Info needed for the ATA problems of today

Gary,

If we use the GAH as a proxy for trapshooting participation, the decline started in 1994.

That pre-dates both of the "incidents" that you claim are the smoking gun.

Looks at the numbers and the years...

Post WW1... @50% decline in participation...

Late Roaring 20s after post WW1 recovery flat - 15% bump...

Post WW2... 100% bump with returning GIs and available ammo...

Growth during the Eisenhower Recession Era

Growth during Oil Embargo until Jimmy Carter

Flat during Reagan

Growth during Bush #1

Clinton Era Retraction

Bush #2 Freefall

Martin $$$ bump

I don't know... seems historically, the ATA experienced growth during period of less than ideal economics with flat or retracting participation in better times... if you take out the bump after WW2 under Truman...

Jay

Longshot, you are darn near the most frustrating poster on TS.com. The fact that the shotspeed rule is 1200 fps according to ANSI/SAAMI definitions - and therefore allows a maximum of 1290 fps, has been explained to you, in detail and with documentation at least ten times, as well as the FACT that never, ever, not once has the ATA rule read 1200 fps. When are you going to quit claiming otherwise? When are you going to listen?

But still, your question, if you had asked it correctly, "When did the ATA accept SAAMI standards for shot speed?" can't be answered. It's not in any minutes of the meetings of the BOD. There is a sidelong reference naming a participant (not me!) but otherwise, nothing.

When Phil Kiner proposed a lower number at a recent BOD meeting and I advised the Delegates not to do it, I asked the person who made the original SAAMI motion (by my and an Iowa Delegate's memory) and he didn't remember it all. So you question can't be answered. I don't remember what year and the guy we think did can't even remember doing it. So, sadly, you came up dry on this one.

So why did I advise the BOD not to vote for Mr. Kiner's proposal?

Several reasons. Speed is not a problem now (see reference later). That's the best answer for not doing anything I know of.

The ATA is not capable of enforcing a speed rule because they are not capable of measuring shot speed. Believe me.

But the biggest reason is that the whole thing about raising the shot-speeds and all that is just a bunch of hooey promoted by people who simply don't know what they are talking about.

The first Handicap Shells I was aware of showed up at the Spring Grand in about (correction here from 1992) 1990. I've still got a box or two and I just tested a couple and they (after correction) are about 1275 fps, measured by SAAMI-like equipment which had been calibrated second-hand and only first-hand really counts. But they were killers in the recoil department and were soon toned down.

There were plenty of 3-dram-labeled shells which were well over 1200 fps and right in the sweet-spot for handicap shells being sold today.




So the higher scores being shot today are _not_ caused by "handicap speed" shells which we'd never seen before. We were shooting them all along, but didn't know it. Top long-yardage handicap shooters are firing today shells about like they did 25 years ago. So that's not the cause of the higher scores they are shooting today. The big difference is that today there are so many more of them.

Neil

I don't think you got the message from that graph, u r 2. All that happened when named "Handicap" shells showed up was that the span of speeds people shot were divided into four layers instead of the three layers that were used before. Look at the WW shells on the right side of the graph. The range that is three for the others is four for WW. They are just closer together, that's all.

I checked and I did those tests in 1990. The top shooters were shooting "2013 Handicap-speed" shells then, but they were labeled "3-dram." Nothing has changed on the trap field except 3-dram has been toned down some, sometimes, depending on the particular lot number you bought by the luck of the draw. And so on down the line.

Phil Kiner may be - well, let's agree he is - right when he says that Handicap shells over 1200 fps are worth a bird in a hundred. The top shooters today are not winning by a bird over the rest of the field, they are winning by several. So it makes no difference as to who ends up where. People who think "If we just slow down the shells the big dogs shot I'll be more competitive" are dreaming.

The best shooters win so much because the are not twice as good as the rest of us; they are in a different galaxy. In terms of shooting a winning score they are at least ten times as likely to do so than someone with a 90 handicap average. That's just the way the math works. And why in the world do think that if slowing shells down a bit is going to reduce a likely winner's score by a bird that it won't do the same to yours?

Neil

Joe Potoski: Your succinct, spot-on post made me laugh. But laughs aside, isn't it sad how many people the Club Geezers and incessant crybabies have driven to Sporties (and away from shooting sports in general)? Just IMAGINE being 25-30 years old, finally having a little disposable income, and deciding whether you want to stay in a sport and deal with these people. What would you have told an old immune-to-facts bickering blowhard like LS when you were 25? Unfortunately, today, instead of telling him to his face to F-off like we'd have done, young shooters just go do something else. And, honestly, who could blame them?


Friendly reminder to one of our biggest assets, Mr. Winston...





-Gary