What's important in a smallbore rifle silhouette match?
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jrebelo
- B Poster
- Posts: 43
- Joined: Fri Jul 20, 2012 9:04 am
- Location: Vancouver Island, Canada
Re: What's important in a smallbore rifle silhouette match?
Nothing revolutionary, and it may have been mentioned (I didn't have time to read every single post in detail), but I think a focus on mentoring newer shooters could be a big help in retaining new shooters who might otherwise only shoot once or twice and not get "the bug" perhaps out of frustration at inability to shoot anywhere near the level of the people they shoot alongside.
Anecdotal support:
About one year ago exactly was the first time I saw a guy at my local range on Saturday morning pinning up a silhouette of a chicken to the 200 yard target board and shoot at it for the next hour or so at a slow rate, taking breaks. When he brought his target back in, I asked him why he was shooting at a picture of a chicken and this was the first time I heard about metallic silhouettes. He told me about the smallbore matches at my club and what I'd need to do to get ready to participate. I attended my first match in March (shooting 14s and 15s thanks to being somewhat practiced before I showed up) and learned there that this guy was a Master shooter and saw him take ten pins and shoot long runs and I was blown away. I took him aside after the match and asked him a bunch of questions about technique and he gave me lots of tips.
Since then, he's been mentoring me in the sport and I've improved my game pretty much every single match. We've started to shoot practice matches together on paper targets to get better feedback and identify trigger pull problems and such. I think I just finished my 12th match last weekend and shot 22,28,23,26 and took home four 5-pins (I won't be able to take 5-pins for much longer).
While I'm not the type to just give up at something if I find it difficult, I would have to admit that being able to realize improvements in my shooting from my second match onward did contribute to hooking me on the sport, and I'm 100% certain that my improvements are a direct result of the help I've received from Mike. When we aren't shooting on the same relay, he's watched me shoot and pointed out small habits to fix (including ones I'd fixed previously and then lapsed on!).
I've seen quite a few shooters come out for 1 or 2 matches, shoot poorly and then never return, even though our club is really casual and friendly (the group up-island is more serious). I think that a bit more focus on actively trying to increase interest in the game and then helping the new shooters with info and technique tips will improve the odds of the shooters wanting to return. And I think the chances of retaining shooters goes up drastically if they can see that they are improving.
For my part, (even though I'm not exactly a vet myself) I'm going to make a point of offering to assist any new shooters at my club. If any new faces show up for a shoot, I'll talk to them afterwards and ask if they want to get together on a saturday for some practice. I have a set of steel swingers I can set up for hours of practice to work on position, hold, trigger pull, etc.
Anecdotal support:
About one year ago exactly was the first time I saw a guy at my local range on Saturday morning pinning up a silhouette of a chicken to the 200 yard target board and shoot at it for the next hour or so at a slow rate, taking breaks. When he brought his target back in, I asked him why he was shooting at a picture of a chicken and this was the first time I heard about metallic silhouettes. He told me about the smallbore matches at my club and what I'd need to do to get ready to participate. I attended my first match in March (shooting 14s and 15s thanks to being somewhat practiced before I showed up) and learned there that this guy was a Master shooter and saw him take ten pins and shoot long runs and I was blown away. I took him aside after the match and asked him a bunch of questions about technique and he gave me lots of tips.
Since then, he's been mentoring me in the sport and I've improved my game pretty much every single match. We've started to shoot practice matches together on paper targets to get better feedback and identify trigger pull problems and such. I think I just finished my 12th match last weekend and shot 22,28,23,26 and took home four 5-pins (I won't be able to take 5-pins for much longer).
While I'm not the type to just give up at something if I find it difficult, I would have to admit that being able to realize improvements in my shooting from my second match onward did contribute to hooking me on the sport, and I'm 100% certain that my improvements are a direct result of the help I've received from Mike. When we aren't shooting on the same relay, he's watched me shoot and pointed out small habits to fix (including ones I'd fixed previously and then lapsed on!).
I've seen quite a few shooters come out for 1 or 2 matches, shoot poorly and then never return, even though our club is really casual and friendly (the group up-island is more serious). I think that a bit more focus on actively trying to increase interest in the game and then helping the new shooters with info and technique tips will improve the odds of the shooters wanting to return. And I think the chances of retaining shooters goes up drastically if they can see that they are improving.
For my part, (even though I'm not exactly a vet myself) I'm going to make a point of offering to assist any new shooters at my club. If any new faces show up for a shoot, I'll talk to them afterwards and ask if they want to get together on a saturday for some practice. I have a set of steel swingers I can set up for hours of practice to work on position, hold, trigger pull, etc.
Justin - Vancouver Island, Canada
SB: CZ 455 American
HP: Ruger M77 Mk2 .308
SB: CZ 455 American
HP: Ruger M77 Mk2 .308
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ldholton
- A Poster
- Posts: 135
- Joined: Tue Sep 30, 2008 7:45 pm
- Location: swmo
- Contact:
Re: What's important in a smallbore rifle silhouette match?
If this has been said already sorry, but I think if one was to have a match once a month or ever so often that was ran with slacked rules and not booked for old shooters to try our new equpiment or let new shooters give a whirl with out buying a book or being a NRA member might help get new blood in the sport and NRA memberships up