F/TR... Really... Who is interested?

TOM · Post by **TOM** » Fri Oct 28, 2011 8:48 pm

Thats fine Raven, all im saying is, dont feed anyone with any shit about how they are gonna be world beaters with hunting rifles or tactical stuff, this way, people will accept F/TR or whatever discipline for what it is and have no complaint, this way they cannot try and change it to suit themselves and or their unsuitable equipment.

RAVEN · Post by **RAVEN** » Fri Oct 28, 2011 9:03 pm

Exactly. A match grade barrel fitted to a sporting rifle will bring it reasonably up to scratch. No longer a standard off the shelf hunting rifle is it! More of a Hybrid.

Tom my first rifle I used for long range competition was a Rem Sendaro 7mm rem mag.
I managed to tune this to .5moa smallest group I shot with this was in the .2's at 300M and it still holds the SSAA 500M fly light gun record 2.86"
So it can be done if I was shooting against this class of rifle OFF the self I would have held its own very well I think.
Cheers
RB

TOM · Post by **TOM** » Fri Oct 28, 2011 9:07 pm

Most rifles will perform pretty good at short range, how did you find it back to 1000 yards? We are also talking .308 and .223 calibre for F/TR, any experience with factory stuff in these calibre's?

mick l · Post by **mick l** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 6:32 am

Gday all,

Its no wonder the "pool of posters" has become somewhat limited.
Just like shooters on the mound!
One only has to read this thread to see that its is not that different from many others.

So come on kids lets play nice and give "whatever " it may be as a class a good go , insted of jumping on each other and feeling threatened by someone shooting something a little bit different.

At the end of the day our shooter base is growing in age (and grumpyness) .
Lets face it our small numbers do have one problem ,that is polarized views!

How about opening minds and having a brainstorming session on how to build numbers on our ranges without feeling threatened by something new.

Mick

Post by **AlanF** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 6:33 am

We have a recent starter at Rosedale with an off the shelf .308 tactical rifle. He's still learning the wind, but is getting very high super V counts at all ranges. So his equipment is competitive. I actually told him when he started that it wouldn't be competitive, and may have to eat my words :oops:

.

Alan

Barry Davies · Post by **Barry Davies** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 6:44 am

Words of wisdom Mick. let's see the VRA put that into practice and " give F/TR class a go" at the next Vic Queens.

Barry

Southcape · Post by **Southcape** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 7:42 am

Someone is going to have to be the leaders, and not the followers.

I expect it to take 3 years before F/TR really picks up numbers in AU. If the Vic Queens picks up F/TR they will need to keep this in mind.

WARA runs F Open ONLY if they have 5 confirmed entries before the early bird cutoff date. Perhaps VRA can do something similar?

Barry Davies · Post by **Barry Davies** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 7:56 am

Just digressing for a moment.
Up until 2006 there was a division of F Class written into SSR's called " Field Rifle ". The specification was - Quote " Any rifle complying with the field class target shooting rules as generally defined in these SSR's "
Then suddenly this class disappeared from SSR's. At the time Ken Larkin complained bitterly but got nowhere --nobody really wanted to know anything about it --well I guess they did'nt because I never heard anyone back Ken up.
So when I hear anyone mention this " untapped " source of membership I smile cynically and say " been there before" you know why, because nobody really gives a shit about prospective members who own sporting rifles,- talk's cheap.
A couple of months ago at Bendigo range we had three young blokes turn up wanting to zero their sporting rifles -- one was a 308 and the other two were 300 mags. Try as we may we could not get any of them to group the BLACK at 300 yards. What a waste of money those rifles were -- probably a couple of thousand dollars each.
We told these blokes what was needed to get some accuracy out of these rifles and invited them back. We are still waiting.
The moral of this story is -- F/TR is not sporting rifles. Field class is sporting rifles.
Now, you can call that negative if you like but fact are facts.
There is an untapped source out there, it's called Field class, but who is interested enough to tap it?

Barry

bruce moulds · Post by **bruce moulds** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 8:47 am

barry, john, and tom,
we also have had the hunting rifle thing which is a proven failure, due to rifle and scope unsuitability, ( and probably shooter unsuitability).
there are however riles which will foot the bill, including the savage ftr and palma, several offerings by remington, some deadly accurate tikka models, and some by howa. many of these are now being used successfully in std.
a suggestion here has been to identify rifles and scopes suited to the job and educate gunshop owners as to such equipment.
the way to educate them is to assist sales of such gear by offering say three free days of training in long range shooting by any clubs interested as part of a sales package. our club already offers three free shoots to potential members anyway.
because the people who buy these types of rifles have a leaning toward long range anyway, this process will tend to sort the wheat from the chaff.
bruce.

