CMP & NRA National Matches

Why did the NRA separate from Camp Perry for their own matches? Has the attendance of the NRA and CMP national matches increased or decreased since that happened?

NRA left Perry primarily for financial reasons.  Their share of the costs kept going up and it was squeezing them out.  They were in a p***ng match with cmp as well which could have been the cause or could have been the effect but either way they decided to leave.

Participation is down for both.  The turmoil was going on for a couple of years which turned people off and Covid occurring during that transition didn’t help.  Match participation at Perry is better but the rest of the experience is hollow compared to what it used to be - commercial row is fairly empty for example.  Hopefully that will get back to the old days in future years.  I’ve shot the NRA matches both years and I like what they are trying to do.  The range is covered and the walk isn’t as bad so it’s a better shooting experience. I wish them well in trying to build that match back to the premier championships it once was.  

John

Ask any three shooters and you'll probably get four opinions. The NRA didn't want to spend any money or maybe it was that the CMP was trying to make the NRA foot the bill. The CMP stole negotiated the contract with the OHNG and pissed off the NRA pushed the NRA out. The NRA has been trying to leave for years (Muzzleloading, smallbore, high power then pistol). The NRA was stuck in it's ways wanted to maintain the historic nature of the events and the CMP wanted to make it a bunch of games expand and improve the matches.

As for attendance, the pistol matches increased through the 80's and 90's and peaked about the year 2000. It has been going down ever since. Attendance at Camp Perry for pistol week has been a little lower since the NRA left. It could be just be a continuation of the downward trend, it could be COVID or it could be the NRA departure. I don't know very many shooters that won't go to Perry because of the split. A lot more shooters are going to Perry the last 2 years than attending NRA Nationals at Camp Atterbury.

I updated this with the last two years and I remembered it wrong. The peak was in 1990, not 2000 as I said above.

There was a jump in 2003 and 2007 because they were the hundredth anniversary of the first National Matches (2003) and the first time they were held at Camp Perry (2007).

2017 was a terrible year. The CMP published a schedule that was very different from previous years. I heard it from what I consider a reliable source that they did it without telling the NRA they wanted to change. To attend both meant going to Camp Perry for the CMP weekend, then coming back a week later for the NRA matches. A lot of people sat that year out. Attendance seemed to be recovering when the NRA pulled out and then COVID hit. There were no National Matches in 2020.

My dad shot for the USCG NPT in 90, must have been fantastic… thanks for the insight on the topic. Thanks for the graph.

The graph is an interesting illustration, can attempt to make corrections to other happenings of the times.

SteveT wrote:Ask any three shooters and you'll probably get four opinions. The NRA didn't want to spend any money or maybe it was that the CMP was trying to make the NRA foot the bill. The CMP stole negotiated the contract with the OHNG and pissed off the NRA pushed the NRA out. The NRA has been trying to leave for years (Muzzleloading, smallbore, high power then pistol). The NRA was stuck in it's ways wanted to maintain the historic nature of the events and the CMP wanted to make it a bunch of games expand and improve the matches.

As for attendance, the pistol matches increased through the 80's and 90's and peaked about the year 2000. It has been going down ever since. Attendance at Camp Perry for pistol week has been a little lower since the NRA left. It could be just be a continuation of the downward trend, it could be COVID or it could be the NRA departure. I don't know very many shooters that won't go to Perry because of the split. A lot more shooters are going to Perry the last 2 years than attending NRA Nationals at Camp Atterbury.

One thing that doesn’t seem to occur to most people, is first that when the military stopped really supporting shooting and fielding all those teams, shooters weren’t going to show up simply because the numbers willing to pay their own way, was going to be a fraction of the number that would attend all expenses paid.  
Secondly for those of us willing to pay our own expenses, which keep going up…   who has three weeks vacation that they are willing to devote to bullseye?    When you could shoot Canton then both the NRA matches and the CMP matches at Perry with six days of vacation,  maybe seven it was a much for doable proposition for those who work.   Especially those who live more than a days drive away from any of the matches.   It’s 1200 miles for me.    I’m coming out “once” a year or not at all.

Schaumannk poses an interesting question regarding time(ing), scheduling, match fee's and I might add travel, room costs.

Steve T. has considerable knowledge of Perry history and a comparison of costs to attendance using his graph would be interesting.

The NM's will never compare to pre '68 attendance levels when there was military help with plus or minus $60 match fees. My Perry experience was 17 yrs of competition from the late 70's into the 90's. These were great years!!
Living near and working next door was a big advantage allowing frequenting Perry and commercial row before and after my competitive years.

Run Habegger

As a competitor that shoots both Pistol and Rifle, its disappointing that the NRA and CMP went thru a divorce. Hopefully the numbers will return. Having shot the last two years at Atterbury for the NRA matches for rifle, I can tell you they are trying and the experience is pretty good.  Here's to hoping they both find their footing again.

The NRA is spending tens of millions of dollars a year on lawyers to defend Wayne LaPierre and his ongoing criminal enterprise.  The NRA gets the millions they pay Wayne and his friends and family by picking the pockets of it's members.

From 1997 until 2019 I shot at Perry quite a few times, each year the quality of the shooting and respect paid the competitors declined a bit more.  While Camp Perry is nice and historic, it had very little to support a competitor, very little food, poor quality housing and the local area is kind of dumpy on its best day.  It took 20 years to get them to put up a covered area for spectators and waiting shooters, the NRA has always gone cheap at Perry.  The range conditions are marginal on a good day, you could be standing in 6 inches of water, with a foot in a gopher hole, at a bench with rotting boards or a bench 2.5 feet high in a hurricane force wind.  At best you can buy a $7 dollar hotdog from a carnie vendor at worst you starve all day.

