Camp Perry or Cardinal Center

First topic message reminder :

Good morning all.  I was on this site this morning and read through the questions being asked about the Cardinal Center.  I thought that I would share some things with you and generate some discussion.

Mark Johnson, the COO of CMP, has advised that he will go to his Board of Directors and ask for funding to install electronic targets at Camp Perry that will be suitable to fire High Power, Smallbore, and Pistol.  If approved, the target date for being up and running is for the start of the National Matches in 2017.  The NRA will pay a lease fee to CMP for use of these targets.

I was recently contacted by a representative of the Cardinal Center and asked to commit to going there in 2017.  Cardinal Center will probably use turning targets and paper, just like what we use at Camp Perry now.  I did not commit but left the door open.  I cannot commit to going to a range that currently does not exist.  The target date for the start of the Cardinal Center is the start of the National Matches in 2017.

So now we might be faced with a choice; 1) stay at Camp Perry and shoot on electronic targets; 2) move to Cardinal Center and shoot on turning targets.

Everyone who has shot the National Matches knows what Camp Perry is like so I won't dwell on that.  At Cardinal Center there would be some major changes.  Not in the way the events are fired but in the way you live.  The cabins onsite would likely be taken up by the NRA to house staff, leaving RVs and hotels as the other housing options.  If you elect NOT to rent/bring an RV, hotels become important.  The nearest exit with hotels is 9 miles away and the next exit with hotels is 19 miles away.  I don't consider these distances to be objectionable but you might based on what you are used to.  At Bianchi Cup competitors drive 15 miles one way to the range each day and don't complain about it but this is a major change from the way things work at Camp Perry.  It won't be quite so easy to run back to your room after shooting a morning 900 and then return for the team matches that afternoon.  There is one, and only one, restaurant on site but plenty near the hotels.

The Cardinal Center is a terrific place but will entail some changes by everyone, NRA and competitors, alike.

Kick around the pros and cons and let me know what you think.

Dennis Willing

+1 on what James said.

For rifle, electronic target matches really don't change much if on electronic targets or paper.

In pistol, the targets are not compatible with the sport as it is now.

I vote to remain at Perry until Cardinal has run at least one full season of monthly bullseye matches, including at least one multi-day match and one regional match.  As for paper vs. electronic, my bullets don't care, they go where they go.

james r chapman wrote:Steve, as I recall, and it's been 40 years, when you see the targets rise, you drop into your positions. I don't recall holding a sight picture and waiting for the target to rise to it.

Highpower and bullseye are apples and apricots imho...

Yes, the advantage in bullseye is that you already have your sights on the edge of the target frame. Will admit that rapids with a 45 is more challenging than rapid with a rifle

steve_podleski wrote:

james r chapman wrote:Steve, as I recall, and it's been 40 years, when you see the targets rise, you drop into your positions. I don't recall holding a sight picture and waiting for the target to rise to it.

Highpower and bullseye are apples and apricots imho...

Yes, the advantage in bullseye is that you already have your sights on the edge of the target frame. Will admit that rapids with a 45 is more challenging than rapid with a rifle

The shooter starts from a low ready position in the CMP 22 distinguished matches. Has anyone heard if starting from the low ready position is being considered for the service pistol distinguished matches using e-targets since those rules have yet to be written. One consideration may be that starting from the low ready position eliminates the reduced field of view through a red-dot sight and the shooter would raise the pistol when the light changed from red to green.

I Pref the low ready vs the turning targets it is more similar to international pistol competion.

After taking a quick look at the targets on the maker's website, I don't see an insurmountable problem in mounting these gizmos in a turning frame.  Of course it will add to the expense and perhaps make the sensors vulnerable to an early or late shot but I think it could be done.

+1 for a low ready start across the board for pistol, paper and electronic, NRA and CMP.

It seems that is what CMP is pushing.  The low ready in .22 EIC as evidence.

KevinB wrote:It seems that is what CMP is pushing.  The low ready in .22 EIC as evidence.

It's good practice for shooting ISSF Standard Pistol

Low ready be damned...
This is turning into a Face Book discussion.. Ready to cave in to appease the establishment and/or for the sake of something new and different..

Those that want to shoot international can shoot low ready already. Why screw it for the majority of us who don't.

Jerry Keefer wrote:Low ready be damned...
This is turning into a Face Book discussion.. Ready to cave in to appease the establishment and/or for the sake of something new and different..

