A Downward Sprial

First, let me start by saying "HAPPY THANKSGIVING" to all.

When I first started shooting benchrest I was trying to learn as much as possible, and this site was a treasure chest of good information. Most of the posts were started by people like me trying to understand the dynamics of shooting small and hoping to get tips on key fundamentals. Responding to my post were mainly great shooters, Hall of Fame members and winners of many of the large national matches. Accomplished shooters that actually won matches. It was a great time for web based learning.

What happen to this site is the same as that happened to many Forums. As social media expanded to everyone that had a smart phone, Ipad, and tablet, people began to comment on everything. You didn't need to have any credentials or win a registered match. You didn't even have to own or shoot a benchrest rifle. All these people needed to do, was to hit the "reply" button. People that shouldn't post, did! Many of them questioned and bewildered the wisdom of some of this nation's greatest benchrest shooters. Posts were hijacked, and slowly but surely the accomplished and knowledgeable benchrest shooters stopped posting.

Every now and then folks like Bart (and other great shooters) take the effort to post in the spirit of helping new shooters and to keep the sport going.

If only those people that feel obligated to question everything take a minute to "seek to understand" before they post, this Forum might get back to how it was. Let's all hope that happens.

Let's give thanks to family and friends ....and small groups when the wind blows them all in same hole!
Lee
 
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Well, I better leave this alone. Wilbur does a wonderful job! No charge for classifieds, well why should he do that and maybe you need to advertise on the for free forums. Have you been on Sniper's Hide lately. Tell me about the new positive changes that they have made. Do you wonder why most of the really good shooters don't frequent any of the forums any more? George Ulrich is just the latest of the guys that were a great resource and helpful to all of us that has left the forum.
Unfortunately two Texans in this thread heavily contributed to a lot of this. I'm glad I'm an Okie, but stuck in Texas.
 
Good post Lee Hachigian.

I attend several matches a year and read the mag from NBRSA for the match results. I don't do much informative posting here because I am not going to spend time defending myself from the way I go about preparation and shooting benchrest from someone that I never see in any match reports. Just as a shooter in this sport can not buy his way to the top, a shooter can not read his way to the top with all the books and internet info available, or type his way to the top. I have found that there are several ways to skin the Benchrest Cat. Don't knock the other guy just because he does things different than what you read, what Joe Blow says, or what the Big Dogs do. That's why we keep score. That will tell you fairly fast if your way works or not.

Also, as far as the price of the classifieds, I believe they are cheap. If I want to sell something, BR Central is the place to go. And I usually send a couple of extra bucks along when I pay Wilbur. Thanks for the site Wilbur, and shame on the folks that don't help support this site monetarily. I'm sure any contributions would be welcome.

Later
Dave
 
I've sold everything I've ever advertised in the classifieds here. Of course I wasn't selling junk (not saying anyone does) & I priced it fairly. Wilbur should charge more ! :)
 
Dave Coots said:
Good post Lee Hachigian.

I attend several matches a year and read the mag from NBRSA for the match results. I don't do much informative posting here because I am not going to spend time defending myself from the way I go about preparation and shooting benchrest from someone that I never see in any match reports. Just as a shooter in this sport can not buy his way to the top, a shooter can not read his way to the top with all the books and internet info available, or type his way to the top. I have found that there are several ways to skin the Benchrest Cat. Don't knock the other guy just because he does things different than what you read, what Joe Blow says, or what the Big Dogs do. That's why we keep score. That will tell you fairly fast if your way works or not.

Also, as far as the price of the classifieds, I believe they are cheap. If I want to sell something, BR Central is the place to go. And I usually send a couple of extra bucks along when I pay Wilbur. Thanks for the site Wilbur, and shame on the folks that don't help support this site monetarily. I'm sure any contributions would be welcome.

Later
Dave
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Good post Dave.
Talking about cheap.
That's why myself and some individuals who posted here are NBRSA Members and IBS Members. Used to be the Magazine. But, something more. It's about Benchrest Shooting.
I am still dumb founded that when, the IBS Nationals come to your state, $50.00 is too much of a price. And you live 5 min. from the range.
There are Canadian shooters that travel 5-8 hrs. to shoot in MI.
Those guys from Iowa. Doc, Jim, And the rest(sorry crs).
Okay I am done.
Cheap rant.
 
