How many Bullseye competition shooters in USA ?

How many Bullseye competition shooters do you think are in the USA ? Competition meaning big national , regional , State matches and the small local gun range matches that might have 6 local Matches a year. ? Just a rough idea ? 
Thanks. MD

Probably less than 50000.

A lot more than I thought. MD

Hmmm. 50,000. In 2024? That sounds like an over-estimate to me. I do understand that there are a lot more clubs and shooters on the East Coast and SE states, but in AZ, CA, OR, WA, ID, etc., AFAIK, the numbers are quite small, much less than 1,000 per state. As an example, the IERPA postal league had about 62x4 shooters this past winter = 250. Let's say that only 1/4 of the regular shooters in those states participated = 1000 total. I would be surprised if the regional total is significantly more than that. My "Wild Ass Guess" is less than 20,000 national total, but I am happy if proven wrong!

It reinforces the need to recruit…too many buy a junk 9 and tac-ti-cool gear to do the run snd gun stuff….but only a few of them can really shoot accurately.

I show them what’s possible even with their equipment level. I wrote a book. I do training classes.

What can you do? Bring someone new, bring a junior….etc etc. 

 keep the event short snd interesting seems to be key

I think that quite a few years ago, that I read that there were around 36,000 active "conventional pistol' classification cards. I'd have to guess that that figure has fallen quite a bit since then.

Maybe the NRA/CMP can provide that information

I can speak for the entire USA but I do have some data from my small club. Last year we had 15-20 club members participate in leagues and matches. We probably have another 15-20 other members who have participated in the past but currently are not due to conflicting factors (medical issues, kids/grandkids, job changes). Of that 30-40 people who do or have shot bullseye, about 10% of those will shoot events outside the club if they have time availability. 

Some things to take into consideration, if you are starting from square one today the upfront costs for equipment are somewhat prohibitive, especially if you want to shoot 45. As much as shooting 22 only is a good thing for new shooters they often want to shoot a CF gun like everyone else too. As an example lets break it down:
-Reloading press set up (brand/feature dependent) ~$1-1200
-case of large primer ~$450-500 (depending on if you can find them locally or if you need to pay hazmat)
-5000 projectiles ~$1000
-1lb of bullseye ~$60 (maybe more if including hazmat, also not always available)
-Springfield Range officer in 45 ~$850-900, (add ~$200-800 for "light modifications such as trigger work, tube style dot and mount, springs, grips, ect.)
-Some sort of ruger, xsse, buckmark ~$500-1000 
-case of 22 ~$350-400
-Gun box ~$100-250 maybe more 
Roughly $4-5000 for just about everything equipment and supplies require to be "on Par" with most shooters at larger regional events. Obviously this can be done cheaper if you look for deals and done over a period of time but end of the day equipment costs are relatively high.

If you look at some of the steel type competitions, they are designed so you can literally but an off the shelf  gun, ammo that you can buy at just about any gun store and compete and be competitive (yes their are exceptions to this for "high level competitors"). 

The other conundrum is you often have to travel to shoot matches, the last match I shot was a 3 hour drive and I had to leave 0500 to get there at the starting time. 6 hours of driving, 3-4 hours of a match in a day is a long day, often a big ask for people to who would like to " relax" on the weekend. If you take into account travel costs, current market value of ammo, ect. it also is not inexpensive to shoot a match. 

People shoot this game because they enjoy it. It is not easy and it gets expensive, two significant barriers to entry. I am sure a segment of people exist that would like to compete, but in someway it is prohibitive to do so (family, job, health, travel, ect.).

With all that said, be kind to all that show up to matches and leagues. If someone doesn't fully know the rules, has issues scoring, ect, help them out. It is unfortunate that some in this game are not kind to the new commers.

You have to be into mental self abuse to shoot NRA Precision Pistol. It's the only discipline to never to have been cleaned. How many are there with our disposition in the US? 

exclude Golfers

In Montana there are less than 20.

Hopefully one day everyone stops making fun of the running and shooting competitors, they support shooting also. I have never heard them whining about their numbers declining. Disclaimer: I don't shoot that competition.

In Oregon we have about 55 active who shot an indoor league and about half shoot outdoors.  Washington might have a few more but I do not think it would be double.  

I would be shocked if we had more than 5000 across the US

We have 180 active in my regional league of 8 clubs.

There’s a lot more closer to the big cities, a lot less in the countryside.

chiz1180 wrote:I can speak for the entire USA but I do have some data from my small club. Last year we had 15-20 club members participate in leagues and matches. We probably have another 15-20 other members who have participated in the past but currently are not due to conflicting factors (medical issues, kids/grandkids, job changes). Of that 30-40 people who do or have shot bullseye, about 10% of those will shoot events outside the club if they have time availability. 

