USA Production Class

C

cris

Guest
With discussions focusing on entry level air rifles and much progress in developing portable benches that will travel easily, I would like to discuss the possibility of a new air rifle class to draw in new shooters and shooters from other disciplines.

USA Production class might look like this:

Factory air rifle that must remain completely unmodified.

MSRP for air rifle, scope rings and scope not to exceed $600.00USD

No mechanical front rest or one piece rest.

Front bag must be a factory version and be completely unmodified. Only sand can be used as fill.

Rear bag must be a factory version and be completely unmodified. Only sand can be used as fill.
Spacers of wood or synthetic materials are allowed.

Calibers of .177, .20 and .22 are allowed. Any power level.

All other international rules will apply.

Simple rules and set up for newcomers and juniors alike. My other problem involves that $600.00 limit and it might be too high. Match directors and shooters opinions are always welcome.
 
At first blush, a few things: 1. You need to consider the power or speed the rifles are capable of shooting and 2. The part about rests. I can see not allowing one piece rests but a standard front rest in Benchrest will be mechanical. In my opinion, one should not try to make things difficult. Theoretically, this will be a beginner Level class for shooters who will step up later on, if they like the sport. It would seem to me that they will also be building their equipment as they go.

you might also try to find a way to have classes according to ability and performance, say after a certain number of points earned or two years at the beginner level, shooters move up to more difficult class. With regard to points, generally there is a earned point level using first, second and third placings. I would suggest two levels to achieve beyond beginner. You will get people who will be satisfied to be the Big Fish in the small pond. I think the question may be how involved does one want to make this. Personally I think shooters who like it will quickly step up to the regular BR classes.

Don't worry much about cost. Participation in any sport requires a financial committment. I wouldn't make any distinction for Junior Shooters. Just look at the RF resuts. The Juniors seem to be able to compete with the rest of the shooters just fine.
 
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One could stay under 600.00 with a lot of springer s . With PCP it well be hard to stay under 600.00 . Marauder 470.00 , Rings 10.00--50.00 , Scope 100.00 and up .By being careful with scope and rings you could come in just under 600.00 . The Discovery wood work . With the Hammerli or Gamo Dyna Max one could do it . Crosman Challenger at 500.00 it wood be hard but one could do it . I think there are others . Very interesting .
 
The attraction of shooting airgun benchrest to many, if not MOST airgun shooters not already in the benchrest game is to see how accurate they can MAKE a particular gun shoot, and not to see how well THEY might shoot using the same sort of equipment as their peers. There is also another group that feel they are such good shots they can use what appears to be "lesser equipment and beat other shooters with obviously superior equipment. In both these cases, which combined, might make up the majority of entry level benchrest competitors, the cheap entry level equipment class will not be that attractive, because the impetus to use somewhat tuned guns is too attractive.

But, the concept of the absolutely bog stock cheap gun/scope combo is a loser to me mostly because it puts such an unreasonable burden on the MD by requiring extra time with inspections needed to keep things honest. Classes of this sort can encourage cherrypickers with a fair amount of shooting experience to enter with highly tuned guns that appear stock and prey on the newbies with REAL stock guns and no skills and experience.

So, IF there is merit to the idea of a class using truly inexpensive guns limited to a certain dollar figure, I suggest a "claims class", where ANY gun used on the class can be purchased at the end of the match for the claims limit price. Thus new shooter interested in the game could show up to watch, or even borrow a gun to compete, then buy one of the winning guns so he can continue playing next time, knowing he has a competitive rig.
 
Of course that's the solution!
I've heard of it before, but forgot about that concept. Good one LD...

As a match director, that would be fun to administer:)

And, of course the "Claims" value would have to allow the owner for installing and a zeroing the scope. Do they get the whole outfit...bags too? What fun!

I'm thinking the value should be upped to $750 and used stuff be "considered" at the shooters "own" price paid value.. Much easier to "Police" as a MD.