My 2 cents worth

If a sport is thriving, forums dedicated to it will also thrive.....barring gross negligence on the ccbw.
That is not the case here. Wilbur does a fantastic job, but the sport is floundering. The high cost is causing some to leave, and newcomers to consider other forms of competition.
Benchrest needs to recruit new shooters and the only was is to implement a stock rifle class. There are people out there willing to form a committee to hash out rules concerning modifications allowed and how to implement the class into registered events.
Get that done and we would not have threads like this.
Bryan
 
I don't post much or reply much anymore simply because I just don't have the interest I once had in this sport. I do however like to keep up with whats going on in the world of both Score & Group shooting and read a few posts weekly by glancing over most of the listed forums here.. This thread is very correct as I became a member here in 2001 and things moved so fast then,if one didn't read daily the post one was reading quickly moved into page two... I do however get darn tired of reading bickering posts and will opt out of reading most everything when bickering starts.. New shooters my advice would be ask your questions giving as much info as you can about what your asking, read all the replies, weigh each reply with common sense, it wont take long until you will figure out whom has been down the road and whom has not.. Benchrest shooting is a lot more ten just having fired a rifle off a table top..
 
Downward spiral

How many gun sights popped up after this one,,,,?????

And I still think BRC is the best....

huck
 
Well like or not, the reason why, is that the sport itself is struggling to stay alive. Other than the occasional local F-Class match my 6BR has been sitting in the back of the safe un-used and lonely for about the last three years. I was active in bench shooting at local matches for years, but once I got to a certain level I couldn't afford to keep up with the big dogs. Maybe I should say I was willing to pay the amount of money needed to be competitive at state and national matches. Plus the bigger the matches got, the more serious the participants got, to the point it didn't seem like anybody was even having fun.

There are a ton of new competitive shooters out there, but they are starting in completely different venues such as USPSA and 3-gun. It's good for the firearms community in general, but not helpful to the sport of bench shooting. Even the folks that are more into long range rifle shooting are going with the the PRS style formatted matches.

About 4 years ago I got invited to go to a 3-gun match and was instantly hooked. One of the main reasons for this was the people. It's hard to explain, but the folks that participate in these types of matches are just the finest quality people you could ever meet. Everybody is friendly, happy to help the new guy out in any way possible and more importantly everyone was having fun. It was the exact opposite of my first experience at a state level BR match.

I don't know how you fix it, but without young, new shooters coming in it's going to be a tough hill to climb.
 
bryan said:
the sport is floundering....Benchrest needs to recruit new shooters and the only [way] is to implement a stock rifle class.
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shooter115 said:
Well like or not, the reason why, is that the sport itself is struggling to stay alive....

I don't know how you fix it, but without young, new shooters coming in it's going to be a tough hill to climb.
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I don't agree that benchrest is "floundering" or "struggling to stay alive." Although the number of shooters at registered matches may (or may not) be down, there are probably benchrest matches, that include a factory class, being shot somewhere most every week during mild weather.

A well-known gun writer said, in response to a question of why he liked benchrest shooting, “It’s something an old guy can do.” For that reason, I suspect that as long as there are old men with rifles there will be some form of benchrest competition. :)
 
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Hunter said:
I don't agree that benchrest is "floundering" or "struggling to stay alive." Although the number of shooters at registered matches may (or may not) be down, there are probably benchrest matches, that include a factory class, being shot somewhere most every week during mild weather.

A well-known gun writer said, in response to a question of why he liked benchrest shooting, “It’s something an old guy can do.” For that reason, I suspect that as long as there are old men with rifles there will be some form of benchrest competition. :)
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I'm going to have to agree here. I know that there are folks who don't see score shooting as benchrest, but we do. In our region UBR is healthy and growing each season. As I've often said, I think it's because it is innovative and has a viable factory class. If we want the sport to grow we must consider changing the way things have always been done. If you always do what you always did, you always get what you always got.

