That this marvelous sport could conceivably grow to this extent: The reason an international series is helpful is because Olympic level sports adds tremendous credibility to the shooting sports. This makes it much harder to deny there are "sporting purposes" to our equipment and supplies. Very helpful when we're fighting against increased regulation of our pastimes...is, it seems to me highly desirable. I'm pretty new to precision rifle shooting and have found so many people so very helpful. Top-notch facilities have been, it seems to me, few and far between and I'm heartened this seems to be changing.
K&M, Altus, Gunline, Gunsite et al (more coming on line) are fine facilities and I'm grateful they are available. I do understand how someone who's invested so much time and money into a facility like K&M would be protective of what he and his wife have built and how ideas of expanding and growing the sport beyond what PRS and NRL have managed to do so far is treated skeptically. And the Wuhan/Covid scourge hasn't helped. I am disheartened at the divisiveness I'm now seeing in the shooting community, as in our country. Aren't we all?
So what could the precision rifle community look like? Someone mentioned State =>Regional=>National=>International structure. This makes sense and would naturally require rules and Courses of Fire such that competing at the State/local level would challenge shooters in the same way as they would be challenged in an International match...so what does that mean? What does it look like? Precision Rifle shooting is something like golf (we've all seen that meme) and competitors play different courses (some courses much harder than others) that also change a bit from year to year.
Apart from COF infrastructure, which changes from facility to facility, there would also need to be a unifying/standard scoring methodology (which we have in the case of Practiscore (are there others?)) infrastructure such that shooters who do well at 'sanctioned' local/state matches can move up to Regional matches and so on.
So if this sport is to grow to International levels, as conceived, logically there would need to be a governing body to ensure all levels are using the same operational/scoring rules. And surely there would be other 'hygienic' matters to address...and the bureaucracy would grow too! Given that PRS is currently the largest such organization it behooves PRS leadership to make an effort to be a part of any effort to grow the sport to the extent proposed. But this won't happen if acrimony and name calling rules/ruins the efforts.
It seems to me what first has to happen is to envision what such an exponentially larger Precision Rifle community would look like. If the community would like to see shooting sports expand in the Olympics (I'm likely missing what is already included in the Olympics) it would likely be similar to other Olympic disciplines - so Three gun, Two gun, Precision Rifle (several iterations - team matches etc.) .22 PR etc. Analogous to different events within Gymnastics etc. Each of which now have, to greater or lesser degrees, grass roots and national efforts underway.
Ok, so can we envision such a structure? I think we all can and would love to see it happen, but it won't happen with all the squabbling. But that begs the question: how do you get private business people whose livelihoods depend on what they've built to come to the table to discuss such an undertaking? Is it realistic to expect them to give up what they've invested so much time and money into without ensuring that their efforts are not wasted and that all shooters continue to benefit from their training and access to their facilities, and that their businesses continue to grow? I don't think so. None of us, if we're honest, and put ourselves in Shannon's and others' shoes would want them to loose all they've worked for, especially since his (and others') efforts have contributed so mightily to the growth of the Precision Rifle sport.
So my suggestion is count to ten, breathe, develop a starting agenda, agreed-upon concepts and goals and invite those concerned to the table to work out how to cooperatively grow this sport such that local/state, regional, national, international matches can take place on a periodic basis. National matches like the Armageddon Gear Cup happen annually, International matches happen say every two years...whatever, there are so many smart people in this sport it can be worked out. We need proper leaders who seek to unify and bring people together not drive them apart. Maybe someone call Jocko?
I hope I don't regret posting this. So risky speaking up.
K&M, Altus, Gunline, Gunsite et al (more coming on line) are fine facilities and I'm grateful they are available. I do understand how someone who's invested so much time and money into a facility like K&M would be protective of what he and his wife have built and how ideas of expanding and growing the sport beyond what PRS and NRL have managed to do so far is treated skeptically. And the Wuhan/Covid scourge hasn't helped. I am disheartened at the divisiveness I'm now seeing in the shooting community, as in our country. Aren't we all?
So what could the precision rifle community look like? Someone mentioned State =>Regional=>National=>International structure. This makes sense and would naturally require rules and Courses of Fire such that competing at the State/local level would challenge shooters in the same way as they would be challenged in an International match...so what does that mean? What does it look like? Precision Rifle shooting is something like golf (we've all seen that meme) and competitors play different courses (some courses much harder than others) that also change a bit from year to year.
Apart from COF infrastructure, which changes from facility to facility, there would also need to be a unifying/standard scoring methodology (which we have in the case of Practiscore (are there others?)) infrastructure such that shooters who do well at 'sanctioned' local/state matches can move up to Regional matches and so on.
So if this sport is to grow to International levels, as conceived, logically there would need to be a governing body to ensure all levels are using the same operational/scoring rules. And surely there would be other 'hygienic' matters to address...and the bureaucracy would grow too! Given that PRS is currently the largest such organization it behooves PRS leadership to make an effort to be a part of any effort to grow the sport to the extent proposed. But this won't happen if acrimony and name calling rules/ruins the efforts.
It seems to me what first has to happen is to envision what such an exponentially larger Precision Rifle community would look like. If the community would like to see shooting sports expand in the Olympics (I'm likely missing what is already included in the Olympics) it would likely be similar to other Olympic disciplines - so Three gun, Two gun, Precision Rifle (several iterations - team matches etc.) .22 PR etc. Analogous to different events within Gymnastics etc. Each of which now have, to greater or lesser degrees, grass roots and national efforts underway.
Ok, so can we envision such a structure? I think we all can and would love to see it happen, but it won't happen with all the squabbling. But that begs the question: how do you get private business people whose livelihoods depend on what they've built to come to the table to discuss such an undertaking? Is it realistic to expect them to give up what they've invested so much time and money into without ensuring that their efforts are not wasted and that all shooters continue to benefit from their training and access to their facilities, and that their businesses continue to grow? I don't think so. None of us, if we're honest, and put ourselves in Shannon's and others' shoes would want them to loose all they've worked for, especially since his (and others') efforts have contributed so mightily to the growth of the Precision Rifle sport.
So my suggestion is count to ten, breathe, develop a starting agenda, agreed-upon concepts and goals and invite those concerned to the table to work out how to cooperatively grow this sport such that local/state, regional, national, international matches can take place on a periodic basis. National matches like the Armageddon Gear Cup happen annually, International matches happen say every two years...whatever, there are so many smart people in this sport it can be worked out. We need proper leaders who seek to unify and bring people together not drive them apart. Maybe someone call Jocko?
I hope I don't regret posting this. So risky speaking up.
Next people will want rules for jerking off. 
...
