Yeah i would say explosion in popularity. We have almost every brand fielding a “competition ready” rifle out of the box for just that. Sure it’s still a minority of the shooting populace but to act like there isn’t a market for it is just false. The advancement in ffp/mil based optics in the last 10 years as well as the ruger rpr and the like are proof of that. Least comparable to what it was.
Not sure how much is production ballers on a budget for prs/nrl compared to folks that just want to dabble but not go 5-figures…”I wanna shoot 1000y, but I don’t want to spend more than $3k total to do it” types.
But point taken