Rick
 
You mention factory class and that brings something to mind. There are, or were, those who stuck their collective nose in the air when factory class as a viable option to BR matches was mentioned. I said time and again to bring those factory rifles, they won't win overall but they can be shot as an individual class. In a sailboat regatta you may see 18-20 classes vying for a division win. Why not in bench rest? Come to think of it, the same is true of drag racing and road racing.
 
Uthink Uknow said:
You mention factory class and that brings something to mind. There are, or were, those who stuck their collective nose in the air when factory class as a viable option to BR matches was mentioned. I said time and again to bring those factory rifles, they won't win overall but they can be shot as an individual class. In a sailboat regatta you may see 18-20 classes vying for a division win. Why not in bench rest? Come to think of it, the same is true of drag racing and road racing.
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What you describe has been our experience. We think that it's works best to have an entry level that will allow people to get into the game with what they already have. The UBR classes allow people to start with whatever they have and make a decision later on whether to move to custom or unlimited or to remain in Factory or Modified class. We have shooters who began three years ago in Factory Class and who have been perfectly happy to stay with that. The scores are not generally competitive with Custom Class, but some are surprisingly close. The point is, the Factory Class shooters have just as much fun and are just as competitive within their class as anyone else. At one of our matches this season we had an equal # of Factory Class and Custom Class guns.

I don't think this could have been or ever will be done in IBS or NBRSA because of the attitude you witnessed. People, for the most part, resist change. We had the opportunity to start something new and it is working well.

Rick
 
I think and only my opinion, if you started in group as I did, you think it's the holy grail, you started in score and so on. Bench Rest is Bench Rest. Whether you are ringing gongs at a 1000 or groups at a hundred. I have a close friend who switch to long range because it is closer, he was tired of driving 6 hours just to leave Florida. I only started this sport 2 years ago, so I a newbie. You can not compare score to group. They are different by definition. So go shoot and have fun!
We can banter back and forth on forums and it does no do us any good. can't we all get along?!

Bill
Oh if you live in Florida, look to the East starting at 7am another count down for the Orion. I am on the west coast but what a rush, this is the largest heavy lift rocket in the world ( I think). I have witnessed a couple shuttle launches from west coast and they are awesome!
Bill
 
r44astro said:
I think and only my opinion, if you started in group as I did, you think it's the holy grail, you started in score and so on. Bench Rest is Bench Rest. Whether you are ringing gongs at a 1000 or groups at a hundred. I have a close friend who switch to long range because it is closer, he was tired of driving 6 hours just to leave Florida. I only started this sport 2 years ago, so I a newbie. You can not compare score to group. They are different by definition. So go shoot and have fun!
We can banter back and forth on forums and it does no do us any good. can't we all get along?
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Bill, I guess I wasn't clear. I wasn't at all saying that everybody should be shooting score or that one was better than the other. I'm suggesting that whichever discipline you choose, there is a way to create an entry level for folks who want to compete but don't have the $$ to start competing at the custom class level.
I know this isn't the way it's been done in the past but, clearly what's been done in the past isn't exactly working today. If it was we wouldn't be having this discussion. Let's see if we can make some NEW mistakes. I'm tired of making the same old mistakes over and over again.

Rick
 
abintx said:
I've noticed a slow downward spiraling of benchrest.com for a few years now. It's not what it used to be. What is this site doing, or not doing, that has good people stepping away from it? What's the root cause? :confused:
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I don't mean to step on toes . This post has changed from the first post and to the better. I agree with Mr. Allen on about the third post or so about his view of taking in new blood and teaching. For me this is a new site and the teaching is better than the others. There may be posters that have and are stepping away but if that is they're choice there is no gain to plead stay other than boost an ego. I say teach us new shooters that got tired of putting powder and bullet down range the average way. Teach and we can teach others. For me , I have nothing but gain from this site. AND IT'S FREE! Thanks.
 
Not to be a bug, A good find the other day was a post I read on jamb and touch to the rifling. I took it all in and played for a couple hours with it (good sport). I was so please with what I learned compared to the normal RCBS manual that comes with the regular dies I had just as much a time showing a friend of mine. We have been reloading together of some time, now we have something new under our belt to play with at the range.
You guys stick with it and share, it goes farther than you think. Good night
 
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