VFS in NBRSA Proposal: Request for Feedback from ER shooters.

J

Joe Krupa

Member
This weekend at Holton I recieved some good feedback on the upcoming VFS proposal that is supposed to be presented at the 2009 NBRSA Director's meeting at St. Louis by Scott Hunter from the Gulf Coast Region.

My job as director of the ER is to consider the direction that my constituents want to go in regard to this proposal. I will do this regardless of what my personal thoughts and opinion in this regard.

I am asking for feedback from ER shooters who I don't see at the group matches. I am asking for a yes or no answer to two questions:

1) Should I second the motion to consider VFS added to the hunter program that the NBRSA offers? Doing so would get the issue on the floor and have discussion applied. That way the membership can see how their voted officials handle their membership's position. Not bringing this issue to the floor would have this issue continue to be a festering point of discussion within the membership.

2) If the issue gets to the floor, should I vote for or against adding VFS to the NBRSA hunter program?

Your feedback can be forwarded to Krooppc@aol.com or to me at (313) 247-4344. Please keep in mind that I am still working full time and it may be difficult for me to get back to you immediately. But, leave a message and I will get back to you.

I do have a personal opinion, based on 14 years of shooting both group and score and as a member of both the IBS and NBRSA (and perhaps shooting more matches than darn near anyone else in this sport). However, my opinion only counts as one vote to each of the above questions. I will take all well-thought out opinions into consideration.

Thanks.

Joe Krupa
 
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Results day 1.

As of noon today (Thursday July 16), I have received 19 responses from Eastern Region NBRSA members as a result of my posting yesterday. Coupled with the 26 members that I discussed this with at Holton, that makes 45 members discussed with. Currently, there are 334 members in the ER.

This is the tally to date:

1) Should I second the motiomn to bring the proposal to the floor during the meeting:

At Holton: yes - 21 no - 3 undecided - 2

From BC post: yes - 19 no - 0 undecided - 0


2) Should I vote yes to the proposal"

At Holton; yes - 21 no - 3 undecided - 2

From BC post: yes - 19 no - 0 undecided - 0
 
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Joe

Thanks for the effort, and the update.

I am confused about one matter. You state in your initial post the words "added to the Hunter program that the NBRSA offers". What does this mean.??.......jackie
 
Jackie,

I think what Joe means is it kinda goes with the Hunter program because it is score also, just different rules.

Hovis
 
The NBRSA doesn't have a score program...

...it has a hunter competition program.

Doing statutory construction of the NBRSA rule book is about an eleven on a ten-point difficulty scale. And I've had some experience in doing this over the last 25 years.

From what I read, the NBRSA has classes of rifles and "approved targets", but there is no hunter class target in the rules: it only states that targets are "to be NBRSA approved". Must be in the minutes, which I don't have copies of all back to inception. It looks like hunter rifle competition was approved at the 1980 annual meeting.

The rule book then goes on to define rules of competition for the varmint classes (light, heavy, sporter and unlimited), but also defines additional rifle competitions and the permitted rifles for each, these being:


1) 1,000-yard benchrest class
2) 600-yard benchrest class
3) .22 rimfire class (is it possible that the .17's may not be permitted?)
4) hunter rifle class

The rules for the hunter rifle competition describe the rifle (typical hunter class benchrest rifle: 10 pounds, 6X scope, 2 1/4 fore end, 6mm with .30-30 capacity, etc), that these rifles shoot at approved NBRSA targets, it is inferred that the scoring is 10, 9, 8, etc. and X's. And those rules also permit the range to award trophies for factory and light hunter rifles, as well as possibly suspending a club for limiting participation of qualified rifles or setting up separate classes.

I would believe that the Gulf Coast Proposal would want to widen the permitted rifles (excluding unlimited?) and calibers (to allow the smaller capacity and caliber), as well as relieve the limitation on shooting one class. That way varmint rifles could be shot as a class in the hunter competition tournaments without interfering with varmint group competitions.

The rules also state that the intent of hunter rifle competition is to encourage the new shooter to participate in Registered Benchrest Competition. (Not quite sure how in today's environment, but I must be thinking in a 2009 mindset not a 1980 mindset.)

Two of the stated objectives of the NBRSA are:

- development and encouragement of extreme ACCURACY in rifles... (Query: does "Accuracy" = hitting the spot at which you are aiming ?)
- achievement of extreme PRECISION in rifles... by shooting "groups". (Query: does "precision" = haiving minimal dispersion shot-to-shot, as meaning having the smallest "group"?)

I don't see these as mutually exclusive and certainly not limiting the association to one type of shooting. As I saw in another post, score shooting will occur with or without NBRSA sanctioning.

My tally through 11:00 Friday morning is another nine e-mails and four phone calls. All are in favor of the second and allowing a well-drafted proposal to be approved. Perhaps those who have an opposing point of view don't care to contact me - which I would like to hear from these members, too. I will say that asking shooters at a group match (some of which have never shot a score match) what they think about score shooting leads to generally obvious results. However, I have seen here in the East many of the group participants starting out shooting a factory rifle in score matches, moved to a more traditional varmint rifle (often with a 6PPC pre-.30BR), and then transitioned to group with the desire to shoot more involved matches. Also, most if the shooters here like to shoot both and see no risk to group with VFS being added to the NBRSA.

