Petition to Allow Laser Range Finders in Field Target Competitions

[Regal_US]

Hi everyone,

We’ve just launched a petition asking the WFTF to consider allowing the use of Laser Range Finders in Field Target competitions. This change could make the sport more accessible, inclusive, and aligned with modern shooting practices.

If you believe in making Field Target more open to newcomers, HFT shooters, and those with visual or technical challenges, please take a moment to read and sign the petition



https://chng.it/NZmNzHYWHZ


Your support can help bring positive change to our sport. Thank you!

I do not support this. Why do new shooters expect to score well on a course? Part of FT is learning to range find accurately, and deal with wind. If as a beginner you are knocking down 40-50% of FT targets in WFTF (assuming you have practiced on paper) you are doing really well and will improve with practice. Many of us are shooting against ourselves, and training to improve our scores, instead of being the top scoring shooter in a match.

 

[SciueraPlumbea]

A hit isn’t always a ethical kill shot… I prefer precise

Check my headshot thread posts.

 

[cavedweller]

I do not support this. Why do new shooters expect to score well on a course? Part of FT is learning to range find accurately, and deal with wind. If as a beginner you are knocking down 40-50% of FT targets in WFTF (assuming you have practiced on paper) you are doing really well and will improve with practice. Many of us are shooting against ourselves, and training to improve our scores, instead of being the top scoring shooter in a match.

Exactly

 

[PowderBurnt]

Haven't there been numerous threads on how to improve the popularity of the game? Aren't there just as many opinions on how to do that?

 

[dan_house]

any Miliradian FFP scope or SFP MRAD set to its 1:1 magnification is an analog range finder.

Height of target in inches ÷ 36 x 1000 ÷ Mil reading= range in Yards

with MOA reticle it's

target size in inches x 95.5 ÷ MOA reading= range in yards

Math?


Do the math AHEAD of your match. Make a table with all this data...... Using a spreadsheet will speed that up a lot, and allow a formatted print out that's easy to read in the time constraints during your time in the shooters box.

FWIW--- there are a number of ways to skin the range-finding cat.... ALL of them require some skill to use, so no matter your personal take on this, yer gonna need to practice

 

[dan_house]

"The simplest solution i can think of and cost no money is just unlimited shot's till you hit the intended target "

Then score it like golf...... lowest score wins

 

[SciueraPlumbea]

Math?


Do the math AHEAD of your match. Make a table with all this data...... Using a spreadsheet will speed that up a lot, and allow a formatted print out that's easy to read in the time constraints during your time in the shooters box.

FWIW--- there are a number of ways to skin the range-finding cat.... ALL of them require some skill to use, so no matter your personal take on this, yer gonna need to practice

Exactly. Range tapes. DOPE charts on the side of your eyepiece or stock. wherever.

 

[steve123]

The simplest solution i can think of and cost no money is just unlimited shot's till you hit the intended target , Everybody gets a 1st place trophy !
No winners , no losers , no hurt feelings , no tear's ,and most of all ,no whining !

Ha we tried that and it was called golf scoring. We discovered it was best to limit it to no more than 5 tries(IIRC) or some of those guys would still be shooting on the course come dinner time, LOL.

 

[Bramezy]

This has no place in the WFTF or any other national event. Perfectly fine for local matches and make it real easy and just give people who just want to have fun the yardages. People who want to compete and prep can continue. Simple. Done. Nothing further needed.

 

[Melo]

Se perdería la esencia del tiro, daría ventajas a los tiradores con mayor aptitud para el manejo de las tecnologías. No participaría en competiciones donde se prioriza a los participantes y se les recompensa con ventajas que no puedo permitirme. El siguiente paso sería conectar el rifle a un ordenador y dejar que la inteligencia artificial haga mi trabajo; por supuesto, yo recibiría el premio.

 

[JW.]