Lynn Otto · Post by **Lynn Otto** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 9:43 am

Southcape wrote:Someone is going to have to be the leaders, and not the followers.

I'm with Linda on this one, it seems to me that the people having the most to say on this topic are Open shooters whom I assume probably don't intend shooting F T/R and Std shooters who either are stating their intention to not shoot it or those who maybe want to but are doing very little about making it happen.

While it very clearly does not interest me, what is needed are more people like Linda who are prepared to put their money and effort where their mouths (or typing fingers) are and go out there and actually shoot it. Then we need state associations to honestly say whether they are prepared to support it to the point of its inclusion in the SSR's and future events. The rest is just so much bluster without any meaningful results.

Southcape · Post by **Southcape** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 10:46 am

I don't know about very little about making it happen. As with every event, there are people working in the background to see this through.

Woody_rod · Post by **Woody_rod** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 2:33 pm

Barry, the main problem was the stupid course of fire and the stupid ranges shot within the "field rifle" category in the SSRs. THAT was the problem with field rifle, as it had absolutely nothing in common with the more popular disciplines at the time.

ANyone even remotely interested in this type of shooting would be better off under the SSAA rules and ranges where the shorter ranges are shot.

I still hold that there is an untapped source of members. Life moves on, we have to move with it.

Barry Davies wrote:Just digressing for a moment.
Up until 2006 there was a division of F Class written into SSR's called " Field Rifle ". The specification was - Quote " Any rifle complying with the field class target shooting rules as generally defined in these SSR's "
Then suddenly this class disappeared from SSR's. At the time Ken Larkin complained bitterly but got nowhere --nobody really wanted to know anything about it --well I guess they did'nt because I never heard anyone back Ken up.
So when I hear anyone mention this " untapped " source of membership I smile cynically and say " been there before" you know why, because nobody really gives a shit about prospective members who own sporting rifles,- talk's cheap.
A couple of months ago at Bendigo range we had three young blokes turn up wanting to zero their sporting rifles -- one was a 308 and the other two were 300 mags. Try as we may we could not get any of them to group the BLACK at 300 yards. What a waste of money those rifles were -- probably a couple of thousand dollars each.
We told these blokes what was needed to get some accuracy out of these rifles and invited them back. We are still waiting.
The moral of this story is -- F/TR is not sporting rifles. Field class is sporting rifles.
Now, you can call that negative if you like but fact are facts.
There is an untapped source out there, it's called Field class, but who is interested enough to tap it?

Barry

bruce moulds · Post by **bruce moulds** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 3:30 pm

speaking of ftr.
if we think of reasons for failure, and reasons why we should not do this, it will not happen.
if we seek out the road to success, and establish how to travel down it. we will get there.
to succeed it will have to have benefit to clubs and associations, state and national, to participants, and be friendly to organizers.
this is all achievable with a bit if positive thinking.
bruce.

Lynn Otto · Post by **Lynn Otto** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 9:50 pm

Woody_rod wrote:Barry, the main problem was the stupid course of fire and the stupid ranges shot within the "field rifle" category in the SSRs. THAT was the problem with field rifle, as it had absolutely nothing in common with the more popular disciplines at the time.

ANyone even remotely interested in this type of shooting would be better off under the SSAA rules and ranges where the shorter ranges are shot.

Rod you are obviously unaware of the field class that Barry was referring to, he did not mean the 'field' class itself with the three position thing. There used to be a F Class 'field rifle' which allowed for off the shelf 'hunting' rifles to be used within F Class, this is the one that was 'inadvertently' deleted from the rules when the F Class rules update was done.

Barry Davies · Post by **Barry Davies** » Sun Oct 30, 2011 7:26 am

Thanks Lynn, you got it correct.
Unfortunately this discipline didn't take off. We put it into an open comp at Castlemaine 3 or 4 years ago and only received two entries. The unfortunate side of this is that those who do have sporting type rifles now have to compete against the best of FS or FO and maybe shortly F/TR.
With the exception of a small minority these people are really Pissing into the wind from a competitive outlook.
Notwithstanding this, these are the people who are the untapped legions and where I think a vast number of F/TR will come from -- as in overseas countries.
If we are to survive we can only do so by increasing our numbers, not shuffling around what we have.

Barry