ihmsa forums

"Personally, I'm trying to get rimfire rifle shooters to come out and play. Our match is having a hard time surviving on pistol shooters. We resort to swingers only when attendance looks sparce. I can't set up 40 big bore targets for just 1 or 2 shooters. Rant over. Didn't mean to hijack thread"

The above is a quote from aggshooter on another thread, so I thought I would start a new thread outlining what we have done to increase the number of shooters on the line. (persuading shooters new to silhouette to join IHMSA is another matter of course)

When our numbers started to decline we were in danger of no longer being supported by our club so I opened up the match to pistol calibre lever guns (lead only) on the Field Pistol targets, this led to allowing any lever guns (lead only) on the Big Bore targets. Now we allow any 22LR rifles on the small bore targets as well. This has really boosted our number of shooters and keeps the club happy!! I have recently allowed pistol calibre carbines on the FP targets as well.

NRA has sanctioned matches for the rifles you speak of. It's called Cowboy Lever Action. In the three matches I host per month here in Louisiana the NRA shooters compete alongside the IHMSA shooters. We've been doing this for a couple of years and it has kept us up and running. I also allow any shooter who is not interested in official competition to shoot at our matches for score only. I can't afford to turn anybody away.

borregos wrote:When our numbers started to decline we were in danger of no longer being supported by our club so I opened up the match to pistol calibre lever guns (lead only) on the Field Pistol targets, this led to allowing any lever guns (lead only) on the Big Bore targets. Now we allow any 22LR rifles on the small bore targets as well. This has really boosted our number of shooters and keeps the club happy!! I have recently allowed pistol calibre carbines on the FP targets as well.

We have done the exact same thing at our range, and have gotten absolutely zero interest. Not one new shooter has shown up.

We are having the opposite at our club, the numbers are growing. It would seem to be the flavor of the month. At a club meet we can have upwards of 20 shooters and we shoot twice a month sometimes thrice.