Shooters, First off congradulations to Preston Gibson and all the other winners at the nationals.
I have been attending Silhouette Nationals of some sort since 1986 both at Ridgway and Raton.I have seen them go from a premier event to just about the feel of a monthly match with more people. This is not a knock on the competitors. The level of competition has risen a lot over the years. Some of the declines I have seen are there are no vendors, there is little or no media coverage, but the biggest problem this year was the lack of range staff. There were no line officers. It was almost impossible to get an alibi checked, and many shooters just handled them themselves, often incorrectly.
Having been right in the middle of the last relay timing mess, I can safely state this would not have happened with line officers in place. Some one would have turned to a line officer who could have radioed the tower to stop the fire command from being called 20 seconds late.
These matches have been run with the same system for years and it is time for a change. It is antiquated and relies too much on human input which when under staffed tends to break down. I do commend the staff who worked this match, they were just simply overworked. I keep hearing especially at Raton that they can't get staff to work the matches. That is no excuse, and it should be up to the NRA personel to make sure the host site has the event staffed properly.
Being from Pa. I love the Wittington Experience; everyone should try it at least once. Not everyone likes the shooting experience if they are used to shooting in more controlled conditions. I feel it just makes it more challenging, but that's just me.

Al Foust

Al, the firing line for SB and PC is about 1/4 mile long and the Range officer can't see what is going on at rams or chickens from where the tower is located. I am going to suggest they place some two way radios with the score keepers so that we can communicate with the tower when we have problems.

Good post Al. By the way missed you guys at Regionals.

I attended the 2010 Lever Gun Nationals at Raton and we had no line/safety officers and no radios during the entire match. It was brought up to Greg Connor at that time and he told us how difficult/expensive it was to get people. His response to the problem was "Well I guess if you want line officers 'you guys' need to get some volunteers." In other words, not my problem. We brought up the possibility of at least getting a few radios out to some of the scorers so we could communicate with the tower. It didn't happen that year and based on what happened this year you can see how well that went.

This is the only National level event that I've ever attended that didn't have multiple line/safety officers. I've shot NRA, National Sporting Clays Association National Championships, United States Practical Shooting Association National Championships, and Sportsman's Team Challenge National Championships as well as many State and Regional Championships. As previously stated this National Championship is run much like a big monthly match. Where are the vendors and sponsors? They were treated like read headed step-children by Whittington and the NRA so what you see is what you get. (Before I get comments about denigrating read heads, I used to be one before it turned gray/white.)

We need some leadership from the NRA in the competitive shooting division and since that appears to be significantly lacking I don't foresee major improvements in the near future without a major shake-up. Unfortunately they're the only game in town if you want to shoot the lever silhouette game and I do love shooting this game.

Boats, somewhere in your questions was one about why not switch Cowboy nationals to different sides of the country like smallbore/HP...the very typical answer fromthe NRA is 'no range or volunteers'.
Tony, yes that line is a long line and not visible to range tower, all the more reason to have multiple line officers and radio communication.
Lack of money on the NRA side is not an excuse, for those that have run matches....run the numbers on the entry fees and what is passed out in awards, if the current managers can't do the least that is reasonably safe on that budget, then get someone that does know how to budget in and that responds to the competitors. Greg pays a whopping $30 a day to his top stat officer at smallbore/HP...seriously there needs to be better organization.

Mary

I agree that line officers are needed. Maybe we can volunteer when not shooting on a relay, I certainly would volunteer my time while not shooting. Whatever it takes to help. I think that the guy in the tower had it rough this year. That is one tough job for that many hours a day. If you've never run a tower on a long line you should try it sometime. It's very stressful keeping everything going and trying to keep it safe. Most of us are safe and veteran shooters , but line officers would be a welcome set of eyes for the tower. Radio contact would be great on the line. Asking a 12 year old to keep score and talk on the radio might be a little much though.

Glen, I do not usuall bother answering you but...here goes.

1) Most 12 year olds can multi-task much better than us older folks because they do it all the time now anyway. BUT, most 12 year olds dot have experience to handle being a line officer.
2) Using shooting volunteers as line officers is great....but again, having a consistent group of people to work with is important. Having a different line officer on every relay presents some problems with
inconsistency in how things are handled. both in how the rules are applied in certain situations as well as how the range officer handles keeping track of who is supposed to be where.
3) This is in now way a blast at the range officer and any other line officer or score keeper that is trying to do a job, but rather a blast at the leadership of running this without proper planning, organization
or people in place. Don't give me garbage about lack of money, run the numbers on the NRA fee's and what they give for prizes, and what they are using to pay for their own travel etc. THis is not the first match
that has had major SNAFU's I have seen it across the board at various silhouette championships that Greg has been involved with. Only in cases where there are strong clubs and strong leadership in those clubs have
the SNAFU's been held to a minimum and even then what has been problems go back to something Greg Conner and the NRA has forced on the club.

