I suppose this goes for all sports of this kind where the players actions don’t affect each other.
I suppose this goes for all sports of this kind where the players actions don’t affect each other.
Two men enter, two bloody flying pins leave.
Ahem: snooker, darts, golf, test match cricket, tennis. To varying degrees with these sports, at the top tier, mastery of the skill is merely the table stakes. The winners are the ones who can do so under immense pressure.
Maybe a step back in technology would make the sport more interesting.
I think that can be said for a bunch of stuff like pool, snooker, darts, golf, and bowling.
(Not to knock the people who do that vs less high tech bullseye disciples, because they're also definitely better - they clean house in the lower tech competitions too)
I'm reminded of an excerpt from Ian Banks culture series, the game player one (player of games?). Really good games need some element of random, not just pure skill+gear.
To me, competing in target shooting with an air rifles is like competing in a marathon using a treadmill.
The limit in the UK is 12 foot pounds for an air rifle. Oddly, comparing that with a bow (draw weight of 40 pounds firing a 30” arrow) makes archery seem pretty lethal.
There are a few places where 300m ISSF is still done, like Switzerland, but it's dwindling. Even in the US, high power bullseye is much less common than smallbore/air, because there's no terminal college or international goal.
From a precision standpoint, the air rifles are also much more exact for cheaper. 10m air rifle is insanely difficult.
And also let's be honest, bullseye is a weird mental game that most people don't like anyways. So anyone in the US doing gun-competition-for-fun is doing USPSA or similar.
If you want to do high power bullseye, there's still a handful of people left doing it.
Also, if you’re Mookie Betts, you’re big on both