Why Mor?

[SHAWN CARLOCK]

OK, if we need an affordable entry affordable entry class in MOR make it production in that 10,000 or more units have been produced. This would allow you to buy a varmint special for 600.00 glass it and go play. Also make production specific to bolt rifles and allow autos in open. Personely I think not having to enter shoot and own 3 more guns for the 3 gun match would boost attendance more than a cheeper division to get into. Carl Carbon ran a precision rifle match last year at club level and had to turn people away. He had twice as many people as the nationals. The big thing was a large portion of the people were not USPSA members. I think there is a bolt rifle crowd that while not yet interested in 3 gun or pistol are untapped as potential members.

Edited October 21, 2006 by SHAWN CARLOCK

[Bronco]

Having shot only a few of the precision rifle matches, and no Palma or NRA high power my experience is limited but I do know what I like. The CMG team match was a great experience and I look forward to shooting it again. What lites my fire is the unknown distance, target placement (finding the target) and doing all the other things that allow you to hit a target at 500 to a 1000 yd. under field conditions. Shooting from a manicured firing line at known distance targets is boring. There I've said it, hell I can do that in my backyard, and frequently do. I mostly shoot auto-loaders but have recently had Terry Cross massage a PSS for me to shoot in precision rifle matches. I'll shoot against auto's no problem, may get beat so what I'll try harder next time. All I really ask for is the opportunity to compete against other shooters on a some what level playing field, if I choose to handicap myself with my equipment choice that is my decision.

[VNGunfighter]

Religious Shooter,

I agree with your post, and I like the idea of a hunter class.

I think the guns should fall into this catagory and should be able to have and be restricted to having the following:

-weight limit of under 9 pounds

-NO bipod

-sling

-fixed magazine 5 rounds

-if detachable must be loaded through the top

-AND must be a commercial gun and built by a commercial mfg.

-.22 cal min

And if such a big interest in MOR, why doesn't USPSA have a MOR nationals ONLY

3 classes:

-Open

-Limited

-Hunter

I would like to see this but would also like to see the turnout.

"Hunter class" would bring more folks and the last question is where would this match be??

VNG

[bigbrowndog]

its funny how your opinion of a particular sport decides how you feel it should be shot. Biathalon isn't considered a precision sport by some, yet the participants certainly feel it is, and the rifles they use certainly fill the criteria. MOR/Tac matches aren't considered precision by some, yet others feel it is. Palma/ benchrest is probably considered precision by most, however some might say NO, as well.

Someone said that shooting on a manicured yard is boring compared to in the field shooting, I would agree. I've shot Silhouette(rifle/pistol), indoor olympic position rifle/air, indoor target archery, and a host of others, and have held records in various disciplines. However they ARE repititious and BORING, they all have their place, they teach us the fundamentals and how important they are.

The PRACTICAL sports, USPSA, MOR, Sniper/Tac, Archery 3D, and Biathalon, all show us what we and our equipment is capable of under stress, physical, mental and environmental. PRECISION, is an opinion, it can be shooting a 2" plate behind a no shoot with a shotgun at 7yds, or it can be shooting a 5cm plate at 20m with your heart begging for oxygen at 9000 feet above sea level, or shooting a .160 grp at 200yds while sitting on your arse!

This has way too many words in it , i'm getting a headache......suffice it to say

PRECISION IS AN OPINION, A VAGUE TERM, IT IS NOT AN QUANTIFIABLE VALUE.

[VNGunfighter]

What Traper said

[P.E. Kelley]

Great posts all of you! What I am after is NOT restricting MOR to bolt guns. Call it precision rifle and let us run what we brung. If autos can't hack the "precision" requirements then so be it, if bolts guns can repeate fast enough then so be it. Let the course designers set the stages and let us figure out what works best to solve the problem.

You CAN as of today run cowboy gear at a USPSA 3 gun match if you choose. Will you be competitive??? Probably not, but you might win a stage depending on the course design. But you CAN use 1890's gear without restriction. Yet in 2006, we in the most modern of the action shooting disiplines restrict the small handfull of competitors that shoot MOR to 1898 turnbolts! Are we afraid of the self-loader? The well attended "precision/ tactical/practical matches around the country allow the self-loader so they are not. What is our excuse? Because we can? Let course design rule the day. Let the competitor solve the problem.

Respectfully

Patrick

[bigbrowndog]

P.E.......good post "by a dam site"

trapr

[SHAWN CARLOCK]

PK,

A great topic. I love my bolt guns but I'll run what needs to be run to win. I am fine with autos in MOR and renaming it Precision rifle. My only concern is that it could degrade into a repeate of the 3 gun version of multiple rifle stages.

[George]

My only concern is that it could degrade into a repeate of the 3 gun version of multiple rifle stages.

Me too!