None, I admitted that from the first post. But i've done it in MANY LR-UD courses. I do this everytime I fire at live prey. Finicky game doesn't always allow the time for laser ranging and dialing. I've got it in my head that a squirrel head, jaw on the crosshair to mil read at the ear at a glance .3 = 150 .4 = 125 .5=100 .6= 80 .7=65 1= ~50 1.5=30 2=25 Usually gets the job done. I don't sit there with a pen and paper. Spending most of my late teenage years and early to late 20's doing that every single weekend, that kinda became second nature. using my telescopic hi zoom ruler.

edit: I guess what I'm saying is Most people involved deep enough in the hobby to compete at hard to find niche competitions and deep enough into that scene to develop a community of friends country wide. I assume that you're practiced enough to know the size of something or at least ballpark it accurately enough to get a workable solution. You know what a minute looks like at ranges. You know what your typical Bullseye on a BR card looks relative to your Metric of choice reticle. I'm sure the Pressures of time constraints and worrying about your score adds difficulty. I'm not trying to flaunt my massive skills or imply lack of skills in anyone else, I'm sure I'd get handily destroyed by practiced FT shooters. I'm coming from the position I assume that was part of the challenge and a what would be a fundamental skill to develop as well as trigger discipline, cant discipline, Stance, Hold, breath, and optic precision.

There have been a few competitors over the years that use bracketing over parallax to range targets. It was 'easier' when they could shoot prone, after prone was discouraged bracketing has primarily gone away.

The biggest issue was time, the competitors who bracketed used every second of their five minutes. At Worlds level events you have less time to shoot the targets, pretty sure bracketing would take too long.

These guys had notebooks full of data for all kinds of stuff, target sizes, pieces of wood, cinderblocks, etc, etc. They shot well without using bracketing and with using bracketing, I would have to ask them directly if they believed bracketing was better or if it just took a lot of time. They don't do it currently.

 

[JW.]

Commercially available/ Access to targets that can handle <100 fpe at 15 yards is pretty much non existent and when you do find a source it will cost you a bunch $$$

FT knock down targets perhaps, I have a bunch of Caldwell steel targets that do perfectly fine for PB's and cost a fraction of what FT targets cost and they have no moving parts... 15 yards is stupid close for guns that shoot around 100fpe, I wouldn't put a target closer than 50 or 75 yards if I was to create a new format. Hell if you set an AAFTA GP course for 100% of the points you won't have any targets closer than 15 yards (and if you do you'll have some other impossible targets to offset the low T value for the 10 yarders).

Who wants to pull on 300 yards of string (attached to a giant 'field' target) or have to wind that string up (and all the others) at the end of the event...?

 

[SciueraPlumbea]

There have been a few competitors over the years that use bracketing over parallax to range targets. It was 'easier' when they could shoot prone, after prone was discouraged bracketing has primarily gone away.

The biggest issue was time, the competitors who bracketed used every second of their five minutes. At Worlds level events you have less time to shoot the targets, pretty sure bracketing would take too long.

These guys had notebooks full of data for all kinds of stuff, target sizes, pieces of wood, cinderblocks, etc, etc. They shot well without using bracketing and with using bracketing, I would have to ask them directly if they believed bracketing was better or if it just took a lot of time. They don't do it currently.

Combine the two. I was simply talking about one method. Bracketing gives you the ballpark, using the parallax puts the finer edge on it.

 

[JW.]

Combine the two. I was simply talking about one method. Bracketing gives you the ballpark, using the parallax puts the finer edge on it.

They did just that, but I believe they went with their bracketed ranges. This was when Hunter FT was at 12x as well, so the parallaxed range was even less useful than it is now.

 

[steve123]

any Miliradian FFP scope or SFP MRAD set to its 1:1 magnification is an analog range finder.

Height of target in inches ÷ 36 x 1000 ÷ Mil reading= range in Yards

with MOA reticle it's

target size in inches x 95.5 ÷ MOA reading= range in yards

Back around 15 years ago, for me in Hunter FT, when I used to use a scope at the required 12x or less, I tried ranging with the reticle in Mil and FFP. I was even down prone back then using attached bipod with the butt of the gun resting on my hand left arm somewhat steady. My scope reticle was .5 mil and it was still fairly difficult to bracket precise enough to get reliable distance estimations based off KZ sizes which I knew.

