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PRS Talk Tactical Class - Why?

What people don't understand is, this shit was never properly thought out or designed to be correctly scalable.

It was cliques, it was ad hoc, it was meant to put something between the shooter and the MD to make money off the popularity of the sport. It was not flushed out with growth in mind.

There was no business plan, there was no real mission statement, and because it changed hands so many times it was never fixed to created a standardized system for growth,

The divisions are terrible, confusing, not well supported, it was never an equal distribution of attention. It was the open guys and everyone else, and when people complained, they threw out a word Like: Production Division, without designing something that was actually going to work.

If you are really paying attention all the effort goes towards the marketing and revenue growth, very little towards managing the shooters or designing something that works like a sport. It's all independent match directors, doing whatever, with ZERO enforcement from the series. Its' really just designed to create categories for the internet and not really divisions for the application on the ground.

This is why people have come on here to complain, they want to see it work as things do in other sports. But that is not reality. The less is better approach was fine when the only real part of the business was hosting score and taking in membership fees, but now with the growth the shortcomings are like neon signs for many people.

Yes, shooters with a token appreciation or who may only shoot a few local matches and maybe one National will never see an issue. The farther you go down the leaderboard the less it matters. However, when the leaderboards at the top are so tight, it's these rules that help balance the field.

The models are out there, just being ignored because, that's not us, or why put in the effort when there is no reason. Avoiding, ignoring has worked so far. A few token prizes, a seat at the Finale table, guys are happy. But are they really.

Imagine having a facility at your fingertips, could be Altus, K&M, Rifles Only, any one of these style places controlling a sport and no content is coming from there. No hunger to improve only to sell ad space on the signage, most of the content we see is not about improving or educating the shooter, or helping their members, it's all about who they sold an ad package too. That is the majority of the press releases.

I get it, it's a ton of work, I don't want to do it, but then again, consider what I do control and what efforts you see one guy put forth vs a crew of people, most of whom would volunteer to help, yet silence.

Divisions help in many ways, too many and you water things down, not enough and you alienate people. In my opinion, having two rock-solid choices opens the door to both simplicity and inclusion. The rules can be better crafted, the people can be served as equally as possible in the rewards, and the biggest part, you know where you stand walking in the door. it's not thinking it's one way, but then finding out its completely different on the ground because there is no standard from match to match.
 
The scoring in Tactical and Production is screwed up. If one guy shoots against 10 tough Tactical class competitors at a match and beats them and shoots 90% of the top open shooters score he gets 100 points, but guess what, so did the other guy in a different state on the same day that shot against no one and shot 55% of the open shooters top score.

I say scale all scores off the top score for the whole match. The first guy in the above scenario gets 90 points and the other guy gets 55 points. The top shooters score is the best measure of how difficult the course of fire was and is the best standard to use for judging the relative performance of the other classes.
 
The scoring in Tactical and Production is screwed up. If one guy shoots against 10 tough Tactical class competitors at a match and beats them and shoots 90% of the top open shooters score he gets 100 points, but guess what, so did the other guy in a different state on the same day that shot against no one and shot 55% of the open shooters top score.

I say scale all scores off the top score for the whole match. The first guy in the above scenario gets 90 points and the other guy gets 55 points. The top shooters score is the best measure of how difficult the course of fire was and is the best standard to use for judging the relative performance of the other classes.

This is also why classes with not a lot of people participating need to be revamped. Regardless of how they go about it.
 
Hmm why not ask the demo what would attract them and allow them to shoot their work kit? I'm not in that demo but their needs to be a way to attract a group of known shooters and allow them to be competitive. Works for golf, I can play with my 30 handicap with a 10 handicap, the 10 feels the pressure when he's giving me a stroke on every hole and 2 on the 2 hardest.
 