... a match director might run across some great deals that way:)

Wacky Wayne
Match Director,
Ashland Air Rifle Range
 
Why is it that everyone is going to cheat in a production class, you can tell on the first card whether the gun is stock or not. I think that they should be allowed to use a front rest, when I started I went on ebay and bought a cheap caldwell to compete with, as the funds came in I moved up to a used bald eagle with a fudd top. most newbes will most likely take the same route. the major classes are going to be the international classes and other classes are just for the usa, most of this game is on the honor system, or are you going to verify power levels before every match with the required test pellets and make sure the tins are sealed until the commence fire call. lets not make this more difficult than it really is.
 
Chris,

1) I think you should specify un-regulated though price might make that a given. 2) Front bag or bags. Height is a problem if you use two leather rear bags. Some allowance for elevating the front rest such as filled sand bags or block of wood. I think one good idea would be to invite all entry level shooters. See what they have. Shoot a couple of matches that way and consider limits. Attracting new shooters will not work if they have 605.00 in equipment. Air guns of Arizona and or Pyramid air might share the typical purchase. 75 percent will be break barrel piston riflers. The the Discovery Marauder and perhaps Pnuema PCP. Or do you plan to put all piston rigs in the Piston class. An un-regulated PCP will not get enough shots in the sweet spot to sight in and fire 25 shots. When you say factory. What if out of the box velocity is over 20 ft lbs. Even some of the plinkers have some kind of cheaper front rest.

If a new shooter shows up chances are he will be a plinker or hunter and will have a gun and scope. Let the match director sort the factory guns out. Take a look at the USBR classes.

Just one old mans opinion.
 
everyone cheat?

I doubt seriously there would be many cheaters, but it really doesn't TAKE many cheaters to ruin things. No, my point was there would need to be inspection if the class was truly to be a "stock class", but that I personally don't see a stock class as being a good thing, because it takes a LOT of the fun many BR shooters now enjoy in being able to try different things with their rigs.

While I suspect there ARE stock rifle/scope combo's that could be surprisingly competitive in the sub-$600 class, I DO feel the guns that did well were really the result of luck and happenstance, and NOT indicative of average performance for the model. I once owned an incredibly accurate QB77 co2 rifle that could likely still shoot good scores today, had I not sold it, but I have fired close to a hundred others, and never seen another quite so accurate as it was.

No, I think one would really need to step up to guns in at least the $750-$1000 retail range sans scope to have little better chance of running into a competitive rifle out od the box, and even then there is a huge bit of luck involved that the gun would prove satisfying with NO modifying.

And how about this? I think it would be MORE fun to allow ANY mods to less expensive guns, and very limited mods with expensive guns ... that way the guys with the bucks could use high zoot target models, so long as they were unmodified, and the poor retired folks could show up with barely recognizable guns if they began as low buck items?

SEE? My real point here is: Don't let money become an issue in this game, its hard enough to get folks to show up and shoot without restrictions. I say restrictions should NOT go very far beyond those required for safety reasons, so long as the fired targets can be scored fairly.
 
Wayne, the proposal was more in jest than anything, though if there WERE a claiming rule, it doesnt seem right to claim the rests too ... otherwise, why not the chair, pellets, air tank, pellet weighing scale, yada yada.

No, I kind of think that until the game gets really huge, where we really don't even care about turning lots of wannabees away, we should limit the rules that divide, such as having a bunch of equipment classes, esp those based on cost and instead try to be more inclusive, where anybody with a safe airgun of caliber we can score uniformly is allowed to compete with it for the overall match win.

Sure, in effort to give more credit to those with really uncompetitive rigs, it doesn't take a lot of extra effort to mention the extraordinary kinds of guns being used, but of course, after awhile, true competitors have a way of sorting out what they can and will use without a lot of formal pressure anyhow.
 
Well said LD.

Come one, come all, bring what you have and compete with what you got! The local match director can sort out the competive equipment. We know from all the scores reported and with what equipment to set a minimum that one has to shoot with top notch equipment to be top of the pile. We could separate by score, rather than equipment, as with classifications common in most all shooting sports. One could as in other sports volunteer to shoot a higher class. Lower classifications combined if 3 shooters not available except for postal matches. If equipment is reported with all scores then those doing well with basic equipment will stand out.


