Anyone else wish competition shoots didn't have the suits?

[SmallHolder]

I suspect I'll get polarised views back on this, but having been watching some of the Commonwealth shooting, it just makes me think again that all of the "stiffening" suits take something away from shooting. I'm not for one moment saying that they aren't amazing shots, but would anyone else rather see larger targets but less assistance equipment being used?

[Gwylan]

And the flat soled diving boots..!
What about a "Hunter 10 metre" class? Full camo, springer with iron sights only, no funny glasses.
Rich will probably be on in a mo, saying "That's called SLR..!"

Gus

[angrybear]

Every sport on the planet has clothing & equipment refined & improved over the years, so if the suits were banned in place of "casual wear" the professionals would just get their casual clothes tailor made with support sewn in far better imo to have it strictly set.

I really enjoyed the 3 position 50mtr finals, and found the timed changeover quite an interesting part of the competition, I had no idea that happened

[Rich]

I think maybe more than a mo has passed, so I feel capable of commenting without risking giving Gus too much of a smug grin.....

There's been debate in the FT arena for some while about allowing or disallowing specialist clothing; in some instances the clothing is there as a matter of safety as well as achieving performance. Try to adopt the approved FT kneeling position without stout soled shoes or boots and you'll see what I mean.

I agree with AB, any support from clothing should be visible. Anyone care to guess what some shooters carry in their jacket pockets? It wouldn't happen to support the forward elbow on a standing shot, now would it?

[ChrisC]

I think maybe more than a mo has passed, so I feel capable of commenting without risking giving Gus too much of a smug grin.....

There's been debate in the FT arena for some while about allowing or disallowing specialist clothing; in some instances the clothing is there as a matter of safety as well as achieving performance. Try to adopt the approved FT kneeling position without stout soled shoes or boots and you'll see what I mean.

I agree with AB, any support from clothing should be visible. Anyone care to guess what some shooters carry in their jacket pockets? It wouldn't happen to support the forward elbow on a standing shot, now would it?

Yes Rich...been mentioned a few times that. there's always those that will twist and squirm through the rules in an effort to gain a point. The last few years have seen shooting Jackets creep into FT and i make it no secret that i don't think it's sporting. If you want to wear a gimp coat , shoot 10m.. Unfortunately the need to win drives some shooters too far and i would like to see 3 chrono's at every comp to catch those with the double pellet pouch and pellet squeezers.

[rockdrill]

The last few years have seen shooting Jackets creep into FT and i make it no secret that i don't think it's sporting.

FT as a sport is really something of an odd beast - look at how it started - something for anyone with any kind of air rifle and see what it has mutated into......

[Rich]

As Gus somewhat dyslexically alluded (!) I do shoot quite a lot of LSR. No specialist clothing allowed at all, but you are allowed a shooting glove, whose weight counts towards the weight limit for the rifle etc.

Consistency is everything in this game, and I do make sure I use the same clothing as far as possible from event to event. Particularly, the same jacket - and I will wear the jacket on hot days too - and the same footwear.

[RobF]

The clothes are necessary at that level to not get injury from the shooting positions. Lower levels where you aren't doing perhaps 40 plus hours a week shooting in those positions it's not so important. But it has other positives such as consistency which is very important when you are trying to repeat the same trick 70 - 170 times in a match let alone in addition practice periods.

Rich I think you'll find the pocket is on the wrong side for that.

It does take something away granted because everyone assumes it's the clothing doing the shooting. But there's a whole host of other reasons why it's there and I'd encourage anyone to have a go just to see how it's so not about the clothing.

Ft is what ft is. A £200 jacket is not far off what a load of real tree gear is anyway. And it accounts for about what I spend on fuel doing 4 or so shoots in the swefta league. Add the bfta series on and perhaps a trip abroad and for those that actually shoot beyond their club it can be a small percentage given they will last more than a year. That's before you start on the rest of the kit. Airguns aren't £79 from streatham armoury anymore.