I don't get the prize table deal, this will be my 2nd year shooting tac class & have never seen the top tac walk before their placing. When shooting Tac class I know that I'm giving up 15-20 spots to my overall placing. I was never a fan of 308 but about 3 years ago was talking to Phil about my practice sessions & he suggested mixing in the 308 for recoil management. I shoot an AI so I put the OEM barrel on and started playing with 308. Then started using for local match's and have been finishing with good results against all the gucci calibers. I shoot a standard weight rifle -few ounces for an arca plate, 18lbs , AIAX factory contour that was "way to heavy for PRS" in 2015 when purchased. I like and shoot the 308 for the following reasons. #1 wind, you're on your own. #2 recoil, I will always drive my rifle. No free recoil here. #3 my eyes, I'm 53 and they don't work like years past. I'm not going to see trace anyway and can see a missed 175gn bullet better than a 115.
So for me this is a hobby, I don't have an agent & never will. As far as sponsors go, not looking for that either, not social enough, never a single post on facebook from this guy lol. So I will stick to my goals an shoot Tac class only (even in Boarderwars & Regional PRS = major disadvantage) for 3-4 years to help fundamentals. Besides that I'm an AI fanboy & they don't like them little bitch calibers.
The biggest issue I see in PRS & NRL are the "Super Squads" how many of the top spots go to the best couple squads? When you gather the top shooters together and share wind knowledge it's hard group to beat.
I would like to see it change to a no wind sharing format but that would be almost impossible to police. BTW I've volunteered to be "wind bitch" for some of the top shooters that I wanted to see do well.
SO Haters get your ass off the couch grab a POS 223 or 308 and show this old man how it's done, besides maybe you'll help raise our #'s to 19 or maybe even 40 and beat 2019 levels.
 
I agree. Wind sharing should not be allowed (though some will still text it and such).

I’ve see it goes as far as someone who’s shooting well that day ask people who don’t have a chance of winning to shoot before them so they can get an idea on wind.

Whenever it’s up to me, the squad rotates when you shoot first. If you’re 1st in this stage, you’re last on the next, then next to last. If you’re 3rd to shoot, then you’re 2nd on next, then 1st, then last. Etc etc.
 
I agree but rotating the top shooters doesn't do much, but better than nothing. I personally pick squads with new people that I haven't shot with to learn new stuff even if my core group of friends are there.
 
How about when you sign up you're given a random # to form squads? And do like AZ TPRC with no prize table just some $ payed to the top guys to cover Jake's & Jon's travel costs lol
 
How about when you sign up you're given a random # to form squads? And do like AZ TPRC with no prize table just some $ payed to the top guys to cover Jake's & Jon's travel costs lol

theyve already done this every year at the heatstroke...

the same people who are the tops of every match are still at the top

the “super squad” is mainly just an excuse for the mid pack guys...in club matches I can go first every stage and tell the whole squad what I used for wind, and it still doesn’t change scores from where guys normally finish

the top guys generally don’t do anything different than the mid and low pack shooters...certain people climb on the props, stretch rules, you name it... and it ain’t only the ones finishing at the top...but no one posts about them doing it on the Internet because they finished 75th
 
The biggest problem with coming up with rules is coming up with efficient ways to enforce them as well as a willingness to attempt to enforce them.

Rifle weight. Some rifles it isn't that difficult to add weight to a rifle after an initial weigh-in, although adding a fuckload of weights would probably be noticeable. A reasonable compromise would be to weight in at the beginning and give RO's the authority to spot check rifles that seem suspicious. But this assumes you have a RO to spot impacts and one to watch the shooter but from what I read on the ND post, it is difficult to get enough ROs for something like that.

Trigger pull weight. This is probably even harder to police because there is no visible sign that you have done it. Some triggers are very easy to adjust especially with chassis with holes cut for the adjustment allen key. For this you would probably need to test it each stage, which is not that big of a deal but IIRC the pull gauges can be finicky by giving different readings based on angles and location it is placed on the trigger. The best I can come up with is set it to w.e you want, i.e 2.5 lbs and if the reading drops below 2 lbs then you need to adjust it back up, and repeat offenses get DQed or something of that nature.

Factory Ammo. This is really tough. I am not sure how you could check to see if people are actually using factory ammo or handloads. I feel like unless the ammo was provided to the shooters, you really can't know.