Some things to take into consideration, if you are starting from square one today the upfront costs for equipment are somewhat prohibitive, especially if you want to shoot 45. As much as shooting 22 only is a good thing for new shooters they often want to shoot a CF gun like everyone else too. As an example lets break it down:
-Reloading press set up (brand/feature dependent) ~$1-1200
-case of large primer ~$450-500 (depending on if you can find them locally or if you need to pay hazmat)
-5000 projectiles ~$1000
-1lb of bullseye ~$60 (maybe more if including hazmat, also not always available)
-Springfield Range officer in 45 ~$850-900, (add ~$200-800 for "light modifications such as trigger work, tube style dot and mount, springs, grips, ect.)
-Some sort of ruger, xsse, buckmark ~$500-1000 
-case of 22 ~$350-400
-Gun box ~$100-250 maybe more 
Roughly $4-5000 for just about everything equipment and supplies require to be "on Par" with most shooters at larger regional events. Obviously this can be done cheaper if you look for deals and done over a period of time but end of the day equipment costs are relatively high.

If you look at some of the steel type competitions, they are designed so you can literally but an off the shelf  gun, ammo that you can buy at just about any gun store and compete and be competitive (yes their are exceptions to this for "high level competitors"). 

The other conundrum is you often have to travel to shoot matches, the last match I shot was a 3 hour drive and I had to leave 0500 to get there at the starting time. 6 hours of driving, 3-4 hours of a match in a day is a long day, often a big ask for people to who would like to " relax" on the weekend. If you take into account travel costs, current market value of ammo, ect. it also is not inexpensive to shoot a match. 

People shoot this game because they enjoy it. It is not easy and it gets expensive, two significant barriers to entry. I am sure a segment of people exist that would like to compete, but in someway it is prohibitive to do so (family, job, health, travel, ect.).

With all that said, be kind to all that show up to matches and leagues. If someone doesn't fully know the rules, has issues scoring, ect, help them out. It is unfortunate that some in this game are not kind to the new commers.

Your point of view assumes that the 2700 is the main draw of bullseye and to really be competitive ie for a shot to *win* one needs to handload to be competitive, one needs a gun box to be competitive, obviously needs 3 guns to even compete in the main category, etc. 

I believe shooting the 2700 should not be used as the main way to entice new shooters as it is a little bit much for a brand new bullseye shooter to get into just from the standpoint of time commitment, and also in terms of cost/logistics. 

Ideally, the new bullseye shooter should start in the EIC matches, the NTI, presidents pistol match, service pistol, and the as-issued stuff all offered through the CMP; to be competitive in those matches is actually quite affordable both in terms of time and equipment/ammunition cost: you can shoot all 3 EICs in less than an afternoon whereas a 2700 is an all-day or multi day affair and you're only shooting 30-40 rounds in a match. Additionally, they *feel* more fair to the new shooter because they are only competing against the other non-distinguished shooters who also likely lack an ideal setup. They also feel very rewarding to a new shooter because there are doo-dads and badges and doohickeys at the end of it all, it has a goal to work towards that carries over from one match to another rather than the focus being to win any one 90 shot match or the whole 3 gun aggregate in their classification, and you also don't have to win the whole thing to "win" an EIC match in terms of getting points towards the badges.

With that said, I also believe a 9mm is superior for service pistol especially since there tends to be better/more accurate factory loadings of 9mm and standard 9mm guns than the run of the mill .45/1911, plus the very low cost of ammunition allows the shooter to practice more. At the very least, you can get match grade atlanta arms ammo in 9mm for the price of the worst winchester white box .45 ACP. Even still, if one wants to shoot a .45, Tisas makes a fantastically tight/accurate 1911 for $300 that I'm sure could be accurized further for not a lot of money, ie a NM bushing, if the competitor desires. I personally have one where all I did was put kensights on the standard GI dovetail/staked front sight and shot some Winchester USA Ready .45 through it, and after zeroing the sights I put 5 shots in the 10 ring of a b-16 offhand without even trying very hard. I'm sure from a ransom rest, these are  3.5"-4" guns at 50 yards with the right ammo as most auto-loaders are these days.