Still since both the swefta and bfta series are being lead by unjacketed shooters it shows that there's still room for those that want to have a go with what they have rather than thinking they must have x bit of kit before leaving the confines of the club.

What you don't see at a comp is the enormous effort these shooters put into their craft. That goes for ft as much as it goes for paper punching. The clothing is a red herring.

[ChrisC]

FT as a sport is really something of an odd beast - look at how it started - something for anyone with any kind of air rifle and see what it has mutated into......

The clothes are necessary at that level to not get injury from the shooting positions. Lower levels where you aren't doing perhaps 40 plus hours a week shooting in those positions it's not so important. But it has other positives such as consistency which is very important when you are trying to repeat the same trick 70 - 170 times in a match let alone in addition practice periods.

Rich I think you'll find the pocket is on the wrong side for that.

It does take something away granted because everyone assumes it's the clothing doing the shooting. But there's a whole host of other reasons why it's there and I'd encourage anyone to have a go just to see how it's so not about the clothing.

Ft is what ft is. A £200 jacket is not far off what a load of real tree gear is anyway. And it accounts for about what I spend on fuel doing 4 or so shoots in the swefta league. Add the bfta series on and perhaps a trip abroad and for those that actually shoot beyond their club it can be a small percentage given they will last more than a year. That's before you start on the rest of the kit. Airguns aren't £79 from streatham armoury anymore.

Still since both the swefta and bfta series are being lead by unjacketed shooters it shows that there's still room for those that want to have a go with what they have rather than thinking they must have x bit of kit before leaving the confines of the club.

What you don't see at a comp is the enormous effort these shooters put into their craft. That goes for ft as much as it goes for paper punching. The clothing is a red herring.

Evolution is needed in all sports.......not so keen on the 'crossover' though.. Wearing realtree is a bit different as it's about being comfy, warm and waterproof, not about gaining a percieved shooting advantage. I've said to the NEFTA lads that i would like to try a gimp coat to see what the benefits are, i mean, there must be or they wouldn't be so widespread amonst the 10m fraternity?...however if anyone takes a photo of me in one then they're dead

[markmac]

FT is now supposed to be the pinnacle of the outdoor airgun shooting sport and as such has evolved from its humble beginnings of shooting sporting spring rifles with a 3-9 x 40 scope,in a field at your local club to now being a sport participated around the world with high precision pcp rifles (a lot now derived from the leading German 10m match rifles) and heavily tuned and modded quality springers and the specialist clothing is just another part of the evolution of the sport - I am all for it.

It's not compulsory to wear a "gimp" coat if you don't want to and if you feel more comfortable wearing camo/casual clothing then that's your choice - wear whatever you feel most comfortable in.

It's each to their own - I personally do not like camo clothing at target events (the targets will not get spooked by movement) but if that's what people want to wear then that's fine and I wouldn't knock it.

[rockdrill]

Evolution is needed in all sports.......not so keen on the 'crossover' though..

FT is now supposed to be the pinnacle of the outdoor airgun shooting sport and as such has evolved from its humble beginnings of shooting sporting spring rifles with a 3-9 x 40 scope,in a field at your local club to now being a sport participated around the world with high precision pcp rifles (a lot now derived from the leading German 10m match rifles) and heavily tuned and modded quality springers and the specialist clothing is just another part of the evolution of the sport - I am all for it.

I agree that evolution is part and parcel of a sport.

For me FT made a poor judgement many years ago by not classifying equipment.

Take by way of example IPSC this originally started out as a competition arena for carry handguns, but as technology advanced in terms of magazine capacity, calibres etc, the sport developed classifications based on equipment so the person who wished to shoot a fairly basic gun could continue to do so on a level playing field with other like minded folk. To me FT missed the opportunity to take a similar route.

