Bullseye Losing Interest?

First topic message reminder :

Improvements to my clubs pistol range for Bullseye are being denide. The reason I have been told is BULLSEYE game is dying. The "CHL/CCW" crowd is taking over in popularity. Is this true?..

This is my first year of shooting bullseye or anything competitive.  Call me crazy but I don't understand the infatuation of shooting the action pistol events.  Shooting fast and running from one point to another does not seem challenging to me.  I also like the fact that bullseye match is continuous.  I see people at my club load up a gun and shoot a bunch of ammo without much purpose other than how fast they can pull trigger.  However in bullseye each bullet has a purpose whether its practice or a match the x ring is the goal.  

The club I shoot at had a good group of bullseye shooters but I am the youngest at 41.  The rest of the group is older and I don't think they have much interest in growing the sport.  After I get this season under my belt I plan on trying to promote our sport in hopes of bringing in some new shooters.

CrankyThunder wrote:
Dear Spence:

I agree with you 100%

I read your post and while we have a very active shooting community here in the Lansing Michigan area, the six teams in our league have very limited information on their websites.  the league website, Central Michigan Rifle and Pistol League, does have more information but...... 

With that being said, anybody here that wants to shoot bullseye in the Lansing Michigan area, shoot me a pm, drop me a post, or email me at crankythunder at yahoo dot com and I will get ya started.  Since we always shoot a couple lines you can use my equipment to get started as well.  

We got a spot on the line for ya!

Regards,
Cranky

Cranky, thanks for the generous offer. If I ever leave Oregon I'll move to Michigan where Bullseye is still popular. I got a blow this year as the local pistol club no longer holds outdoor 2700's monthly. I'll keep shooting though.
Spence

Colt711 wrote:
Really amazing, is the no of guys who shoot an AR at the 10?! About the longest a lot of them shoot is 25 yds which makes zero sense to me.

Ron

Perhaps they are zeroing their rifles?  As long as you're using iron sights, or an optic that has a point of aim at the same height of your iron sights, you can zero an AR rifle at 25 yards which keeps you within 3 inches out to 300 yards.  Since my scope is so high above the bore (2-3/4"), I zero at 50 yards.

My club where Spence shoots is indeed without BE matches this year because there is zero to little support of traditional competitions from our members.  This includes traditional rifles too.  There are two main Bullseye shooters amongst us -  Roddy and myself, both Distinguished.  Following close are Spence and a couple others.  Matches have been attended by as few as 4-6 shooters to about 15-25 for a State.  Sometimes more, sometimes less.  Roddy and I are officers in the club.  Quite frankly officer duties take more time than what we can spend on our own shooting.  Not to mention day jobs etc. 

I am actually worried.  Most club pistol shooters want to shoot fast, close, make noise and see things fall down.

After learning how to shoot a pistol last year, it seemed like a natural progression to try Bullseye shooting before the other pistol sports. If you can't hit a static target, running around won't help. After some searching I found a club with a Bullseye range.

While I haven't competed yet, I've helped a friend realize he could keep all of his shots on the 50 yard with his Ruger Mark II. I'm impressed with the people and the history of the sport, and the analysis of data over opinion/anecdote.

My first bullseye match attempt was at 50 feet with a Ruger SR22 my wife wanted for Christmas.  I got smoked worse than a salmon... BUT the guy running the match made sure I had a good time. (nice job, you put 6 on paper that time, not bad!!)  THAT is what is missing, hooking new people by making sure they enjoy it.  This is so much like bowling, only louder......  Serious bowlers (the minority by the way) throw 190's and up, have high zoot stuff and get all techy about it. A lot of people bowl for FUN and are more concerned with the good time.....  We want to appeal more to the good time people to grow this thing.....

Bullseye is not boring. In action pistol you drive to the range , wait long periods of time until it is your turn. You shoot 30-50 rounds in 25 seconds and then go home. That is unless you shoot the course twice. Then you wait an hour or so and then shoot 30-50 trying to beat the previous 25 seconds and then go home.
 While Bullseye is not a spectator sport is sure is a challenge. Bullseye is competing against yourself.
 I just read a comment in a magazine that said you really did NOT want to shoot a tight group in a self defense situation. In SD you wanted multiple shots at various places within the assailant to stop the threat.

Bullseye is definately not losing interest around my area I am glad to say!!!  Yesterday I had 21 shooters at our monthly match and 4 are new to the sport within the last year or so.  And one is improving by leaps and bounds and if he hadn't already done from the previous match has now earned his expert card.  It was a great day on the firing line for me personally as well as for the sport to have 21 shooters with several regulars that weren't able to come.

Scott