I'm well-educated, but this issue of more concrete, mandatory reductions, 3-hole targets, faster velocities and slower/lighter shells are being promoted to do what exactly?!
I'm NOT being a smart-ass, I read every thread... I don't seem to understand what the true problem is or how the issues potentially affect me as a 21 yard recreational handicap shooter...
Can someone please explain to me what the "real" problem is and what these solutions might accomplish to help ME?
"Can someone please explain to me what the "real" problem is and what these solutions might accomplish to help ME?"
Jay I can only answer for myself and I can't tell you how it will help you personally. For me it is a case of what is fair and equitable. As long as some people get yardage for a win or qualifying score and some don't based on their yardage. There is nothing fair or equal about it.
It is that simple to me you at 21 will get yardage if you win. Anyone at 27 won't get if they win. Doesn't sound or work equally for me. JMO
Trapshooting "WINS" have always been based on winning "On-the-way-up". Always. Except for the few that can win once they get to the top. 99.99% of us have to enjoy the ride but not the ultimate destination. The only way you will level the playing field is to use an "added targets" system. Even then, you will not win on the way down, but with added targets at least you'll get kissed once in a while.
BTW. This thread will be nothing but "30 yards is the answer" in no time at all.
EE, those making the decisions today for our sport refuses to acknowledge change as was done in the past. Shooters of old recall that one mans domination of the handicap game caused the 27 yard to become the new max yardage.
Jay, never in the history of trapshooting has our leadership made any rule to create winners out of average shooter members. Till the late 70s, every change was directed at further handicapping the most proficient shooters in the game. That practice was halted via various means which I won't go into here but every change has been toward an easier to break target. Why was that so wrong? It destroyed the once held belief a shooter didn't have to shoot a near perfect score to stand a change of a win, place or show at any ATA shoots, especially our handicap game! Destroying the games perception was wrong then and it continues to this day! Nickle and dime gimmes to the membership is nothing more than kicking the can a bit farther down the road rather than make the tougher decisions needed to bring back that once held perception our game once had.
Attracting possible new members isn't the problem at all, we have an ample number every year signing on, keeping them around long enough for those shooters to hook themselves is a severe problem though!
Ivanhoe and Hap are both speaking to the same thing. You are correct Jay in that "the problem" doesn't affect the recreational shooters such as ourselves as a rule. But the fact of the matter is the game HAS changed dramaticaly from what it was 25 to 35 years ago as Hap and many others have pointed out in past discussions.
Hap, I do not understand what you are saying. Should we make it tougher to break a good score? Are the 27 yard shooters supposed to win? If we move them back to 30 yards do they still win? How about 35 yards who wins then? If a 21 yard shooter wins, is that fair? Or is that why they call it HANDICAP? Why do we not care about 16 yard targets? I agree with Jay. I am confused what the real problem is. Please clarify. Thanks, Phil
"If we move them back to 30 yards do they still win?"
If more concrete is added and the fence is moved back no one will move the 27yd shooters back except themselves. The same way they moved back to the 27 why is this so difficult to understand for so many?????
Back to 30 yards in 9 posts. And Hap...I'm dumber than the other guys. I did not see a point in your post.
The biggest problem is that the guys tippy-typing on TS.com need to be out doing some significant dedicated practice. Then and only then will they improve. But as we got older we practiced less, shot less, and talked more. We are just internet and club bull-shitters.
But, it may be that the 2 yards is creating some addl effort on the part of guys that just sat back and watched the others win. I hope that is so.
Phil, it's very easy to understand this. If I set your targets very slow and thrown at less angle, your scores would improve drastically too?
Who's supposed to win an ATA handicap event? The best shot that day regardless of where he stands. Our max yardage (The27) is becoming full of very good shooters progressing the move back only to stop and stand there for years? The holy grail so to speak and that's not the way our forefathers in our game intended the game to be played!
What I wrote in the first paragraph to you is exactly what happened to our game in the very late 70s and early 80s. Clubs wanting to attract more of the best shooters to pad their averages threw less angles and less speed on their targets! Our leadership did nothing to put a stop to that and adopted in 95/96 officially as the best thing to come down the pike in years! Bad but smooth move ex-lax!
Do not take my words at all Phil!! Read up on the historical facts of our sport since the beginning and you'll have a much better understanding of what our sport is all about? Or supposed to be about!