If you let the autos in, even if you extend the distances and make the accuracy requirements greater, my CTR-02 pushing SMK77's would be what I would use over my bolt rifle as it would be the better tool for the game as far as winning went. Shawn has it exactly right on this point and that's why I think autos need to be kept out of USPSA MOR.

As I mentioned earlier, USPSA MOR is different than the sniper game and the words it's acronym are made from are where I am at ;-)

[bigbrowndog]

I think if a .223 was capable of being competitive for MOR/sniper/Tac matches, they'd be used. Now i'm not sure but I don't recall any being used at the CMG rifle/carbine match, I don't know why, other than possibly not being suitable. Although, the rules may have not allowed them, i don't know.

If an AR/Auto 223 could be used, then why not, let the game evolve. This from a guy whose building a 300 winmag, AICS for this crazy game.

My two cents,

Jimmy if you need to borrow two more cents, I'll loan it to you

Trapr

[Religious Shooter]

Keep USPSA MOR... Manually Operated Rifle.

If you want to use your auto go to those other organizations and shoot. If you let autos in USPSA MOR is just going to be just like those other games. What's wrong with variety?

[EricW]

If allowing autos into "Precision Rifle" turns the division into something other than measuring the precise use of a rifle, then it sounds like the COF's don't really fit the definition of "precision" to begin with. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm not.

[George]

If you need to knock over a Larue at 1000 yards, no the .223 with 77's will not do it. But if you only need to "hit" that same piece of steel, the little carbine can do it just as well as the bigger guns with the right bullet choice. This has been proved several times by the AMU at the 1000 yard matches at Camp Perry with their AR's.

But a .223 pushing SMK77's could have won every single USPSA MOR match ever run if they didn't have to have their gas systems disabled to meet the rules that required them to be "manually operated" to enter the match.

No question about a semi-auto being accurate enough, 3/4 MOA is all that is really needed to shoot any precision event and hit the targets and lotsa' auto-loaders are capable of that and better.

If you let the auto-loaders into USPSA MOR, it will be a plain old IPSC rifle match with some extra distance on the stages and thats about all. Driving a bolt gun through an IPSC style COF that also requires a little bit of actual riflery to get through is a unique thing IMHO.

[Religious Shooter]

Take a look at the stages in Reno and Albany:

Reno: Stage 1

Reno: Stage 2

Reno: Stage 3

Albany Stages

I get the feeling that 1/2 of the posters of this thread haven't shot an official USPSA MOR match. Look at the stages above. If you let autos into MOR then it becomes the rifle portion of 3 gun. Granted with farther and harder targets. But it would be the same old thing.

Variety. Spice of life and all. Let's have a big dollop of that spice by keeping MOR manually operated.

[EricW]

Driving a bolt gun through an IPSC style COF that also requires a little bit of actual riflery to get through is a unique thing IMHO.

So what part of range estimation, wind estimation, mirage, slope angle, bullet deflection through brush, knowing your cold bore zero, trying to get a solid shooting position out of a crappy position, shooting offhand, kneeling, sitting, etc. etc. etc. .........

......what part of that goes away with the auto? Enquiring minds are dying to know the answer.

[George]

Thats where the "requires a little bit of riflery" part comes in. What I mean by that is targets that are far enough out and small enough that you need to know your dope AND be able to apply it.

Ask Carl if he found the LD targets at this years MOR match easy. They weren't terribly hard, but if you did anything not exactly right, you weren't gonna' hit them at all and more than a few folks who thought it was cake, found out it wasn't ;-)

Shawn had some pickups on some steel and even had a hard cover mike across the match. USPSA MOR may be easier than hitting a nickel at a hundred yards, but not by a whole lot. My 3gun AR can hit that nickel at 100 all day long ;-)

[Religious Shooter]

So what part of range estimation, wind estimation, mirage, slope angle, bullet deflection through brush, knowing your cold bore zero, trying to get a solid shooting position out of a crappy position, shooting offhand, kneeling, sitting, etc. etc. etc. .........

......what part of that goes away with the auto? Enquiring minds are dying to know the answer.

Except the cold bore zero, all of those challenges can be had in the rifle portion 3 gun.

Cold bore zero in USPSA MOR isn't very important. The fact that you mention cold bore just reinforces my feeling that you haven't shot USPSA MOR. Have you taken a look at the links that I posted above?

[uscbigdawg]

I think what bugs me about MOR more than anything is that we have such difficulty finding ranges that allow shooting at actual distance. Personally, there's a huge difference between holding on a 6" target at 600 yards than there is holding on a 1" target at 100 yards. Yeah, it's the same MOA, but there's "stuff" you need to consider when actually pushing a bullet that far.

Other than that, no autos.

Rich

ETA: And yes, there should be a Hunter class. If we can have revolver, we can have Hunter.

