year round format to a 6 month one, April to Sept. Hunting seasons and foul weather caused winter attendance to be too light to justify setting up the range for a match. We already lost April to 30 mph winds that day and a majority of our HP guys (three ) were at Pe Ell in May so it got cancelled. Our June match is this Sunday, supposed to be mid 80's. If all of our remaining HP shooters show up we might have eight, barely enough to have a decent match. I am only allowed to schedule one HP match per month, so it is hit or miss on the weather. No make up matches allowed , it would interfere with the SB matches scheduled on the other weekends in a given month. If I were King, we would shoot HP every weekend. I feel real bad for you guys that want to shoot HP but do not have a range near by.

It is a real shame to have the only active HP silhouette range in Colorado, near a large metropolitan area (Denver), and have so few HP shooters. I do not understand it. As a match director and a contact person for our club I get several calls a month from new club members or new to area shooters curious about our silhouette programs. "I have always wanted to try that" is a common statement I hear. I do all I can over the phone to entice them to come out and see it for themselves , even offering guns and ammo for them to use free. Haven't had one show up yet.

Our club put on a silhouette "clinic" ten years ago. We advertised it in the newspaper, club website and local outdoor sports vendors. Several of us set up the entire range full of targets ...SB..HP..cowboy..all the handgun targets, too. We bought food,drink and supplied all the guns and ammo NO charge to all. We had less than a dozen people show up . Not a one ever came back.

I was at the range practicing HP last Friday. Nice day, light breezes. Pretty much had the place to myself all day. That afternoon a new member showed up and was watching me hit all four of the gongs pretty regular. He was maybe in his mid 30's. "I could never do that" he said to me. I said "sure you could, like anything else the more you do it the better you get". All it takes is lots of practice. I offered him my rifle for a few shots but he declined. He laid out his shooting mat and gear, set up his bipod equipped bolt action black rifle and started to shoot the same gongs that I was. Oh well, I tried.

[silhouette13]

i am amazed, i would kill for a HP range within an hour or twos drive, some folk just dont know how good they got it. and folks....if you dont use it you will lose it.

[Trent]

I never heard of those last two words....

Our HP game here in CO is also on life support. There was a time when we could draw 25 plus shooters, now we are lucky to have 4-5 show up. We recently went from a monthly year round format to a 6 month one, April to Sept. Hunting seasons and foul weather caused winter attendance to be too light to justify setting up the range for a match. We already lost April to 30 mph winds that day and a majority of our HP guys (three ) were at Pe Ell in May so it got cancelled. Our June match is this Sunday, supposed to be mid 80's. If all of our remaining HP shooters show up we might have eight, barely enough to have a decent match. I am only allowed to schedule one HP match per month, so it is hit or miss on the weather. No make up matches allowed , it would interfere with the SB matches scheduled on the other weekends in a given month. If I were King, we would shoot HP every weekend. I feel real bad for you guys that want to shoot HP but do not have a range near by.

It is a real shame to have the only active HP silhouette range in Colorado, near a large metropolitan area (Denver), and have so few HP shooters. I do not understand it. As a match director and a contact person for our club I get several calls a month from new club members or new to area shooters curious about our silhouette programs. "I have always wanted to try that" is a common statement I hear. I do all I can over the phone to entice them to come out and see it for themselves , even offering guns and ammo for them to use free. Haven't had one show up yet.

Our club put on a silhouette "clinic" ten years ago. We advertised it in the newspaper, club website and local outdoor sports vendors. Several of us set up the entire range full of targets ...SB..HP..cowboy..all the handgun targets, too. We bought food,drink and supplied all the guns and ammo NO charge to all. We had less than a dozen people show up . Not a one ever came back.

I was at the range practicing HP last Friday. Nice day, light breezes. Pretty much had the place to myself all day. That afternoon a new member showed up and was watching me hit all four of the gongs pretty regular. He was maybe in his mid 30's. "I could never do that" he said to me. I said "sure you could, like anything else the more you do it the better you get". All it takes is lots of practice. I offered him my rifle for a few shots but he declined. He laid out his shooting mat and gear, set up his bipod equipped bolt action black rifle and started to shoot the same gongs that I was. Oh well, I tried.

I just looked up the population of the Front Range area of Colorado... 3.3 million people. And only about 10 on a good day show up for high power silhouette. What really sucks is that we have a huge amount of shooting enthusiasts in Colorado.