Seems like there should be a committee to decide on a rule. Then decide how it will be enforced, which involves ideas followed by counter ideas on how it might be exploited and ideas to counter the exploits etc until a compromise is made.

As for prizes go, it seems like the fairest thing to do would be to have the MD take their cut, be it a % or flat value and the rest gets split up into the winners. And you can divide it up based on # of shooters. i.e if there are 80 open shooters and 20 tac shooters and the total prize pool is $1000 then $800 would go to the open winners and 200 would go to the tac winners.

And in the end, you will still have unhappy people so fuck it IDK.
 
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Someone always knows, these hard to enforce questions,

Simple is easier, which is why the limited division doesn't get into the weeds and there is no enforcement needed in Open, beyond rifle weight, if someone adds weight to win, eventually they will get caught. How hard is it to randomly throw a scale out just before lunch and tell everyone to come straight from the line to scale. Do it by squad, just prior to lunch when people aren't thinking about it and stuff is in full swing.

I shot a match in 2013, there was ammo restrictions as it was an LE match. I won't say, "who" but you all know the name, he was running outside the rules. We all found out by the end of the weekend,

Not hard to figure out if a guy's dope is running a little hot, their numbers tell the tale and most of the time those numbers are right out in the open.

If most people are running 7.8 to 1k and you are supposed to running the same and are using 7.2 or 6.8 people know something is off.

The issue is enforcement, there is no enforcement, who can you name that was taxed for a rules violation? I know three and one was after the fact, almost a year later when it was being used to hit them over the head.

If one guy is hiding the facts and is consistently in the Top 10 people will start looking at them, people are catty, if I find a guy cheating that means it's one more space I just earned. Problem is those who provide cover or do it as a group,
 
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Shot a regional match last year, one "good" shooter was annoyed that he was "stuck" with our group and didn't get to move with his super-squad. However, they were in rotation just before us. So, despite the rule to "stay with your squad", this fella always volunteered to shoot first, ran to the next squad over, hung out with them and watched all the top shooters. When we caught up, his gear was already set up (defeating the timed stage setup) for the stage. He already had dope, wind, and saw how everyone in the previous squad shot. Volunteered to go first, usually did pretty well (go figure), then grabbed his gear and was gone.

I walked up once and asked if I could see his rifle.... "not right now"... Well, actually, I just wanted you to pick it up and have to reset on the clock like the rest of the guys in this squad!

First two finishers were in the squad in front of us. This guy finished 3rd. wont mention a name or place... you would know both.
 
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The biggest problem with coming up with rules is coming up with efficient ways to enforce them as well as a willingness to attempt to enforce them.

Rifle weight. Some rifles it isn't that difficult to add weight to a rifle after an initial weigh-in, although adding a fuckload of weights would probably be noticeable. A reasonable compromise would be to weight in at the beginning and give RO's the authority to spot check rifles that seem suspicious. But this assumes you have a RO to spot impacts and one to watch the shooter but from what I read on the ND post, it is difficult to get enough ROs for something like that.

Trigger pull weight. This is probably even harder to police because there is no visible sign that you have done it. Some triggers are very easy to adjust especially with chassis with holes cut for the adjustment allen key. For this you would probably need to test it each stage, which is not that big of a deal but IIRC the pull gauges can be finicky by giving different readings based on angles and location it is placed on the trigger. The best I can come up with is set it to w.e you want, i.e 2.5 lbs and if the reading drops below 2 lbs then you need to adjust it back up, and repeat offenses get DQed or something of that nature.

Factory Ammo. This is really tough. I am not sure how you could check to see if people are actually using factory ammo or handloads. I feel like unless the ammo was provided to the shooters, you really can't know.

Seems like there should be a committee to decide on a rule. Then decide how it will be enforced, which involves ideas followed by counter ideas on how it might be exploited and ideas to counter the exploits etc until a compromise is made.

