The expensive side of shooting sports

[riflejunkie]

The shooting sports competitions generally turn in to equipment races.  It isn't necessary and it's counterproductive to participation, but the fact remains that it costs thousands to step onto the firing line in most events.  People are competetive and this old joke extrapolates well here. Q. How many guns do I need?  A. One more.  When you are competing how many enhancements to your equipment do you need?  One more.  Regardless of what your equipment status is there is always one more thing that will give you an edge.  In the process we wind up with totally unrealistic equipment.  The equipment certainly works, but it isn't realistic in real world application.  Some guys are on the firing line with 14 pound rifles and they add weight to make it even heavier.

How do we involve people in shooting competetively when it costs 5K to stand on the line?  To be honest, the benefits of the great equipment don't mean as much as one might think.   Speaking from my smallbore experience I can tell you that I can shoot very similar scores with my $219 CZ Trainer to what I shoot with my $1800 Anschutz 1907.  The difference is X count.  Which gun is more realistic?  The CZ.  The matches I have participated in with my CZ have actually been the most satisfying because I had the cheapest gun on the firing line and usually finished within the top 4 or 5 and took first in the first 200 yd rimfire event of last season with a score of 586 out of 600.  To date the highest score shot in that 200 yd event is 592 and was shot with a rifle that was more than ten times the cost of my CZ.  So how much does it cost for those extra 6 points?  Is it really worth it?
As my buddy Tony always says, "Dance with the  one you brung".  A good trigger, decent sights and ammo AND Practice will give you more than you are likely to extract.

[gamo2hammerli]

So that`s what`s wrong with me.....every new airgun I buy is more expensive than the last one.  heh heh   At least it`s not heavier!!!!

[ronbeaux]

I've been down that road and totaly agree. Don't buy people out of competion because you can. I sold my NJR100 short action PCP back in 1997 and kept my TX200 because it was more of a challenge to me and evened the playing field at the time. In my opinion, there still is not a better spring piston gun sold. And with the right optics it will hold its own with 80%(my opinion) of the shooters out there even when they use the high dollar PCPs. I did have the TX200 tuned by Paul Watts and he turned it into a 'magic' shooter. Not more powerfull, just SMOOTH and ACCURATE.

This has been going on for a long time, buying people out, so a few of my buddies and I all bought cheap Chinese springers and tuned them up (well they did, I just saw the guts of one within the last few weeks), and then used them in a real field target match against each other. It was FUN!!!! We knew we should have made some of the shots and actually got to blame it on the gun. You just can't blame it on the gun using the custom PCPs they use now. You miss, it's your fault.

A little history. In the early to mid 90's the Brits would cross the pond and shoot with us. All their guns were limited to 12FPE. Ours were right up to the limit of 20 FPE. Who do you think would win?? Nick Jenkins. Hence the NJR100. A gun modeled after his Multi time World Record holding Air Arms PCP. Shooting at 12 FPE he would surf the wind so well it was amazing to watch. All of the Brits would. They learned that way and could do it extremely well. While we were blasting down range at close to 1000FPS they would be 'lobbing' pellets into the kill zone. The targets would barely fall, some of them teatering a bit before they fell.

But I digress.

I enjoy informal fun shooting more than comps.