[OnaginOffagin]

Do you think it might be the economy? Bullets, powders, primers, and custom barrels are probably on the far side of the necessity list..... when things are tight, I imagine people put up the big guns first, and shoot cheap smallbore ammo..... just an opinion.

[edgehit]

It's mostly the young mans love affair with the black rifle. The economy isn't helping matters either.

[BCloninger]

Rifle preferences typically follow the military, so Black Rifles win on fashion statement. If rules were changed to permit AR type rifles in a caliber that preserved target dignity, would it help attendance?

[Snake]

McAlice.....An amulet or a talisman.....are the real words for lucky charms You know that f -class and other traditional high power matches seem to do OK...not great...but better than silhouette. Even the black powder cartridge game is suffering....although smallbore seems to be OK. Have we become a nation of girlie men who swoon over recoil and noise? (I am NOT insulting smallbore....dang, I shoot it....I am insulting the guys who won't try our games)
I don't think permitting an AR class would not help unless they can use a bipod!

[Dee]

I have come to the conclusion that people just do not like to be challenged anymore. I have tried to get guys that hunt to come out and try and you can't even get them to TRY! They are all failures in their own minds and they haven't even tried it. Face it people want instant gratification these days and aren't interested in things that take time to develop. Why would someone stand up and miss when then can sit on a bench and hit? That is their mentality and thus all they know and all they think they are capable of.

When you tell all the huntin camp sharpshooters that shooting SB rams is like shooting beer cans off a goal post from the other side of the field they are suddenly not such sharpshooters anymore and won't even try it. Hell many think you are nuts or lying if they have never seen the sport.

When I first saw Tureau shoot I was amazed and thought WTF I will NEVER be able to shoot like that and I still can't but in the past year I have beaten him at some local matches and 2 or 3 years ago that would have never happened even on his worst days. I saw it as a real challenge and something I had always wanted to try shooting. If the people can't understand that they will suck at first compared to the experienced shooters and be ok with that knowing it gives them someplace to move up to they will not even try the sport.

It is not the fact that you can't shoot as good as the great shooters when you first start out its the fact the you WANT to be able to shoot that good someday that makes you a silhouette shooter to begin with.

Oh and the fact that hardly no mention of the game is made anyplace in the media sure doesn't help. Like that lame ass show Top Shots. Ohhhhhhhhhh can they hit the THIRTY INCH target at 1000y with a Barrett .50 cal laying prone off bags and a bipod? Top Shot my ass lets set you hit one 20" offhand at 500y! But this is what people want these days. They want to be able to buy a rifle they can sit on a bench and start shooting things far away consistently so they can be instant marksmen. I have seen it with airgunning as well. People who practically buy their way into the higher finishing positions because technique has less to do with it than equipment in many games.


Dee

[Jerry G]

Dee, I think you have hit the nail on the head. Most people I know think they are good rifle shots but they don't want to show everyone how bad they realy are.

[silhouette13]

same issue as the smallbore in the North East, it is hard, and every one is an amazing shot until they shoot silo. i think AR platform would MAYBE get people to try it once. a couple may come back the rest will go to the bench and avoid the range on HP day. a new class would only benifit current silo shooters who happen to have an AR in the safe and want a reason to smack steel with it. my brother in law Big Head( his head is huge) said he could hit a dime all day at 100 yards. until i showed him what a hundred yards looked like. now he wont go with me even casually, and i am not good at all.

new classes i think hurt current diceplines, cow boy rimfire reduced pistol and small bore rifle A LOT!. great that people are shooting something, i am all for it, it is just hard to get people to go back to the stuff they really have to try for.

does any country in the world have an ar platform in 308, 260 ? 223 will not due, the current military rules says they have to be a "as issued by any govt"

as i said before, i would love to have the oppertunity to shoot HPP, my closest range is a 14 hour drive, so maybe it would be once a year. a huge investment for limited fun. i dont even have a range around here i could get sight settigs for.

the first time i saw silo was a remington 700 commercial, i instantly wanted to shoot it. then realized it was out of the question, was introduced to SB about 5 yearts ago, i love it and it will do.