Bob
 
I have been running off and on and participating in Benchrest Sports for 16 or so years. Over that time, all of these ideas have been aired and I suspect practiced some place. We began holding CF Benchrest Matches at our club in 1996 not knowing much about Benchrest. The matches were intended to be for Factory production rifles. After a couple of matches folks started buying new rifles. Shortly after that, real Benchrest Rifles started showing up. Interest declined. The next year we began hosting RF Benchrest events. Folks began buying rifles. At the second match came a 52 Win. International rifle that won handily. At the third match there came several more 52's and a couple of Anschutz rifles. Other Position rifles followed. Once I learned that one could buy a custom made BR .22RF rifle I had to have one.

By then we had started to get folks form other areas traveling to shoot with us and invitations for us to attend their shoots. One group in New Brunswick, Canada shot an all day event that included benchrest and some off-hand matches, which were interesting but required a different rifle configuration than our rifles were set up for.

The race for the best rifle began immediately and ended with Customs. Some bought Custom Rifles and stayed with the sport and many decided they weren't really interested. All learned that the rifle chase with production rifles was not the answer, which is why I believe we have what we have today in the Benchrest Sports.

Joe Haller in the UP has run "Factory " RF events over the years in a number of places, perhaps if he is reading this he can provide some insight as to what has worked for him. For me, I have no interest in the Production Rifle Chase. Been there, Done that, still have some interesting Tee Shirts that have shrunk, over time, in the closet. I want to start with a seriously competative rifle for a specific class or classes. I plan to wait until I can buy a rifle capable of winning and remain so for a long time, the rest will be up to me then. I want to always be in a position where not winning is my personal fault, not because I was out gunned, if you will.

I can see that many folks are working hard to make their production rifles perform well. I applaud them for their work and I know it is fun and interesting to do. I did it with Motocross Bikes back in the 70's. I am too old now to do this kind of thing. I am waiting for what is surely not far down the road.
 
The intent of this new class, if we decide there is enough interest, would be to draw new shooters and shooters new to benchrest. Those crossing over from rimfire, centerfire, field target and silhouette might want to look at the other classes.

Air rifle benchrest is going through some change now, just as rimfire benchrest did 20 years ago, but for that change to continue, we must have a base of shooters to support that evolution.

So far, we have excellent ideas but no consensus of opinion. I would appreciate any thoughts from our international shooters on ways we might increase participation.
 
cris said:
The intent of this new class, if we decide there is enough interest, would be to draw new shooters and shooters new to benchrest. Those crossing over from rimfire, centerfire, field target and silhouette might want to look at the other classes.

Air rifle benchrest is going through some change now, just as rimfire benchrest did 20 years ago, but for that change to continue, we must have a base of shooters to support that evolution.

So far, we have excellent ideas but no consensus of opinion. I would appreciate any thoughts from our international shooters on ways we might increase participation.
Click to expand...

Chris,

One more story.... At one of the largest shooting clubs in Texas and NRA club of the Year. We tried to build air gun shooting. Beeman at that time had a rental program. We rented 3 HW 97 piston rifles. The active shooters agreed to leave their expensive rifles at home and to shoot the rented rifles. After a few matches with no influx of new shooters, after promotion and offer furnish of rifle, pellets, we competed with the 3 guns. It became clear that one of the three rifles won every time regardless of the shooter. So we went back to our own rifles. The club sold the guns through me and the tack driver is in the hands of Brad Troyer who has refused many offers to buy it, The net increase in new shooters 0.

Sad to say the facts are..... There are only a very small percentage of gun owners of any kind that will compete. And if we get 10 to try our game we will be lucky to capture 1 or 2. The large number of fans in spectator sports is evidence.
Where one cheers or boos some one else. A competitor participates and accepts his own failures as a challenge to do better next time looking for one more 10 with better equipment of improved skills. Our best hope is to recruit the rim fire and center fire guys with the promise of extreme accuracy and more opportunity to compete at .03 cents instead of .20 or .38 cents a shot. Instead of having them come to us we need to show up with a target frame that can be placed at 25 yards or meters and ask for permission to shoot with them. I have two clubs now that will allow me to play with the big boys.