That being said, I love Andy's and the evening gatherings of shooters, the Jolly Roger has awesome fish and most of the local people you meet are nice and glad to meet you.  The down side is how many locals are utterly surprised that 2,000 people are visiting because there is no PR from the NRA.  

It is no mystery why the numbers are declining, it is a long way to drive to spend a week shooting in conditions far different than your home range.  The NRA referees are always pretty decent and the tower talkers can for the most part get the commands correct and the ranges are safe.  But, the range equipment and target turners are original Army equipment from the late 1940's with little or no maintanence or upkeep and it appeared the NRA spend $100 dollars on WD-40 and called it good most years.

The volunteers make the match and as a shooter, I always try and thank them or help them out if they are unfamilar with bullseye.  The NRA did not appear to treat them very well.  I walked into the trophy building and found an older lady volunteer crying, an employee of the NRA had (according to her) "thrown a mop at her and told her to clean this place up!".  She had volunteered because her husband had came to shoot.

For me to shoot Camp Perry I have to take two or three weeks off, drive cross country, bring my camper or stay in hotels for three weeks, pay $4-500 dollars in entry fees for a match that does not even give me a T-shirt.  I cannot win my entry fees back no matter how well I shoot.  The poor range conditions and dealing with unhelpful NRA employees only make it worse and far less appealing.

Attendance was declining for several reasons, it is a long way to drive and a long time to take off of work for most people.  It is expensive to shoot, especially if it returns nearly nothing in prizes or awards.  Some years the weather is really miserable and some people do not like shooting in a hurriane without cover, haha.  And, there are other options for shooting that require fall less accuracy and far less time on the range.

I'm going back in 2024 to see how the CMP does it.  They seem to like competitors and have a real interest in expanding competitive shooting.

The shooting and organization is nearly the same as it was before the split. The CMP did replace the turning targets system and after a terrible experience in 2021 the check in procedure was better last year. Numbers are down significantly. Vendor support has been down, but hopefully things will get better this year. The new huts are much much better than the old ones and no barracks last year for pistol week. Other than that, housing is the same, food is the same or worse - shooter's mess hasn't been open for a few years, there were not many vendors on base last year and a lot of restaurants in town were closed. Andy's doesn't sell ice cream most of the year but did bring some in for the National Matches. I hope that is an option again this year.

No buffet at Bob’s Big Boy either. They can’t keep enough help to run it. The regular menu was still good.

Honestly, the whole Port Clinton area has grown up a lot over the past several years. There's some good places on Catawba and Marblehead. Check out Twin Oast Brewing. I have a young family, so they come with me for a week of "vacation". We generally get an Airbnb in Port Clinton. My girls love it.

If you stay on base for a week, yeah, it gets old.

Dave

It always makes me scratch my head when people talk about the “ divorce “. And as with most divorces, most have no clue about the underlying story and just keep repeating the same rumors and BS . As early as 2013, the NRA were quietly making plans to move to Atterbury. Why do you thing the Cardinal project was started? 
And no, the bill the NRA was to pay for their part of the MN was far less than most know. 
And to my knowledge, the NRA still hasn’t payed for the last two years they were at Perry.  
So you all have a choice…..
Come to Ohio, shoot all or part of the Triple Crown just as you have in the past. 
If you want to shoot the biggest NRA match, well that is either the Florida Regional or the Mid Winter in Phoenix. 
Me… I’ll be in Ohio in July.

Danehogle wrote: 

So you all have a choice…..
Come to Ohio, shoot all or part of the Triple Crown just as you have in the past. 
If you want to shoot the biggest NRA match, well that is either the Florida Regional or the Mid Winter in Phoenix. 
Me… I’ll be in Ohio in July.

Dane,
Just curious, I have heard for many years the Canton Regional is the largest. Was this true some yrs ago when Canton drew around 225 or 250 shooters? 

With the aging population of BE shooters and the move to sunny climes of our general population it seems logical the larger matches would be in AZ and/or FL.

At any rate it seems the center of the BE world in the future will be Perry, Canton, Cardinal, and possibly Bristol? What has happened to the Chief Wa Ke De range and that regional in the past several yrs?

OH  !!

Ron Habegger

Canton will be a CMP match this year.

Dave

Ron, 
As of this year, Canton is officially a CMP sanctioned event match gun event, just as the 2023 Bianchi cup is now also a CMP event. That being said, last year Canton had more than double the shooters at their regional than the NRA had at their “ nationals “. 
As to the regional at Bristol, last year it was reported that because of internal club politics and a date change, only 15 or so competitors fired that match.  I do hope that would change, but I haven’t heard of anything changing….. so far.

Ron,

Re' your comment about lots of retired folks shooting Bullseye in AZ - sadly, in my experience, that is not the case. Apart from the Desert Mid-Winter event which draws active Bullseye shooters from all over, the number of Bullseye shooters in AZ is actually very small. It is very unusual to see more than 10 shooters on the line at the monthly NRA 2700's at PRGC. The only other range with permanent turning targets in AZ is, AFAIK, Tony Silva's White Mountain range, they also typically only get quite a small turnout. There are a couple of other clubs who shoot "casual" Bullseye. Rio Salado gets quite a few shooters, also I'm told that Wickenberg and Yuma get small numbers, but none of them have turning targets.

Just FYI