For example a 1.5" KZ that measures .8 mil is at 52Y and measured at .9 mil is at 46Y. It's enough to miss if one doesn't guess the wind nearly perfectly because we are shooting at circle shaped KZ's. That's only 1 click's difference to make out in the reticle. Really it was more having the gun steady enough to see the exact difference. Then as the KZ's get smaller like 1.25" at those same distances it gets even harder to hit them.

I also tried this with a H59 mil reticle in all .2's. It was a little easier than using the .5 mil reticle but measuring say .85 mil vs .8 or .9 is getting hard to see to be effective. Again it's hard to hold the gun still enough, at least for me it was.

Later my eyes started fluctuating with I can only guess as due to blood suger levels, or who knows what combination of other eye problems?? because I kept having to change the scopes diopter setting to keep the reticle focused which affects consistent ranging using the focus of the scope. After 2-3 tries over the years using different scopes I said the heck with it and started using a LRF/ laser range finder all the time in Freestyle/unlimited.
I shoot just for the fun of it now, actually not competing with anyone most of the time, and enjoy the matches as much as ever.

Aside from the above, and for the record, we have a bunch of shooters in our club that are capable of winning any FT match anywhere and we don't see a major difference in scores from Unlimited, Hunter, or Open. It's basically who was shooting better on that particular day and who made the least mental mistakes.
The exception though is probably in WFTF on only "WINDY" days when their scores are lower but if the wind is low they do just as well as we do if not winning the match.

But I have to applaud our club member Kent who shot a 48/48 in Hunter Saturday on a fairly tough course facing three directions in IIWTG 12-20 mph winds!! I shot a 45 in Unlimited and another guy in Hunter also got 45 then behind him was a 44, and the other better scores weren't much lower. IIRC high WFTF was 37. Windy enough coming from 10 oclock on lane 8 that I had to aim out 6 MOA to hit the 1 7/8th KZ both times at 55Y and not much less at the 48Y to hit the 1.5" KZ twice. Ha and I thought I was doing well???!!!!

As I keep mentioning it doesn't matter at this point if a LRF is used or not as far as scores go with the almost 20 fpe rigs.

 

[JW.]

To some degree using a LRF could get you some bad distances over using the scope...ranging the bush behind the target happens.

Interesting observation Steve, I think the one biggest thing Freestyle gains points on over Open/Hunter/WFTF is not having to stand/kneel at the forced positions.

 

[DeanB]

I always thought the whole point of field target is to have practiced shooting enough to be able to judge distances w/o rangefinder or be able to use your scope to judge range. Everyone wants everything to be easy anymore, everyone should get participation awards to for just showing up.
If you want to learn to shoot or participate bad enough using a rangefinder will have no bearing on if you do. Its been over 20 yrs since I used to shoot FT but thats the way it was back then.

 

[thomasair]

To some degree using a LRF could get you some bad distances over using the scope...ranging the bush behind the target happens.

Interesting observation Steve, I think the one biggest thing Freestyle gains points on over Open/Hunter/WFTF is not having to stand/kneel at the forced positions.

The offstand lane....haha

 

[steve123]

To some degree using a LRF could get you some bad distances over using the scope...ranging the bush behind the target happens.

Interesting observation Steve, I think the one biggest thing Freestyle gains points on over Open/Hunter/WFTF is not having to stand/kneel at the forced positions.

Exactly, Jim!
Plus I have to double check the closest distances by leaning forward or backwards to make sure I'm not at 9.5Y vs 10Y, or 10Y vs 10.5Y, etc. You know the half a yard here and there which has bitten me with a split before, mostly on the 3/8 KZ's.

At my local matches I use a shooting jacket and a sling in offhand so my scores are more representative of everyone else's.
At LD's was the first time I had shot sitting on the positional lanes and only because the other Unlimited shooters were doing so. Well that's much of the reason why my score was higher than usual.

 

[Iowa Airgunner]

Just my two cents. I am against any rangefinder other than your scope.

Figuring out the range is a big part of the game.