A club I shoot at puts on a service rifle shoot twice a month threw the summer months . Today something happened that really irritated me .
First let me say that the shoot is on a slow death spiral , mostly the fault of those that run it . When I first started going we averaged 25 or so shooters . Now it's 5-6 .
But anyways , about 15 minutes before we was ready to start today a car load of youths pulled into the parking lot 5 of them to be exact , ranging from I'd say 18 - 20 years old .
And as you'd expect they was quite exuberant , they piled out of the car with the loud jostling excitement typical for kids that age .
The grumbling started then between the usual crowd .
So the young fellows walked over the pavilion and one of them asked if they was at the right place for the service rifle shoot ... still being typical noisy youths .
The older guy who runs the shoot said yes they was at the right place . So with a happy cheer they went back to the car and instantly calmed down as they got their rifles and gear from the car .
Came back to the pavilion and asked where to sign up .
One of the old timers piped up with .. what are you youngsters gonna shoot?
Two of them had ar-15' s two of them had sporterized Mosin nagants and the last one had a pretty nice 03A3 .
You would have thought that they insulted someone's mother , within 30 seconds every single guy there started spouting reasons why they couldn't shoot ... we don't allow ar-15's or sporterized rifles etc etc etc .
The kids was all confused , the website doesn't say anything about ar-15's not being allowed , and as far as the sportered rifles , every single guy there has at one time or another shot a sporterized rifle .
Everyone still saying they can't shoot ...
This really irritated me and I lost my temper a bit and using some four letter words I let it be known what I thought of them at that moment .
Calming down a bit I finally just said let them shoot or I'll go home myself and they can lose one more member ... after all there wasn't any money or prizes to win anymore . Just bragging rights .
After some more grumbling they decided to let the kids shoot ,
Every single one of them was very responsible and respectable with zero antics amongst themselves the entire time they was there .
And with the eyesight of the young they also posted the five highest scores , the kid with the 03a3 shot a 190 out of 200
I hope that the initial drama didn't scare them off and they come back in two weeks for the next shoot it would be nice to see a younger crowd start