• Men's 60 shot air rifle is down from 105 minutes to 75 minutes;
• Women's 40-shot is down from 75 minutes to 50 minutes;
• Mens 3x40 50m rifle is down to 2 hours 45 for all three positions with people changing positions on the fly instead of everyone changing simultaenously;
• Women's 3x20 is down from 135 to 105 minutes;
• 50m Prone rifle is down from 75 to 50 minutes;
• 300m rifle times are all down by 15 minutes in each event.

It wasn't me! wrote: »

Eliminations and duels. It's like a reality tv nightmare.

No shooting trousers or boots in prone-only matches, but you can wear them in the prone section of the three-positions matches? Eh, why? So people have to get used to two completely different feels between their prone and three-positions events?

Oh, here's a sneaky one. No vibration-reducing systems of any kind. So... All those air rifles and pistols with compensators? All those smallbore rifles with tuners or (uh oh...) bedding systems? (Yes, that would be *all* of them, in one way or another) Illegal, by that line. Now, maybe they clarify what counts as a vibration-reducing system down the line, but that line as it stands renders just about every rifle and pistol out there illegal.

Oh, and in the general technical rules, no more shoot-offs for finals? Inner ten count now decides. That's a disgrace, frankly. The shoot-offs were a proper test. This is just laziness. "It made things difficult to schedule." Boo hoo. There was time allotted for it, so that excuse does not swing.

Oh, and a €20 fee for having to retest equipment if it doesn't pass on the first test? Hmm, that seems a rather grim way to collect money based on their failure to address the gaping flaws in their own testing protocols and the inconsistency in their application at various events.

There are more, so many more, but what a pile of dog muck. But of course, this is all to make it more "dynamic" and tv-friendly, right? To encourage the public and the "youth" in particular to watch and take part? My hole it will.

• Making it mandatory for World Cup level events and above to have wireless noptel/scatt/rika setups attached to barrels for finals and presented on screens above the shooter.
• Making it a contractual obligation with Suis Ascor and Megalink and any other ISSF-approved electronic target manufacturer to produce software that lets you share scores live on the web (and by software, I mean software that works well, is robust and easy to use, not the poke-your-own-eyes-out-with-a-butternut-squash nightmare they currently have). Every shot, as it's fired, should be up on the web. It isn't rocket science, it's a fairly simple task, using standard well-understood tools. Hell, as IRLConor could tell you, boards.ie does more heavy lifting than this.
• Hiring the commentator from the London Games to be the official ISSF commentator on their youtube channel and for all ISSF major events in the future.
• Make it mandatory to use twitter and facebook duing ISSF major events and to up the amount of interaction we see. One single press release with an image from an event was a good step forward, twenty years ago; today it's just not cutting it. More than half the international circuit are on facebook, and lots are on twitter as well. If you can access both from a mobile phone, and you have professionally paid PROs at these events, then you can tweet/facebook from them too. Hell, if we can do it from Intershoot and RIAC in our spare time...
  
• Drop this stupid idea of resetting scores to zero for finals. If you have to do this daft duelling crap, you can do it without doing the resetting of scores - archery's been doing that for twenty years now. But frankly, the finals themselves were bad enough as steps away from pure target shooting went. The road we're on leads to a place that archery is now in; where the actual sport happens in qualification and then the public is shown some mockery of the sport for a few shots in a finals. That's not a good place to be in.

2013-16 Rules Changes

A few days ago a document appeared in a number of different locations, including Facebook and Stirton.com, which appears to be a summary of rule changes already approved by the ISSF for the four year cycle 2013-2016. I am told that this has been circulated to National Federations, but as of last night British Shooting have not received a copy, and the ISSF are not replying to queries about it. [Edit] Got a copy via British Shooting this morning!

There are some of the most significant changes ever made to our sport within this document, and as you can imagine they are extremely controversial. Click here for the document.

This morning I received an email from two of the most successful rifle shooters of modern times: Niccolo Campriani of Italy, Olympic Champion in London in the Men's 3P event, Silver Medalist in London & World Champion in Men's Air Rifle and Rajmond Debevec, surely the most successful rifle shooter ever - Olympic Champion in Men's 3P in Sydney, Olympic medalist in Beijing and London. Click on their names to read more about them, and read on to see what they sent me:

Dear Shooting Friends,

ISSF PETITION

Starting at zero rule.

In recent months within the shooting world there have been many rumors regarding an imminent and drastic change in the ISSF rules for the 2013-2016 cycle.

Now these rumors have become official and the main change, the one that we are petitioning, would bring the scores between qualification and final back to zero. This “start at zero” rule, deleting the qualification scores, would represent the "death" of events such as the three-position rifle or the free pistol, that for their nature reward the ability to maintain concentration and technical skills for a long period of time.