[Snake]

I have noticed that the 600 yard bench rest game draws quite well; they shoot for group and score....4 5shot targets....light rifle is 17lbs or under!!!!! That tells something about the the "bench" theory of silhouette avoidance.
The AR proposal sounds good but experience has produced some bad juju. First of all a few years ago I let 5 out of state high power guys shoot our club match with their over the course AR's...single loading their very long VLDs. I even let them wear their pulse jackets and didn't weigh their 14lb rifles. three of 'em were masters, one was a distinguished master. Their best score was a 16 (it was windy, they were tired, it was their 1st time etc)
They never came back to the silhouette match (been back for the High Power).
They did chat it up with the locals and one local (and a club member) came out to give it a try with his 15lb AR, single loading VLDS, wearing his jacket and telling me how they do it in the real game! (i let it slide) 1st match he shot a 19 and the second match gave him an 11 (railroad tracks as we call them) He hasn't been back either despite the accolades from us low life silhouetters.
Don't get me wrong...i like AR's....i own and use them...but of the military rifle class of silhouette the fellows with M1A's, M1's, and '03's are the only ones that come out more than once. And I LET them use the AR squirt gun!
The Ar theory of attracting shooters may not be tenable..certainly not for a rule change.
I think new shooters are put off by the prospect that the old dawgs will tease them and tell the world that they really aren't decendant from D. Boone or that fellow at Adobe wells. I think our intensity scares 'em off...Mr O'Malley and I both load extra for the curious to try...we have had better success with that than anything else

[shakes]

Wow it seems almost the oppostite up her in washington. At last weeks match we had three people come out and watch and one of them gave it a try after the shoot off's were over and there were still some animals on the rails. We started him off the sandbags so he could get used to Mr. Martinans rifle he so graciously let this gentleman use. He couldnt beleive he could hit something that small that far away. He tried a couple offhand and didnt conect but he didnt care. We invited him to lunch with all of us and answered as many question as we could and he is planning on coming back to shoot a match before the end of the year. When Steve puts out the sign up sheet for your starting position people are waiting like vultures around a dying man. its almost a compition in itself to get the "best" firing point. Im sorry to hear that some of the ranges across the country are having a hard time getting people to come out. This IS the funest sport you can do if you like to shoot a rifle.

I just thought of this while typing this. I know it would be tough to do but and but's a big word, the range director or volunteers go to the local gun show rent a table bring one of each animal from highpower and smallbore, bring a couple of rifle's, a stock rifle so you can show them that you dont have to spend a lot of money to shoot silhouette and a couple of "custom guns" so they can see the possibilities and bring a hunter and a standard rifle so they can see what the two look like and have somebody record one of the matches and have a tv or laptop so the people can see what silhouette shooting is like and answer questions of course with fliers when the local match maybe just maybe you might get someone interested. Have a booth about silhouette at the local gun show in other words. Just an idea

I love this game and plan on shooting till i cant hold a rifle anymore. Its a shame we cant get more people to feel the same way.

[Snake]

We have done the gun show thing.....had a whole bunch of fondlers but very very very few ever came out even. This game is absolutely the best shooting game there is...and generall speaking ...its participants are the best ! I think that from now on we all agree to never say this game is hard.....we agree to tell the new guy that with a little effort he'll do GREAT....and Damn if he doesn't look like Daniel B. in the flesh ;)
I'm at a total loss. I can't get the new ones to show for Cowboy Lever....that game is cheap and easier. Is it the fact that you have to hold a rifle standing up? or ......maybe we need more ladies in the game

[Bob259]

[quote="shakes"]
This IS the funest sport you can do if you like to shoot a rifle. Or with clothes on

I just thought of this while typing this. I know it would be tough to do but and but's a big word, the range director or volunteers go to the local gun show rent a table bring one of each animal from highpower and smallbore, bring a couple of rifle's, a stock rifle so you can show them that you dont have to spend a lot of money to shoot silhouette and a couple of "custom guns" so they can see the possibilities and bring a hunter and a standard rifle so they can see what the two look like and have somebody record one of the matches and have a tv or laptop so the people can see what silhouette shooting is like and answer questions of course with fliers when the local match maybe just maybe you might get someone interested. Have a booth about silhouette at the local gun show in other words. Just an idea ..........
Shakes that approach and having a clinic at a local sporting goods stores lodge worked here to bring out new shooters, but since then that match director has left the area and no one else picked it up, except at their open house at the club, which didn't seem to get the same attention the other methods did. Their attendance is down almost 50% I would guess.

Also, there are now so many other activities that kids have to choose from and are involved in today, just listening to some of the parents with travelling soccer leagues that the kids play in during the summer, not to mention all the baseball travel teams just plain eats up time and any spare money families have. In addition to that, just think of the price increases in .22's and HP components over the last few years, not to mention fuel and/or motel rates. With more people out of work, no raises or in many cases salary reductions your 'fun' sports suffer. But we are seeing an increase in Lever Gun so go figure