+1

Those that want to shoot international can shoot low ready already. Why screw it for the majority of us who don't.

+1

Low ready be damned...
This is turning into a Face Book discussion.. Ready to cave in to appease the establishment and/or for the sake of something new and different..

+1

Low ready? Electronic targets? This is sacrilege! The game I admire the shooters I admire, Reeves, Askins, Clark, WALSH!!! Changing positions, changing the target, it changes the sport. And it's not the sport I waited so long to shoot. Paper and turning frames. That's part of the excitement. Electronics is too expensive and too much of an ordeal to change. We've shot paper and turning for so many years... Why change now?

All.

I had a long conversation with Dennis Willing about this subject and the future of smallbore since I am deeply invested in both.  He was very gracious to give me an hour of his time.  He would have allowed me more time to talk but I had to get back to my daughter who was competing at the Winter Air Gun Championships in Colorado.

NRA COST: For the NRA, its mostly about cost.  He made the point that the NRA pays over $4 million to run the national matches.  The majority of that sum is paid for through the NRA Foundation grants which accounts for about $3+ million of that sum. The CMP provides only $60,000 of that sum leaving almost $1 million for the NRA Competitions division to pay for the rest.

COMPETITOR COST: For me it is is far more expensive to shoot at Cardinal and especially Bristol if I have to stay in a hotel.  The onsite lodging reduces my costs by about 75%!  I pointed out that if they doubled the entry fees I would still be paying way less to shoot at Perry.  Even if I do not stay on base in Perry, I usually rental a house or condo with several friends and pay much less than a hotel room rate.

CONDITIONS: One of the major non financial points Dennis made was the deplorable conditions the competitors have to shoot under.  I would prefer that we have a permanent or semi permanent cover to shoot both pistol and smallbore.  I pointed out that turning targets could still be used from a single firing point/line if we found a way to make it work.  Most ranges that have turning targets are all shot from the same firing line.  Competitors just move the target frames to the short line when done with the long line.

ELECTRONICS: I think that if the CMP uses electronic targets, the NRA wants to scrap the turning targets and use the available electronic targets as another cost saving move. While in Colorado for winter airgun, I talked to Keith Sanderson at length about this.  He made many excellent points.  One of which was the bugs.  Bugs at FT Benning are not as bad as Perry but still can cause mis-reads on target hits.  Imagine the mis-hits registered because of the millions/billions of much larger mayflies as they fly in and out of the targets.

PREFERENCE: I made it clear that I was interested in keeping everything at Camp Perry but that I would shoot pistol or smallbore at either Cardinal or Camp Perry if it came to it, but that I would not go to Bristol.   I prefer the turning targets over electronic but would shoot on both.  Local ranges cannot afford the expense of electronic targets for bullseye.  If this does move to Cardinal, I sincerely hope they build more onsite lodging because the only other option in that area are expensive daily rate hotels.  Cost will determine my long term involvement in both pistol and especially smallbore.

I really do hope that Dennis and the NRA take into account the history and the future of the sport by keeping a unified national matches at Camp Perry.  The NRA Competitions as an organization, should keep the interest of the competitors they serve in mind when they make these types of major decisions.

Thank you Dennis for providing the shooting community the information you shared here.  Its not easy given the sensitivity most have towards the information given.

As for housing costs, have you contacted Cardinal for on site housing options and costs for the pistol event? Their parked rented RV option sounded good to me, other facilities adjacent to their facility can house hundreds and I would think they would be less expensive than a hotel. These options ma not be listed on their web site because their housing options depend on the event ETC.

The "other" housing at Cardinal is more akin to the Perry Barracks, than the 100 new huts, or the transient housing, or the motel, or the cottages not taken by the NRA. 

I want to shoot at Cardinal, but a regional as a first event would make more sense.

Electronic targets for Precision Pistol are a new thing and the CMP has decided they want to be the "Early Adopter"

I can remember when smartphones first came out.  It was cool to have the technology, but they were big, bulky and I couldn't get them to do what I really wanted them to do.  The technology at that time was just not quite there yet but I suffered through. 

For you shooters who are old enough, remember how much a calculator cost in 1970?  Now you can buy one for under a dollar or you just get one as part of your phone.  The technology and the cost of the item finally got to a point where everyone could have them.