It would be like trying to make a marathon more spectacular and in order to do that we decide to stop the first 8 runners after 41,900 meters, erasing the gaps, then let them do the sprint for the last 100 meters all together.

Obviously it would be another sport.

We as the shooters and coaches around the world, appreciate the effort of the ISSF in order to make shooting a better sport but at the same time we believe that such important decisions should not be taken without the agreement of the majority of shooters and coaches.

For this reason we ask the ISSF to be clear and transparent in order to participate in this discussion and improve together this sport without deleting the meritocracy at the expense of the entertainment.

This is still a sport, not just a show.

We also believe that the London Olympic Games have demonstrated that the finals, as structured now, are very exciting and they are able to transmit to the public the excitement and the suspense needed to create a great show, especially if there are professional speakers, which do not block the action of shooters with their comments but follow it.

Why then decide to change a formula that has proven to work? Why we do not think to increase the involvement of the public at home with greater use of technology, such as heart rate monitors or devices able to track the aiming of the shooter on the target?

Solutions of this kind would not undermine meritocracy but at the same time would make shooting a sport suitable for broadcast video.

If you agree then sign here: http://www.petitiononline.com/ruleISSF/petition.html

Thanks!

Nicco and Rajmond

I fully support all that Nicco and Rajmond have said, and have nothing significant to add - they are superb champions and wonderful ambassadors for our sport. They, more than most, understand what our sport is all about, and that the existing formats provide an exciting and entertaining experience for spectators, provided that good commentary is provided and in real time.

Many of the other changes documented are intended to address concerns about how the sport appears to the uninitiated, only time will tell if they will have the desired effect, although there is more than a hint of desperation about some of them, and it is unclear how separating the sighting period from the substantially reduced match times contributes anything!

I have specific concerns about a few:

• Vibration Reduction Systems. The installation of any type of vibration reduction system in or on the rifle is prohibited.
  
  Further explanation will be required here, but it has the potential to make pretty much every Air Rifle in use across the world illegal as they all have compensators/absorbers built into their mechanisms. Will it include extension tubes on barrels? Barrel tuners? Adding any weights to a rifle has the potential to reduce the vibration in the system - simple physics.
  
• Chest Rests. Any attachments (Brustanlagen) projecting forward from the lower portion of the butt plate are prohibited.
  
  Why? With modern alu stocks many of these replace the lower part of a wooden stock, and as long as they are within the confines of the permitted dimensions of the rifle then how can this be implemented. They help with some shooters to keep the rifle from illegal contact with the left side of the chest - something that can be problematic, particularly with female athletes. I guess it will be simple enough to attach pieces to the stock below the cheekpiece that contact the shooter in the same location and circumvent this daft rule.
  
• Shoe Sole Contour. The sole must follow the external curvature of the shoe and may not extend more than 5.0 mm beyond the external dimensions of the shoe at any point. Toe extensions or heels that are cut square or flat are not permitted.
  
  Why? This cannot possibly make any difference. You can't see this level of detail from the spectator stands. Pretty much every pair of boots in the world will require the toe extensions - which exist for the kneeling position - to be cut off. What a pain. More importantly, some brands of boots which are in extensive use world wide will have to be replaced as the heels have a small flat section. I can't see how that makes any substantive difference.
  
• Shooting Jacket Left Side Panel (right handed shooter). The construction of the side panel of the jacket may not have any seam that lies under the support arm in the standing position.
  
  This has the potential to make pretty much every shooting jacket in use internationally illegal. It may be possible for some to be adjusted, but many will have to be replaced. Going forward, for male athletes it may not be a significant change to the design of jackets, but I cannot see how a jacket can be fitted to female athletes without the ability to tailor a waist into the jacket. How does this make the slightest difference? Not something that exercises my mind in worrying about what the opposition are up to.
  I get the impression that the main impact of these changes will be substantial financial costs imposed on our athletes as they may have to replace air rifles and other components of their competition firearms, replacement of certain brands of shooting boots, and replacement or major adjustments to their shooting jackets, while female athletes are targeted for specific discrimination in terms of fitting shooting jackets to their physiques.

All of these costs would be bad enough in a healthy economic climate, and for countries where the athletes and/or international teams are well funded they may not be that significant, but those are few and far between. For the vast majority, self-funding is the reality and to tell all these shooters worldwide, particularly the juniors, that much of their existing equipment needs to be replaced for questionable gain is potentially disastrous.

Thirdfox wrote: »

On deeper reflection the budding lawyer in me might point out that if we follow his example too carefully though we'd allow everyone to shoot in the final and not just the top 8.

And the ISSF could equally come back and say that we should compare to the 100m - people qualify with different times in heats but it's reset to zero for the final (no eliminations though...) - and only a limited number of the initial competitors gets to run in the 100m finals either (arguably more like what we have now in AR)