Edited October 23, 2006 by uscbigdawg

[EricW]

No, I don't shoot USPSA MOR. I have done a bit of shooting with guys who shoot sniper matches and actually work in the profession. So, it's not like I'm on here bandying about totally unqualified opinions. And...in my opinion...MOR needs to be adjusted to mirror the challenges and COF's presented in sniper competitions.

All I want is for USPSA to be successful. MOR, and it's utter dearth of devotees, cannot be called a success.

So what part of range estimation, wind estimation, mirage, slope angle, bullet deflection through brush, knowing your cold bore zero, trying to get a solid shooting position out of a crappy position, shooting offhand, kneeling, sitting, etc. etc. etc. .........

......what part of that goes away with the auto? Enquiring minds are dying to know the answer.

Except the cold bore zero, all of those challenges can be had in the rifle portion 3 gun.

Cold bore zero in USPSA MOR isn't very important. The fact that you mention cold bore just reinforces my feeling that you haven't shot USPSA MOR. Have you taken a look at the links that I posted above?

[Nik Habicht]

All I want is for USPSA to be successful. MOR, and it's utter dearth of devotees, cannot be called a success.

And that, in a nutshell is why I asked for reasons to support this division. 20-30 shooters? It's either time to try something new, to try and recruit more shooters, or it's time to leave this type of competition to other disciplines.....

[warpspeed]

Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but in order to shoot the MOR USPSA event at the Multigun Nationals, you also had to shoot the Multigun Nationals.

I wonder how many more would participate if it were a stand alone event ?

[George]

It's either time to try something new, to try and recruit more shooters, or it's time to leave this type of competition to other disciplines.....

Too bad you feel that way Nik. The folks who have the gear to shoot MOR don't feel that way. The folks who want to get the gear to shoot MOR don't feel that way. The folks who have shot MOR in the past (pretty much the same 20-30 folks every year) don't "all" feel that way. The folks who are interested in trying it out the next time one is held don't feel that way. There aren't a lot of us, but we do like doing it when we can.

Let's put it another way Nik, there are over 10,000 active USPSA members, so if only 160-180 of them are shooting at the USPSA Multigun Nationals each year, why bother holding the nationals for that small an attendance. Let's just send them all a letter saying they don't matter to USPSA anymore along with a copy of the SMM3G application. After all, the USPSA MG Nats aren't the most popular 3gun match around and get a smaller turnout that SMM3G does, so following that logic, let's just let SMM3G handle all the bigtime 3gun shootin' in the US from now on.

It is definitely NOT time to leave this type of competition to other disciplines, because this tyoe of competition does NOT exist in other disciplines as it does in USPSA ;-/

[Religious Shooter]

No, I don't shoot USPSA MOR. I have done a bit of shooting with guys who shoot sniper matches and actually work in the profession. So, it's not like I'm on here bandying about totally unqualified opinions. And...in my opinion...MOR needs to be adjusted to mirror the challenges and COF's presented in sniper competitions.

All I want is for USPSA to be successful. MOR, and it's utter dearth of devotees, cannot be called a success.

Why would you want to replicate something that's already been done and continues to be done? Which sniper competitions/match do you consider to be successful?

Ask those guys you shoot with how many shooters there are in those matches they are talking about and go to.

The ITRC (the baddest match on the planet for the genre) had 32 teams in 2006 -- 64 people. The PR Team Challenge in Raton had 23 teams for a total of 46 people. The ASC has about 30-40 people.

These were full blown matches.

Reno had 32 participants for a side match that only had 3... THREE stages. And I think the match fee was $100.00.

Albany had 17 participants for a side match of only 4 stages. Down from Reno. But that's most likely due to the location.

You should keep things in perspective when you say there is a "dearth of devotees." The Tactical/Precision/MOR rifle scene is miniscule when compared to the pistol games. 32 or even 17 shooters isn't too bad for a side match.

And that, in a nutshell is why I asked for reasons to support this division. 20-30 shooters? It's either time to try something new, to try and recruit more shooters, or it's time to leave this type of competition to other disciplines.....

What kind of support are we talking about here? What has USPSA done to promote MOR?

And hey... Hunter division would be "something new" right?

[EricW]

There's really no point in continuing this discussion because you (RH) and Geo are thumping the Bible of True Religion while everyone else is trying to discuss the practical marketing and business aspects of the type of shooting USPSA offers. I bid you well on your windmill-tilting extravaganza to convert the unwashed masses.

[Phil Dunlop]

Its sounds to me like we should allow our Glocks to compete in Revolver Division after we've beaten MOR.

The debate isn't so much about the Division as the match, and MOR is unique as its the only Division with a match tailored to suit.

I'm not sure what the answer is but can say that IPSC has gone away from the division specific match idea and just added MOR to the divisions allowed in any rifle match, which in my experience is not really a precision rifle event, (typically) anyway.

P.D.