I don't have an issue with the CMP wanting to be the early adopter but what I don't like is how they are implementing it.  in my opinion the targets should be used at the local levels first and we shouldn't be seeing them at the National level until the technology and the cost gets to a point where the majority of shooters have had time to use them, and a good number of ranges have them installed.  (That means more than two.) Yes that is a number of years down the road.  Right now our time and money would be better spent on facilities and promotion. 

Last Sunday we ran a 2700 relay of 12 shooters in five hours.  We only switched targets between strings and scored them after each 900 while we chatted and ate a bite.  That's about as fast as you can run a 2700.  I don't think its currently worth the hundreds of thousands of dollars to install e- targets to squeeze maybe 30 minutes out of a match.  Someday the cost will come down to something that is much closer to the cost of a turning target system.

 Electronic targets for Precision Pistol are a novelty at this point.   A very very expensive novelty.  I do not want my National Championship match to be scored by a novelty.

CMP wasn't the early adopter, the ISU were.  Because of their nature, these are classed as "industrial" systems so we will never get the economies of scale like in consumer items.  In short they will always be relatively expensive.  They work and are accurate enough for ISU World championships.  

The reason for turning targets was for time control during the sustained fire stages.  That's why they are required for regionals.  In rifle the pits are used for time control.  

Games change when equipment changes.  The NFL moved the goalposts to the back of the end zone for safety reasons.  The teams adapted.  Baseball lowered the height of the mound to take away some of the pitcher's advantage.  NASCAR changed to smaller engines then to the Car Of Tomorrow but it didn't affect the results.  

I don't see any major issue with e targets and it will likely make the championships more reliable and smoother running overall.

Wobbley,
In the NFL, the field is still 100 yards.
In Baseball, the bases are still 90 feet apart.
In NASCAR, they are still racing cars with four tires.
Shooting a championship in a manner in witch only a hand full of military and civilians who live near Talledega may practice, IMO is the problem. It is my opinion that The rush by the CMP to change our sport to conform with ISSF. If I wanted to shoot international, I would, along with the othe 20 people.
I find it funny that people here that want to stay at Perry, want to because of the history and tradition, at the same time they propose changing the very core of the sport.
Is it not time that we, as shooters get a prepose built range, that is open to the public the week before the " big match" and caters to the competitor.???

Certainly we can adapt. We can also just go play golf, after all it is simply trying to put a small object in the center of a small target over some distance.

That does not make it the same sport!

Bruce

Wobbley,

I did discuss turning electronic targets with the technicians, and it's just not possible for 2 reasons.  The sensors cannot accurately locate the shot position for a skidder.  Also, the sensors themselves would be hit by any skidder that entered the front of the target, but skidded outside of the scoring rings.

To me the decision should be made on maintenance and consideration of shooter accuracy.  Sprayfast shooters kill off the ordinary framework at my range to the point there are no frames left.  Sometimes they do it on purpose or at least by stupidity.  I would never consider electrics in this case.  And if a wire is hit in just the wrong place on the daisychained targets, several will go down.  And what does a non lethal frame hit do to the integrity of the sound chamber for following shots? 

That and cost....

Danehogle wrote:Wobbley,
In the NFL, the field is still 100 yards.
In Baseball, the bases are still 90 feet apart.
In NASCAR, they are still racing cars with four tires.
Shooting a championship in a  manner in witch only a hand full of military and civilians who live near  Talledega may practice, IMO is the problem.

And in bullseye, with electronic or paper targets, the distances from the shooter to the target will still be 25 & 50 yards. The same amount of time will be used for Slow, Timed, and Rapid. The size of the black on the targets will be the same. I don't accept the argument that you can't practice for the Nationals on paper and it will somehow be a completely different sport if you have an electronic target. The only difference will be the turning targets. And that is only to make it clear if someone pops off a shot too early. Plenty of people who shoot air pistol practice on paper targets, then shoot electronic targets in matches. If the targets are the same size, the amount of time is the same, the distances are the same, how in the world are you going to not be able to shoot the same on match day with electronic targets?

^  the CMP and maybe the NRA would have to change to a low ready start.  This way you can practice on your home range and the only difference will be the scoring system.  As I mentioned before the CMP has created the 22lr EIC and you start at the low ready.  All the CMP games pistol matches are low ready.  When the CMP goes to E-targets you will see that the starts will be from a low ready till some kind of indication is heard/seen that your course of fired has started( I'm guessing).  Some of us will embrace the change, and some will not.  I would hope a change like this wouldn't make you abandon the sport and all your time and $$ that you put into.