Bear in mind this is just my own opinion. Whilst I no longer shoot FT, I did spend around twenty years shooting it.

[RobF]

Evolution is needed in all sports.......not so keen on the 'crossover' though.. Wearing realtree is a bit different as it's about being comfy, warm and waterproof, not about gaining a percieved shooting advantage. I've said to the NEFTA lads that i would like to try a gimp coat to see what the benefits are, i mean, there must be or they wouldn't be so widespread amonst the 10m fraternity?...however if anyone takes a photo of me in one then they're dead

I assume the Steyr is getting swapped for an S400 Chris? Bugger, that's a PCP. Ok, a HW97k. As ever it's a big grey band rather than black and white and personal as to where the line is thought it ought to be drawn...

Jackets, when used properly do give an advantage. Beyond the support there's the consistency and grip. But they won't put you in a position to hold a stander, the body needs to do that first. The principles of marksmanship are not superseded by a gimp coat.

As I said, my prime reason for seeing them removed is the idea that it's all about the kit. It's not, it can only compliment a good shooter. And while they can give a boost they can also be detrimental. One of the more common problems with people throwing on all the kit in 10m for instance is to have everything locked down and so tight the shooter can't actually get into the position which supports the rifle.

If it wasn't for the small injury potential at the top end I'd say they weren't necessary for the sport.

I don't know how the 10m pistol rules rule the clothing out... but I guess theres no deemed advantage and thus no incentive to challenge them with clothing.

I think the idea also that FT shooters are using highly tuned springers is a bit of a red herring as well... the TX and 97 are good enough out of the box accuracy wise. 90% of the problems come from fitting custom stocks for a better fit and them causing shift issues. Tuned springers are nicer to shoot, and there's an advantage if it recoils nicely so you can see the pellet land or even fly, but I know at least one handy springer shooter who's regularly in the top 3 who runs stock internals over a vmach kit because it works better for him.

Kit is the first thing that people jump on, but once past the basic capability, whilst there's an ideal to be strived for, a lot of the work is in improving the shooters marksmanship skills and utilising the kit that's available to it's maximum before moving on. Working with shooters who have even shot at national level, there's so much simple stuff that can be done to improve a shooter well before picking up the ann summers catalogue.

[sbd]

...remember the outrage about 20 years ago when Nick Jenkinson started to wear a really thick/heavy leather bikers jacket and used to tuck the stock inside it and then into into his shoulder which then pulled his whole meld together. Oh my god the tirades I used to get from the Midland's contingent if you're competitive and honest you'll always look for legal ways to gain advantage, if you're bent you'll bend the rules.

[Gwylan]

What did NJ ever know about shooting...!
Seriously, there seems to be an attitude of "if it's not banned in the rules, it's OK." The rules are some times vague, and people, being ultra competitive, take advantage, cheating is common. I used to race sailing dinghies, and the rules are much more rigid, infringements can be "protested," and instant penalties applied. The buddy system is open to abuse, marshals can't have eyes in the back of their heads, mistakes on score cards may only be noticed after everyone's gone home.

Gus

[Phil Russell]

FT is now supposed to be the pinnacle of the outdoor airgun shooting sport .

Who says that? HFT is certainly no easier and could be judged to be the more difficult sport as all range finding is done by the 'mk1 eyeball' not by scope twiddling.

I think both sports are equal in their difficulty.

As for the clothes worn by the 10m rifle shooters, as I am sure several of you know, the clothing itself is closely regulated for fit, including shoes (ankle support / sole thickness), and the 10m rifles are far more strictly regulated (no pun intended) than any HFT/FT rig.

I do think, however, that using 10m clothing for FT is taking matters a bit too far ... I saw shooters wearing such at the Midlands last year and thought it somewhat OTT.

And while we are at it ... what about the practice of resting the butt on the ground for prone shots in HFT. Akin to a prone bench rest methinks.

Now sits back to await the flak ....

Cheers, Phil