ABT Targets - Distance or speed?

[Les53]

so possibly ending up with what we had 20 yrs ago. Now some of us could at this stage say something on the lines of we told them so, but we wouldnt do that would we les.

Oh yes I would!!!!!

 

[ips]

Please mister can I have my ball trap back? When I was at the county ABT champs on Sunday I heard a good few derogatory comments about the current ABT. Yes the weather was awful which is fair enough and that did not help anyone of course, but there was some real anger shown by some people about what ABT has become. I hope the powers that be ask me for my opinion on the subject ,but I'm not a top shooter so I guess they wont even bother with a miserable old bugger like me!

I suppose we must accept that many shooters havent been shooting as long as we have and dont know what "proper" ABT is so it is of no concequence apart from the fact that many will be scared off having had a go and ended up with a miserable score particularly DTL shooters which historically is were the majority of ABT shooters come from, they are not used to dealing with such low scores an WILL run for the hills. I and I expect many other hard core ABT shooters just wont be beaten by it so we will just have to knuckle down. But having said that very soon ABT will be as rare as DR because if few shoot it grounds wont put it on and it will dissapear without trace. The only way it will survive is if AA and A class DTL shooters have a go and can hit 80 any less than that as an opening have a go score and they wont cope with it. Those of us that want really demanding targets have OT.

just my opinion for what its worth.

 

[ips]

Furthermore

I could have a bad memory but I dont remember people coming off with scores of 14 and less 20 years ago even in high wind, and that is sometimes from ABT shooters not have a go sorts ?

this has to tell us something ?

 

[Les53]

Ian our views mostly agree and they certainly do when it comes to abt. The average shooter can nearly always hit a fairly reasonable score at dtl, it was once the case the a half decent dtl man could do quite well when first attempting the old abt. The new abt basically eats people alive, it is in effect as hard as ot ,it has the speed and distance of ot, buy with less severe angles as we know. Therefore if one wants to shoot really difficult targets, then ot must be the way to go, at least everyone gets the same target and therefore it is also fairer than abt

 

[ips]

IMO if the average shooter cannot expect to hit an extra 2 targets per line at ABT than OT then both diciplines are a nonsense. If a ground can throw equally tough targets from one ABT trap then why would they bother with the expence of 15 traps and a computermijig. Thus potentially OT or at least new grounds with OT is at risk. Conversly if shooters think they may as well shoot OT as ABT is just as hard then were does that leave clubs who cannot afford to install OT when all there customers begger off to shoot OT at one of apporox 4 grounds in england that have it ?

edit

PS when was the last time anyone shot decent abt from a propper abt layout as opposed to a trench layout, does this mean that smaller grounds / clubs have already kicked abt into touch. If this is the case then a completely new abt is here regardles of speed and angles it is called "trench trap" potentially a totally different discipline to ABT of old

 

[ips]

Ian our views mostly agree and they certainly do when it comes to abt. The average shooter can nearly always hit a fairly reasonable score at dtl, it was once the case the a half decent dtl man could do quite well when first attempting the old abt. The new abt basically eats people alive, it is in effect as hard as ot ,it has the speed and distance of ot, buy with less severe angles as we know. Therefore if one wants to shoot really difficult targets, then ot must be the way to go, at least everyone gets the same target and therefore it is also fairer than abt

one of the reasons I went over to abt in about 92 and apart from the occasional dtl did nothing else for many years was that as a pretty poor dtl shooter I found I was hitting as many abt targets all be it with the occasional 2nd barrels than I was dtl targets this I found suited me really well, this I fear would never be the case now.

 

[Les53]

Ian I guess we took a similar path. I left dtl because of the mental side of the points thing, one too many second tubes and you are out, even if you hit a hundred straight!! My hit rate on moving to abt only dropped by about 10% from dtl, it would not be the case these days!

 

[ips]

Indeed we did les, and yet again we get around to what WAS the whole point of ABT. A more demanding discipline than DTL but a decent average could be attained by a decent shooter who once mastered it to some degree felt confident to move up to OT if he or she wanted really testing and challenging targets. Also ABT was fairly widely available as many DTL grounds could hold events safe in the knowledge that people mainly of DTL background were not scared to shoot it for fear of being demoralised by lower than expected scores.

 

[Wonko the Sane]

Phil.....and anyone......

Who has heard of this new FITASC discipline mentioned...... " NF said that he was 

aware of a possible new FITASC discipline to bridge the gap to help attract new shooters into 
ABT. More information to follow when available. "

Classic bureaucratic growth process.  Screw with a functioning system until it is perceived as ineffective and  then propose an expansion to resolve the problem!

Really is too bad you folks don't have some recourse to flogging the a-holes that have run down this path with ABT.

you have my sympathies

Charlie

 

[PhilR]

so possibly ending up with what we had 20 yrs ago. Now some of us could at this stage say something on the lines of we told them so, but we wouldnt do that would we les.

Not quite so.  The shooting positions will be as UT.  There's a lot of UT only ranges abroad, predominantly France, where they wouldn't have the possibility of extending the floor area for OT shooting positions or because of the positioning of structural roof supports etc.  Obviously no problem on an OT range.

 

[ips]

Ok thanks for clarification Phil.

I don't really mind what we get as long as whatever it is we stick with it.

 

[Dog Tyred]

ok Greg but where did you hear it?

CPSA December minutes raised my interest (Tink posted a clip earlier) so Bingled it and found minutes of WCTSA meeting on October which made reference to the ICTSC discussion on the subject of speed or distance. Not seen anything about reducing target speed or distance though until Tink's earlier post of the CPSA October minutes!

CRM ? Suggestions on what that stands for ?

DT

 

[Jay]

Furthermore

I could have a bad memory but I dont remember people coming off with scores of 14 and less 20 years ago even in high wind, and that is sometimes from ABT shooters not have a go sorts ?

this has to tell us something ?

It'll be interesting to see the average stats in a few months time.

 

[RobertBeard]

CRM ? Suggestions on what that stands for ?

Computer Software Term for Customer Relationship Management!   :lol:   :lol:

 

[ips]

It'll be interesting to see the average stats in a few months time.

indeed it will jay, i suspect similar to last issue as few of us seem to have got any better at it

 

[Les53]

Furthermore

I could have a bad memory but I dont remember people coming off with scores of 14 and less 20 years ago even in high wind, and that is sometimes from ABT shooters not have a go sorts ?

this has to tell us something ?

All I can say is that I seem to remember my first ever ABT score was 15 or 16. At that time I was often shooting 25 straights at DTL, so 15 or 16 at ABT was a bit of a shock, but it was enough to get me hooked, even though I still carried on with DTL for many years after that. Scores of 14 only happed to ABT novices in those days and they generally went up pretty quickly after a few shoots!

 

[Jay]

I shot a type of ABT a couple of months back, but I haven't shot this new ABT yet. As an OT shooter i'm intrigued so where is the best place to shoot this new ABT to get the full experience !? Based on the points raised on the technical aspects i'm expecting it to be nails hard !

 

[ips]

The usual jay bev, sc, nutty all have demanding mans trap i mean ball trap. 70+ metre target and 54 degree angle from 1 and 5. Fill your boots

 

[Jay]

I'll do a 100 reg pepsi challenge and report back my thoughts.

 

[ips]

Look forward to your thoughts jay.