I like matches to be about you and your rifle and perhaps the stuff you would carry on a hunt. Not all the bolt ons.
That is very subjective in itself. Bipods and a rear bag have become very common in this day in age, and using a tripod in the mountains is now becoming common for hunting.
30-years ago, hardly anyone hunted with a bipod or any kind of rear support. With gear and rifles becoming ultra-light, the sky is the limit.
We keep seeing the argument come up whether it should be limited to what hunting, or what Mil/LE use and employ. However, we see the use of many items beyond anyone's imagination being utilized in hunting and on the battlefield.
I shoot a team match that has been going on for 10-years now, and last year they had a course where they had logs that you had to shoot off of, but weren't allowed to use a bipod or bag, rifle forearm had to rest on the log. I asked the match director why? He said he had requests from some shooters to have realistic hunting senerios in the match. My response was this is a tactical match, with tactical in the name. What does hunting have to do with a senerio of a match where a team (two man team i.e. Sniper/Spotter) will be engaging targets in a tactical senerio? I followed up saying, on the battlefield, there are no rules on how, or what equipment you use to engage a target. The same holds true in hunting, no one is telling a hunter if he/she cannot use ancillary equipment to take game, outside of caliber restrictions, or the use of a suppressor in some States. If a hunter wants to use for example a tripod to stabilize the rifle for an accurate shot, what is so unrealistic about that?
I agree with what has been said, here and in other threads. Many times the gear can be a hindrance. I myself stumbled through a stage or two, and afterwards said to myself, that was a bad decision to use the extra gear.
Remember, shooting whether it's Hunting, LE, Military, equipment has been evolving. With technology, it's evolving at a faster pace now.
I myself do not like gear restrictions, unless it's a sport like Palma, Service Rifle, etc. where you have long established rules. If you want to shoot matches with gear restrictions, there are plenty of shooting sports that are full of gear restrictions and endless rules.
I think it would be more fair, that instead of restricting gear, you have to start the stage with rifle and gear in an unconfigured condition i.e. nothing attached other than bipod, tripod in a position as carried, all other gear in or attached to the pack, etc. No pre-staging gear. I would go so far as not even allow anyone into the stages shooting position until the clock starts. I've seen so much time waisted at matches as competitor's crawl all over a stage emulating how they're going to shoot the stage, just like what happens in USPSA matches.
I also think it's silly to have a stage that requires standing, sitting, kneeling, prone, and only use a sling. That's something from Service Rifle, not Practical Shooting. If you don't agree, that's fine it's my opinion.
It's the responsibility of the match director to create a challenging stage, and to design it so the factors of time, target size, and position are the challenging aspects, while also keeping it realistic.
