Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Competitive Shooting What types of competition are there?

Hello,

I am posting this question because I have two boys, ages 9 and 13 who are showing more and more of a interest in shooting sports. Up to this point, all of our shooting has been in the form of informal target shooting, clay pigeons and some small game hunting.

My question is, what are some of the various competitions out there? I am somewhat familiar with trap/skeet, sporting clays and have heard of benchrest rifle. What else is there? Maybe some links to organizations if you have any. Thanks for your time and insights.

Duckster,

The NRA hosts all kinds of competition from small bore (.22 rimfire) up to and including Palma which is shot at 800, 900 and 1,000 yards.
Check the NRA website and find a club close to you where the kids can participate. Also check the CMP (ODCMP.com) as they host a whole heap of competitions.

Around here the John Garand match is popular (CMP) and NRA high power.

Smallbore has all but died where I live, but thats where I started when I began shooting 40 years ago. Its great for kids and teaches them the proper way to shoot in all the positions, and they can earn classifications which really boosts their incentive to become good marksmen.

Highpower rifle and other programs that actually try to support the kids in ways, try CMP at

www.odcmp.com

They run smallbore, some shotgun, rifle, pistol etc... and can lead to the nationals at Perry WITH some financial support.(unless something has changed recently) IMHO thats much more than NRA will ever do. Of course they are just big government in another set of clothing...

Jeff

I'd recommend you consider metallic silhouette shooting - available for both rimfire and centrefire (and air rifle). A fun and challenging competition where the targets actually fall down when hit. It is shot off-hand so is excellent training for hunting. Can start out with just about any hunting rifle you already have, later on upgrading to scopes with target turrets, stocks designed for offhand competition to fully customised rigs if the boys (and you) feel the need. There is a world body and a world championship http://surf.to/imssu

Ian

Oh yeah, forgot about reaction shooting. Silhouette is action related. You see what happens. Not bad at all, and for some kids that bore easily it keeps their attention. And great training for hunting.

IDPA which is action type shooting thats not as " heavily involved" as IPSC is. It s a blast for my nephew. Plenty action. Gets to shoot a 45 close to 100 rounds at a time and fun. And for pops its good self defense training.

Jeff

Call the local county extension office to see if there the 4-H shooting sports program is offered in your area. It is fine opportunity to get your children exposed to a variety of shooting sports with trained instuctors and other shooters of similar age and ability.

Thanks for all the responses. I will check out some of those activities to see if there are some in our area (Nebraska). At their ages, I am more intested in getting them into some rimfire activities, but obviously if they get more and more interested, they may want to move up to centerfires.

duckster,

I'm originally from western Nebraska; out there we had some air-gun and smallbore thru the local 4-H group (actually it was one formed specifically for youth firearms), and I and several other kids shot trap a lot, but that was about it. Trap seemed to be the only 'organized' shooting sport w/ any degree of popularity out there. Rifles... only existed to shoot deer, coyotes, and prairie dogs with it seemed.

Monte

Alliance Neb has a nice range they shoot 22 matches, pistol, high pwr to 1000 yards and also have Silhouette matches from lever gun to Black Powder Cartridge silhouette. and 1000 yard black pwdr matches.

Kenny Wasserburger

A couple more types of competition that would be great for the kids. Both of these shooting sports are right now experiancing great growth, as a matter of fact one is "The Fastest Growing" shooting sport and the other is the "Second Fastest" growing shooting sport. #1 is Cowboy Action Shooting, this is a multi dimension sport with a lot of different and varied stages, many shot with rimfire and some of the activitys directed right at Kids. The other is BPCR Silhouette, this is the 2 nd fastest of all shooting sports, is inter-active as are all Silhouette games. And while not geared for the little guys the class system is very youth friendly.

Both of these sports have matches through out the country and Nationals usually in Raton New Mexico.

Gunny

Sorry for the late post.NRA smallbore or centerfire silhouette would be a good place to start as most of the guys you will run into on the line will welcome a new shooter especially father and son.It was one of my favorite shooting sports for a long long time.With the upcoming winter soon upon us maybe you can find a club that shoots fifty foot 22 indoor.This is done prone sitting kneeling and standing and is cheap as well as being a ton of fun.All the fancy equpment can come at a later date.Calling the NRA would be a good place to start.