As far as a .22, this is where the competitor should spend a little bit more money on something nice like an old hammerli international/208/215; about a thousand bucks. But then from then on, 5,000 rounds of what I would consider to be match grade ammo, CCI Standard, is less than $400. Some of you might thumb your noses at the notion that CCI Standard is match grade ammo, but I've shot a 290-11x with CCI standard and a hammerli 208 in .22 eic practice, a score higher than what David Lange won last year's .22 EIC match at the national matches (and I have a video to prove it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqvr_saNJ3I), although I'm sure I was shooting under more ideal circumstances than at Perry

If you want to start shooting bullseye today, I don't see why someone couldn't pick up a Tisas 1911, a Beretta 92, PX 4 storm, CZ-75, Ruger MK IV, Browning Buckmark, Hammerli 208, S&w K22/Mod 17, S&W K38/Mod 14 whatever and start shooting EICs and winning points. But they're not going to be ready to shoot a 2700 from the get go and if you run a 2700 match over a weekend or something, I really suggest trying to organize some kind of EIC match and market it towards new bullseye shooters. Tell them, bring your old Beretta 92, come out and shoot it, and put them side by side with a good shooter and show them what's possible with a little practice and maybe a better set of sights, and that's how you hook them in. 

There are a lot of sports out there where you can take a factory handgun to the line, but you're going to be changing mags out of your pocket, or in the case of say run and gun revolver competitions, you might be reloading one round at a time if you lack the exorbitant match specific speedloaders, or dont have enough cheapo HKS's, because why would any normal person have more than two speedloaders; and the special holster setup, and the optics that are so popular right now etc, etc. 

Bullseye is the only sport where someone can a take a $600 S&W K38 from the early 1950s, load it with PMC Bronze 132gr FMJ, ie the cheapest .38 special on the market, and shoot a score that wins a match. I know because I just did it recently, and I won by a pretty decent margin and if I had shot the same score at the national matches last year, that score would have been in the top 10 of 200 competitors. 

And just to be clear, this is from my experience as a new bullseye shooter. I only started competing in November of last year so this is all very relevant to me. I have a box, I still don't use it and just bring an assortment of pistol cases and a locker bag with ammo/tools etc to the line. I use a terrible, terrible amazon quality scope to spot my shots on the shoddy tripod it came with. I shoot only factory guns with factory ammo (in fact i had to make one of my factory guns "worse" from the factory by raising the trigger pull by a pound) and I am achieving a level of success I simply don't think would be possible with other sports with an equivalently "lacking" setup. I say this as someone who has primarily shot high power rifle with said equivalently lacking setup.  And I love high power rifle shooting but at this point it is cost prohibitive for me to shoot to the level that I want to practice/perform at in all stages and it is much more logistically challenging BECAUSE the "service rifle" matches have become as cost prohibitive to new shooters in the sport as the 2700 has become in bullseye. I think there are probably other high power shooters who feel this way and considering high power still seems to be much more popular than bullseye, maybe the people you should seek to sway are not pistol shooters from other sports, but high power rifle shooters and PRS guys. I think the bullseye mindset has a LOT more in common with those types of shooters than the typical action matches which are more time focused where it's a given that the top level shooters are going to essentially hit/clean all the targets. 

And I haven't even shot a 2700 yet because I've already been too focused on shooting/getting DOPE on my 3 EIC guns (H208/K38/SIG P210). I plan on shooting it .22 only at Perry and the 22 only option is great and I think if a new bullseye shooter were to attend a longer/larger event, they would be much better served shooting it .22 only. This lowers cost and allows the new shooter to focus on shooting one gun very well instead of trying to chase DOPE on all 3 guns, or 2 guns. Also this will be my first year attending Perry! Which is awesome! I've always wanted to go to the NM's and this is the first year i'm able to since I dont have a job that takes me out of state in the summer.

Anyways that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
In short, try and draw new shooters toward EIC matches not 2700s.

I agree with almost everything said here.

Do what chiz1180 and I do.

Shoot matches. Run matches. Help run matches. Shoot matches that other people are running, even when you don't feel like it (even when people snipe at you with quips like, "What happened to your usual scores?")

Help people run their matches.

Show up. Be safe. Have fun. Run what you brung. We'll help you.

#1: SHOW UP.

We'll figure out the rest.

Jared06 brings up a point. We could attract more shooters, perhaps, by inviting some of the “run and-gun” types to EIC matches. Most every one of those has a 9mm and more than most have iron sights. In and out in an afternoon. They likely won’t win much, but they might be hooked. As an aside, at a regional USPSA they had 500 competitors. 6-8 stages, about 180 rounds in 120-150 seconds firing time. At a monthly , the local USPSA match had 120 competitors firing 6 stages. Our monthly bullseye has 4.

Our indoor .22 winter league had a little over 250 shooters here in central PA.