As for prizes go, it seems like the fairest thing to do would be to have the MD take their cut, be it a % or flat value and the rest gets split up into the winners. And you can divide it up based on # of shooters. i.e if there are 80 open shooters and 20 tac shooters and the total prize pool is $1000 then $800 would go to the open winners and 200 would go to the tac winners.

And in the end, you will still have unhappy people so fuck it IDK.

Ya, like frank said, enforcement wouldn’t be a check at the beginning of the match. Only when reported or MD seems necessary.

If a possible violation is reported, MD will give the competitor two options:

Hand over the rifle immediately without MD losing sight of rifle as is, to be inspected. DQ and possible penalty for season points or something along those lines if a serious violation is found (being 1/2 lb overweight or 1oz under one trigger isn’t Serious and is within margin of error)

Take a DQ right there without turning over rifle. No season penalties.
 
Ah a match of people watching others and reporting them. Yup sounds like a fun day. LOL And if you don't think it will happen that someone reports someone that they think are beating them then you are only fooling yourself. ;)
 
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Ah a match of people watching others and reporting them. Yup sounds like a fun day. LOL And if you don't think it will happen that someone reports someone that they think are beating them then you are only fooling yourself. ;)

Ya, it’ll be abused. Up to MD to police that if it’s a pattern.

I’m perfectly fine with matches just being for fun, as I don’t think it can get but so big not being a spectator sport. But if they want to grow the game and get serious, they will have to deal with issues like this.
 
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Shot a regional match last year, one "good" shooter was annoyed that he was "stuck" with our group and didn't get to move with his super-squad. However, they were in rotation just before us. So, despite the rule to "stay with your squad", this fella always volunteered to shoot first, ran to the next squad over, hung out with them and watched all the top shooters. When we caught up, his gear was already set up (defeating the timed stage setup) for the stage. He already had dope, wind, and saw how everyone in the previous squad shot. Volunteered to go first, usually did pretty well (go figure), then grabbed his gear and was gone.

I walked up once and asked if I could see his rifle.... "not right now"... Well, actually, I just wanted you to pick it up and have to reset on the clock like the rest of the guys in this squad!

First two finishers were in the squad in front of us. This guy finished 3rd. wont mention a name or place... you would know both.
Should be made public, just on principle.
 
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Ah a match of people watching others and reporting them. Yup sounds like a fun day. LOL And if you don't think it will happen that someone reports someone that they think are beating them then you are only fooling yourself. ;)


You are the last one to mention this, :) in 2013 Tony was the one who turned him in ... LOL
 
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I am skeptical that there is enough "want to" to revamp, restructure, or aggressively grow the sport. There are a core group of loyal shooters and there are the shooters that come and go each year. You will see the latter category for a season or two and then they just fade away. The Tactical Division will have a handful of MIL/LEO guys that try their hand at PRS, but very few stick around a myriad of reasons.. just like USPSA.

It would appear that as long as the matches are getting filled, memberships are paid, and entering and departing shooters even out, things will probably stay like they are.

Don't get me wrong, I love Tactical Class. I enjoy shooting the .308. It serves me well as an instructor and Sniper on an active team. I would hate to see the Division go, but as I have stated before, I shoot .308 out of desire and for professional reasons, not because there is a Tactical Division. I have shot .308 in open division and will proudly do it again.
 
I don't think a weight limit, barrel length limit, or factory ammo restriction is necessary. At least in the case of the 308, a lot of these things are self regulating.

By the time you make the rifle heavy enough to spot trace off of a barricade, it's a PITA to carry around. And the same goes for barrel length. The longer the barrel, the more time you are wasting maneuvering the gun around on the clock.
FGMM and Hornady Match are both sufficiently fast and accurate to be competitive in Tactical class.

Even if the 178gr weight limit was lifted, I would not consider the 185 grain Bergers to be a significant advantage. The 185's may yield a small wind or drop advantage, but the extra recoil will cancel that out.

Unpopular opinion: The tactical class kills the gear race more effectively than the production class. No matter how your rig is setup or what your load is, you still have to nail your wind call and deal with the recoil.