Mary

First off I would like to congratulate Preston,Tony, Derek and the rest of the winners on their shooting. As I agree with most all the posts regarding the Nationals here are my feelings. The Nationals should be an experience that a shooter should never forget and believe me, this one will never be forgotten! I have shot the Nationals before and this one was nothing more the a terribly mis-managed large club match. The matches that we normaly shoot are run much better.
Al Foust, Brian Wakefield, Mark Holsopple, and Clay Weaver do a great job and are a real asset to the sport. This was my wifes first time at a National event and I think I would have a real hard time getting her to go back to Raton.

I had A good time (even though my scores didnt show it) and I enjoyed meeting a lot of new people. The best thing about the whole experience was meeting the people in person that I always see on here. After meeting and talking with Tony Tello and talking about shooting High Power he convinced me to give it a try. So I bought a custom Remington 260 on the way back to PA. Thanks Tony!

Lets just hope that the next Nationals is a lot better because we as shooters connot afford to lose any more competitors.

What is the reasoning behind always having the Nationals in Raton? Sombody posted about rotating from East to West coast. Why has this not been done? We need to examine the reasoning behind it and im sure we can come up with a solution if we ALL work together.

Thanks Mike Haynes

Mike, Tony
I'm now thinking about taking up highpower silhouette so while you're leaning from Tony pass along the info please. Tony is such a gentleman and a great shot.
I just learned something great about steel chickens. There is a feature that lists friend or foe and if you don't want to see posts by "foes" you can enable that feature and you never need see posts from that person!!!! That's what I call a great information gathering forum! Thanks Steel Chickens!!

Please keep me updated Mike.

Mike,
I am sorry that you experienced a nationals like this. I look forward to seeing you at the HP nationals in Ridgway in AUgust, despite Greg it will be a much more enjoyable and memorable event. THanks to Tony for being the silhouette ambasador that he is, and convince you to try the HP...there are quite of few of us out there doing this, and getting beat back by what you saw.
Having attended and hosted state, regional and local matches since the 70's and attended nationals since the 90's, I can truly say, I enjoy the Whittington Center as a range, and facility, but not the way the smallbore, CLA or High Power nationals have been at that range. I do not attribute it to the Whittington Center in any way, but to Greg Conner and the NRA leadership.
As for hosting the cowboy nationals across the country....good luck, Greg does not change his ways easily. We used to have the smallbore and highpower nationals at different ranges all over the country, can't do that anymore because the NRA can make more money having them back to back in the same week at the same location. Not too many ranges have the requirements for both SB and HP on the same facility, and one of the clubs that does have the facility refuses to deal with Greg Conner...they even took a almost 10 year sabbatical and tried again, only to have repeat problems with leadership from Greg. I suspect that is the answer you are going to get on having lever action nationals...no range on the east side of Missisppi river large enought to host such and event.
Glad you made the trip to Raton, as it is a beautiful facility, worth the trip. And glad you got to meet some of the older long time silhouette shooters that love the sport. Look forward to seeing you in Ridgway.

Mary

This was my third trip to the Nationals in Raton and I have yet to experience the lack of leadership, mismanagement, etc., that is being discussed on this forum. I agree, there were some unusual circumstances this year, but through no fault of Mr. Conner. From my observation, I believe he handled all the curve balls that were thrown at him with as much grace and expedience as could be expected. I can't imagine that running this match is an easy thing to do under the best of circumstances. Perhaps those who are so dissatisfied with the way the match is run should channel their energies into helping make the match run smoother rather than standing back and criticizing. I enjoy this match immensely and hope to be an ambassador of the sport rather than a detractor.

Mary, I am also looking forward to meeting you. I only live 1hr from Ridgeway but I will be bringing my camper to enjoy the full experiance.I will only be shooting the SB this year do to time restraints. The 260 I bought is a little heavy and i need to do some work to it. But a good starting point with a trued up 700 action,Timity trigger, and a kriger barrrel.
See ya soon. Mike

I have met many people at shooting events and I enjoy interacting with some more than others. For the last couple of years I have had the pleasure of knowing and shooting with the Taylors from Texas. Mom and Dad are people that I'd want to have for neighbors . Their children ( forgive me I have forgotten their names) are great competitors but I was so impressed with the way they carry themselves at such an early age.

The two Taylor Children were sitting near me waiting on their relay when another very young competitor walked up to them and started talking about their last time on the line shooting. The child complained that they had only hit one Turkey and the Taylors responded by saying " you hit a turkey" that's great. They are so hard to hit and you got one. That's good ."
What a couple of kind and considerate children. They are not only being kind , they are being ambassadors for the sport. There's no doubt that the child that only got one turkey will be back.

We should all strive to cultivate the new shooters and take time out of our schedules to help every new shooter that we can.
My hats off to such a great family. I hope my grandson ( he's three) will get a chance to shoot with you someday.