Bob, I am not sure if that was a slam or an agreement. I KNOW the great shooters shoot great and earned there way back to the 27, and they would soon earn their way back to whatever yardage we stop at. As a trap chairman of a club do you know how frustrating it is to have a 20 yard shooter bitching about the targets! The 27 yard shooters never seem to say much and if I ask them they simply say "everyone has to shoot them." Now I have never set targets at the Grand or even at a zone shoot but I do know most of the people that complain have never seen the inside of a trap house! Sorry wrong tangent! Back to the subject. I pose them same question, What is the real problem as Jay stated?
Mia, Liked your comment, by the way what is your handicap? I did not put mine in but its not 21 if you get my drift. If you dont want to say I understand.
Hap, Sorry I was typing before I read your post. I am all for making the targets harder. I do think the cream would rise. But would it discourage to many people? I have been lucky (or good)enough to move back pretty quick but I see alot of the shooters at the same yardage they were at when I started and its not the 27. Just looking at the scores from the past zone shoot in Fla. I did not see alot of really high scores.
Phil, when Mother Nature breaths harder, it makes it tougher the farther away you attempt a shot. Short yardage shooters will usually prevail during bad weather. I think that the case you mentioned happening down south? I sent you a PM also.
It's about money. If it was not about money people would be ok shooting for awards from the 16 in their fair class with little worry. So it is simply about money.
Some think they can't ever beat the best by skill, practice, training, and dedication even with an advantage of distance so they are trying to find another way. Any other way to win the money.
When I post something like this people assume I'm one of the big winners standing at the 27 trying to protect myself..not so. Now I'm at the 25. I hope it helps. Like everyone I want the money too i'm just not focused on other shooters thinking that may somehow help me.
I've had my day. Started fast, and backslid due to bad advice. Adn now older I realize that I'm out to have fun. But I do have a dog in this fight because I ATA shoot 4000 local targets a year, donate, promote and encourage others toshoot. Train shooters too.
You guys blame the ATA EC and totally discount the shooters we have lost to SC and never had a chance of getting because of SC. Adn then we have so many other thngs to do with our entertainment dollars andavailable time.
In MN we have 1000+ new high school shooters having a good time. We need to find a way to bring these young eople into ATA. A good gun as a christmas present would help a lot.
If the problem is too many good shooters stopped at the 27 and the clubs don't want to pour more concrete to go out to 30 yards (or more!) then how about this? Make two purses for Handicap, one for the 27 yard shooters and one for everyone else. If it really is the journey and not the destination this should satisfy everyone. If some shooters won't be happy until they put other people's money in their own pockets at the end of the shoot well maybe they will never be happy!
Terry, Doesn't that bring up the whole pro class again? I for one think the two yard reduction will stablize the 26 and 27 yard shooters that don't really belong there. Myself included, I think I moved back to fast and found myself not competitive and discouraged.
Well Phil I stated what the is mostly the problem for me. In the third post from the top. I am not going to explain it again if you had bothered to read it you would know what I feel is the problem.
The problem with most shooter that refuse to try to understand is. They don't seem to know the difference between a handicap in trapshooting and just another yardage. As an example and I quote.
"If the problem is too many good shooters stopped at the 27 and the clubs don't want to pour more concrete to go out to 30 yards (or more!) then how about this? Make two purses for Handicap, one for the 27 yard shooters and one for everyone else."
So tell us, anyone please, what is the difference between being further handicapped and two "two purses"??????? Purses will not further handicap the shooters that dominate the handicap. The only thing that will change that is more yardage and that can't be accomplished without more concrete.
Also interesting to note further handicapping those that dominate can't be accomplished with more practice or small shot charges or classes like singles at the 27 either. There is only one thing that will do that you all know what it is even if you won't admit it.
Not a "real" problem for me because I shoot for my own enjoyment and not for money or trophies, but "target management" in the HCP event is a little disconcerting. Most of the medium to large shoots I attend, the HCP event is won not by back fencers but by the 20-22 yd shooter who just happened to have a "good" day, coincidentally very much like the "good" day he had at the same shoot last year. Don't know what the solution might be though.
Sorry Bobby, Had to do some work. Now then I read it again (you know your third post.)and your still not clear! Are you saying that you think we should poor more concrete back to 30 or 35 yards? Do you think that will make a difference to the good shooters? Or are we just trying to take them out of the competition? I don't know your view on the subject since I don't follow many of the posts on this site. So why don't you make your point clear for the rest of us? Thanks, Phil P.S. Yes I read you last post so pay attention to the middle of mine!
My interpretation is similar to the above. The majority of grioing seems to be about winning less money than in "the good old days." So it is a money thing right?
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