(Query: would adding a caliber-limited factory class to group matches encourage the new shooter to participate in Registered Benchrest Competition?) A point of fact, the current NBRSA membership sits at something South of 1,600.

There will be a meeting of the competitors who attend the Eastern Regional Championship at Holton over Labor Day weekend and this, along with the other proposals, will be discussed and feedback received.
 
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Joe

The proposal that we voted to send to the National Meeting states that "Varmint for Score" would be shot with any Rifle that is legal to be used in class Heavy Varmint.

That, of course, includes Light Varmint, Sporter, and a HBR Rifle if the shooter so desired.

That paragraph in the rule book about HBR encouraging shooters to participate in registered competition is rather dated. The evolution of the modern HBR Rifle has rendered it to be an all out Benchrest Rifle. Like a lot of things, the framers of the rule back in 1980 probably did not forsee this, but that is the truth of the situation. Much like back when Sporter was brought into being. Who would have thought way back then that the 6MM would totally subplant every other caliber.

I trust that if there is enough votes among the Directors to institute Varmint for Score as a Sanctioned Event, they will also come up with a prudent set of rules to govern the Competition.

The thinking among the Gulf Coast Region Shooters is, don't overcomplicate the matter. Take your HV, and instead of shooting groups, just shoot score, at the same target that the HBR Shooters use.

There was discussion about holding Varmint for Score Matches in conjunction with HBR Matches. The purpose would be boost the attendance at HBR Matches so clubs would not continue to loose money.

As an example, we at Tomball will host the Gulf Coast Region and Texas State HBR in August. (one on Saturday, one on Sunday). The club will in all likely hood loose money, just like we did last year, and the year before. If we do,the Board of Directors of the Tomball Gun Club will probably call it quits on this match.

What we are going to do this year is have a "shoot along". All of the shooters who come out and shoot Varmint for Score at our Club Matches will pay a fee, (around $30), and sort of have a non-sanctioned "match within a match'. This will help defer the cost of the awards for the HBR event.

If Varmint for Score passes, this could then become a Sanctioned Event.

There are HBR Shooters who are against instituting Varmint for Score as a legal Registered Competition. In fact, just about every HBR Shooter in our Region thinks it will hurt HBR.

My answer to that is, "how much worse can it get". Attendance at our Region HBR Matches has been pretty low in the past years. At least if they have the added revenue of the Varmint for Score Shooters, clubs will at least be willing to hold matches without loosing so much. Perhaps you can get some input from the HBR Shooters in the Eastern Region about their feelings concerning this issue.

There is one other item. Most of us are used to going to week end events were we shoot a Two Gun Format. It was suggested that clubs could combine HBR with Varmint for Score for a Two Day Match. The only problem is I do not know one single Group Shooter who is interested in shooting HBR.

I forsee a LV-HV Format in Varmint for Score just like in Group. That way, we can all just shoot our Sporters, just like we do now:D......jackie
 
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What happened at WWCCA:

with score matches is that when I started shooting we would get four or five factory guys, three or four hunter shooters, and ten to twenty VFS shooters. That was in 1996 and WWCCA was IBS registered. We shot 100 and 200 yards in one day.

Then the factory guys either bought varmint class guns or quit. The hunter guys quit coming. We still were getting 15 to 25 score shooters and still shot both yardages. In 1998 we added NBRSA group shooting and werte dual-registered. Our first group match had over 50 shooters (at an 18-bench range). For the years 1998 through 2005 or so, we had pretty good numbers for teh size of our range.

But, since the score and group backers required changeover work, we decided to drop 100-yard score and only shoot 200 with the targets stapled to the backstop. We also dropped the IBS affiliation. Our score attendance dropped off and I have been at matches with only five shooters. I think that the .30 BR may have attributed to this a little bit over the entire country. But, here in Michigan the most capable shooters with the beter tuned guns still compete at score with a 6PPC (Larry Feusse notwithstanding with his .30X47 lapua) and do reasonably well. We haven't had a 25X yet, but a couple of 24's have been shot at our range.

We still make money (more than any other discipline in our club), but with the drop in guys willing to help run the matches, our group attendance has been waning, too. We did get over 50 shooters at one match last year, but the typical attendance is around 35 plus or minus. We are fighting the Cowboy Action Shooters for control of the Precision Shooting range, so we need to continue to have a viable program or everyone may be wearing chaps and a cowboy hat the next time we shoot there.

My contention is that if you run a good match, have something to draw in shooters i.e. big name participants, prizes, not intefering with othr big matches close in proximity and timing, you will draw shooters - no matter what the affiliation or discipline.

However, if you show shooters that it is more important to the club to simply take their money and care less about the product that you are supplying, then attendance drops off.

I know that there are still guys out there who either want to get into the game, or have shot in the past and may be drawn back into the game. We just need to start thinking of ways to get these guys to the matches and improve our numbers. Make it fun and give a quality product and they will come.
 
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