Bob
 
BobZ said:
Chris,

One more story.... At one of the largest shooting clubs in Texas and NRA club of the Year. We tried to build air gun shooting. Beeman at that time had a rental program. We rented 3 HW 97 piston rifles. The active shooters agreed to leave their expensive rifles at home and to shoot the rented rifles. After a few matches with no influx of new shooters, after promotion and offer furnish of rifle, pellets, we competed with the 3 guns. It became clear that one of the three rifles won every time regardless of the shooter. So we went back to our own rifles. The club sold the guns through me and the tack driver is in the hands of Brad Troyer who has refused many offers to buy it, The net increase in new shooters 0.

Sad to say the facts are..... There are only a very small percentage of gun owners of any kind that will compete. And if we get 10 to try our game we will be lucky to capture 1 or 2. The large number of fans in spectator sports is evidence.
Where one cheers or boos some one else. A competitor participates and accepts his own failures as a challenge to do better next time looking for one more 10 with better equipment of improved skills. Our best hope is to recruit the rim fire and center fire guys with the promise of extreme accuracy and more opportunity to compete at .03 cents instead of .20 or .38 cents a shot. Instead of having them come to us we need to show up with a target frame that can be placed at 25 yards or meters and ask for permission to shoot with them. I have two clubs now that will allow me to play with the big boys.


Bob
Click to expand...

Thank You Bob,

You have succinctly stated what I intended to.

Pete
 
Good points Bob,

I would add this ... new shooters to Airgun Benchrest have almost NO chance of selecting JUST the right combination of equipment to be competitive right off IF they are strongly limited by a certain price limit. The exception is when buying USED equipment that was just observed on the firing line with good results at an actual match.
 
Hi Guys. I want to buy an air gun and shoot in competition. I started a thread asking for help selecting the needed equipment. I got some answers but need more info to make a decision. If you want more shooters then help with the choices to be made. Classes, calibers, pellets, rifles and air supplies and misc. equip. Please help. I want to shoot but don't know enough to make proper choices. Don
 
If current equipment rules allow full custom rigs while including most or many factory rifles, I believe you're good to go. Having a bunch of classes and frequent change is non-productive. What serious shooter wants to sit through an entry level class and what match director wants to schedule such a match in the off chance that some factory rifles are gonna show up?

The only fun gun is an accurate one....

Wilbur
 
Wilbur,

Your comments echo some others I have received. An entry level class and "dumbing: down the game is not the right recipe for success.

We will continue to look for ways to increase participation.
 
Don your other thread asked about varmint shooting, not really the same venue. As far as br equipment specifically well that is a bit difficult to answer. In general, a pre-compressed (PCP not the drug lol) gun is the base starting point. there are various power levels by the rules all specified in ft pounds 7,12,15,20, unlimited. Next is caliber, 177 or 22 nothing larger is allowed at present. Pros and cons to either. As far as specific guns that is really up in the air as the game is fairly new. EV2's ( Air Arms) did very well at the Worlds Comp. Most of the units used are modified as no mfg makes a out of the box BR unit at this time ( USFT by MAC-1, can be had in a br configuration but really is a custom gun also) Most of the units used were really developed with the Field target game in mind. Then modified to fit our game. There are quite a few power plants available that fit in any category. Another question would be regulated or not and that is a whole can of worms, bottom line is one target is 25 shots for record, + what ever you use for sighters and you must get all this from one fill if a pcp unit, so that puts some units out of the picture as the do not have a sufficient air supply with out wildly dropping off as the air supply is exhausted. Hope this answers a few questions. Bug the guys a AOA as you are close. Chris
 
I have been thinking more about the "Claims" class as the solution to getting more folks involved.

We are going to get the BR guys from RF and CF automatically cause of the price of ammo and the extra challenge of low power.... so, the Claims class would be an attraction for "newbies" and the pros... if we didn't specify anything about it, other than the normal rules we have already.

The "Claims" price needs to be high enough ($1,000), that someone could invest in a low price rig and get it shooting 250s'... in what ever way they could.. or maybe it's just a lucky draw "out of the box" rig.. either way.. a profit should be made by the owner... and...

Someone who is looking for a new rig, or who wants to buy up all the good shooting rigs:)... could show up and compete, (cause only ones competing could buy the "Claimed" rig... cash only should be the rule, don't need to deal with a bad check on top of everything else). I can see this as a way to increase attendance and excitement in the game....

What am I missing about the idea?

Wacky Wayne,
Match Director,
Ashland Air Rifle Range
 
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