I don't really think that costs are the huge roadblock. I started with a Ruger MKI, safety glasses, ear plugs and a cheap hand held scope. I cut out some foam to use to carry the pistol. I earned the least amount in my life, as I was working part-time and going to school full-time. I was married and had one toddler. I was encouraged by a couple of other guys going to school with me. We shared rides to matches often. One match that I went to, had a playground for the kids and my wife and child tagged along. The biggest thing that keeps people away from bullseye pistol shooting, is the difficulty, appearance that it is boring, and the misconception that it is irrelevant to "real life". Another huge roadblock is that it isn't supported by the military. As the military slowly withdrew their support over decades, the sport died a little more over decades. With the number of matches declining, one needs to REALLY want to participate in the sport more than ever before. Looking back, it is NOT about the equipment and certainly there is all kinds of available free information about the sport (unlike in prior decades). It is about the people. People will encourage and help others to participate to build the sport or it will continue to fade away.

>>>>>

Anyone registering for the 2024 Bianchi Cup is automatically entered into the CMP's drawing for a Pistol and 20 bricks of .22 ammo. A person has 21 chances at winning something by just registering for that match.

The CMP has never done that for the precision pistol championships at Camp Perry.

Maybe the CMP sees precision pistol shooters are declining and has decided to focus on action pistol shooters. 

.

Don’t forget the CMP has to remain relevant to society and the government at large. The US Military no longer considers Bullseye Pistol shooting as a source of recruits. If all we have are 500 middle aged competitors whereas Action pistol has 5000 shooters in their 20s, where will the military be.? The CMP also picked up the Bianchi Cup from the NRA in 2023… I’m not sure why, but there may have been some sponsorship requests involved. So that’s where the money is, but the CMP is still supporting Bullseye.

Wobbley wrote:Don’t forget the CMP has to remain relevant to society and the government at large.  The US Military no longer considers Bullseye Pistol shooting as a source of recruits.  If all we have are 500 middle aged competitors whereas Action pistol has 5000 shooters in their 20s, where will the military be.?  The CMP also picked up the Bianchi Cup from the NRA in 2023… I’m not sure why, but there may have been some sponsorship requests involved.   So that’s where the money is, but the CMP is still supporting Bullseye.

I'm not sure where you're getting those numbers. Last years Bianchi Cup only had about 130 competitors, much less than the 400 or so at last years NTI/P100. That's probably why the CMP is trying to entice people to the event by offering a chance at a 1911, ammo etc. It seems to me like that is an underperforming event at least by attendance standards. Also, let's be real here, even if there were 500 bullseye competitors vs 5000 action pistol shooters nationwide, all of the competitive shooting sports are filled with middle aged shooters, not people in their younger 20s with little disposable income/time to be shooting matches. If you look at stuff like Smallbore, Air pistol, Air rifle, that stuff is still fairly popular with the age groups that matter in terms of getting/hooking life long shooters.

Here is the breakdown of competitors for a “Area Match”.  There are over 500 competitors.  For the Phoenix Mid Winter Classic there are 70?

[i]https://i.servimg.com/u/f26/19/14/74/76/img_0417.png[/img]

chiz1180 wrote:BE Mike


Let me toss some rough math comparing Average income and average mortgage costs between 1987 and 2023. These numbers were all found from simple google searches. I chose 1987 as arguably it is considered as a good period of time in bullseye in general and the interest rates of the time are comparable to now.


1987
Avg household income: $30,850/yr, or $2,570/month
Avg monthly mortgage payment at 7% interest: $712
Basically 27% of household income directed towards homeownership


2024
Avg. household income: $59,384/yr or 4948/month
Avg monthly mortgage payment at 7% interest:$2,268
Basically 45% of household income is directed towards homeownership.

Basically 23% more household income is needed to own a home today in 2024 than in 1987. Also note that this ignores any inflation considerations. If you do a similar calculator for rent the result is similar. If you are in your mid 20s to mid 30s this is rather relevant to disposable income.

I don't argue your point that inflation is eating up people's income. My point is that people will spend a certain amount of money for luxuries, entertainment and recreation, be it owning a pet, drinking adult beverages, golf, bowling, fishing, movies, pickle ball, tennis, jogging, bicycling or whatever. To get into bullseye pistol shooting, one doesn't have to jump in whole hog. I expect that the average shooter starts off pretty small, if for no other reason, to make sure that he/she is going to stay with the sport. A .22 pistol, a couple of boxes of .22 ammo and eyes and ears aren't going to break most young folks. I actually gave up adult beverages and cigarettes to afford it (the health benefits were also a driving force).