NRA Smallbore Nationals Move Permanently to Indiana
Report based on Story in NRABlog.
It’s official — Indiana is IN and Ohio is OUT. The Chief Wa-Ke-De Range in Bristol, Indiana, is now the permanent home of the NRA National Smallbore Rifle Championships. The Smallbore Championships will no longer be contested at the historic Camp Perry facility on the shores of Lake Erie near Port Clinton, Ohio. After the Smallbore Nationals were relocated to Indiana for the past two years to facilitate the 2015 World Long Range Championships, many competitors expected a return to Camp Perry. However, the NRA Smallbore Committee has decided to make Bristol, Indiana the permanent venue for the Smallbore Championships.
Situated about three hours west of Camp Perry, the Wa-Ke-De Range has some advantages over the Camp Perry facility. First, the 100-point firing line is covered in asphalt instead of grass. In addition, the range sits in a large grove of trees that provide a beautiful setting and shelter from the wind — practically the opposite of Camp Perry’s notorious wind and open fields.
Despite this, many smallbore competitors wished for the Nationals to return to Camp Perry. One poll of shooters ran roughly 3:1 in favor of returning to Perry. On his personal website, Bill Dutton has posted an Open Letter to the NRA which states many reasons why the Smallbore Championships should be returned to Camp Perry. Among other things, Bill notes: “The facilities are perfect for a large Regional but The Chief Wa-Ke’-De Rifle Range lacks the grand scale which a Camp Perry provides. Competitors and parents look forward to browsing vendor row at Camp Perry in order to replenish supplies for the coming season… in addition to trying out the latest shooting equipment. The nearest hotel [was] in Elkhart, about 15 minutes away. Camp Perry has sufficient onsite lodging for hundreds of competitors and their families. I personally had a bill for $1,400 for the hotel I and my daughter stayed in. Compared to a Hut at Camp Perry where four people can sleep for $12.50 per night, translating to equivalent cost of $175 per person for two weeks.”
View Photo Gallery from 2014 Smallbore Championships
2016 Championships Scheduled for July 10-18, 2016
The 2016 Smallbore Championships will be held 10-18 July, 2016, with registration opening on April 1, 2016. As before, the Metric and Conventional Position Championships will fall under the umbrella of the NRA Smallbore 3-Position Championship. Note: The Metric Prone Championship was removed but the 50-yard match was added to the NRA Smallbore Prone Championship. From these two main championships (3-Position and Prone), an overall NRA National Smallbore Rifle Champion will be crowned.
Team championships in both position and prone will still be awarded. 3-Position team matches will be shot as “paper matches,” meaning the scores will be taken from a shooter’s individual performance in the 3-Position Championship. Prone team matches will still be shot on their own and will be held following each day’s individual prone matches.
Similar Posts:
- Indiana Hosts 2012 Metric Smallbore Championships July 13-17
- Indiana Hosts NRA National Metric Championships Mid-July
- Huge Thunderstorm Delayed Smallbore Nationals in Indiana
- Registration Opens for 2016 National Matches at Camp Perry
- Smallbore Centennial — The 100th Nat’l Smallbore Championships
Share the post "NRA Smallbore Nationals Move Permanently to Indiana"
Tags: Camp Perry, Indiana, Metric, Rimfire, Smallbore, Wa-Ke'-De
To bad. This is another shot for vendors on commercial row. Im sure the new range is nice,,,but Perry is Perry.
Some of the information here is not correct. Indiana proved to be very unpopular with the shooters. Attendance plummeted by well over 50%, and when they held a vote with people that shot both places ~3/4 said go back to Perry. The official communication from the NRA said they would reconsider Perry for 2016, but if that’s changed it wouldn’t be the first time the NRA has back-tracked on this issue.
There is a very large segment of top smallbore shooters who have been boycotting due to the change, and will likely continue to do so. The NRA is killing the sport.
This is nothing against the range at Bristol, from most reports I’ve heard it’s overall a nice range.
Horse manure, the vote was taken and Perry won by a large margin. The NRA cited “cost” as the reason for moving permanently to Bristol but then the CMP stated they paid most of the Perry costs. Moody has been drinking his own kool aid.
The shooters overwhelmingly voted to return to Camp Perry. The vote was 133 to 51. Another 150 or more voted with their feet and did not participate at Bristol.
This is not what the competitors wanted.
http://williamdutton.com/open-letter-to-the-nra.html
They voted overwhelmingly to return to Camp Perry.
The NRA posted what amounts to questionable motives for their wanting to remain in Bristol. They talk about the need to reduce costs but in reality, the competitors wanted to remain in Camp Perry even if it meant raising registration prices.
Did this information come from an alternate universe? Because in the one I live in, there was a drop in attendance by over half after the move to Bristol. The vote was overwhelmingly in favor of returning to Camp Perry, but the official letter from NRA essentially said the results of the vote were thrown out. Facebook is exploding with outrage over how this has been handled. And no competitors I know would have requested the metric prone match be eliminated! Utter nonsense. Many of us wanted the 50-yd match to be reinstated, but not at the expense of another Championship! Good grief, it’s almost as if the Orwellian Big Brother spin doctors work at NRA now.
This move has infuriated the small bore shooting community. What was to be a temporary move became, a suggestion to stay, to “we’ll poll the shooter” to this. For the record we were polled and by almost 3:1 those in favor of Perry spoke out. Attendance was down by half for the prone matches in 2014 and be even more in 2015. Many of the shooters voted their preference with their feet by staying home. Moving the NRA Smallbore Championships to Bristol IN does no service to the small bore shooters. Only the NRA. They are spinning this as a popular move. Nothing could be farther from the truth. There is an active movement to start another governing body for small bore shooting or seek out the CMP to sanction the championships.
The NRA, like the NSSF, believes that they are omniscient and are not answerable to anyone, even their members. Every time a new shooting sport emerges the NRA swoops in to take over.
The NSSF still does not believe that 70% of the exhibitors at S.H.O.T Show want to return to the Las Vegas Convention Center venue. NSSF signed an extended contract to keep it in the same sad rats nest of a venue instead of listening to their constituents.
Where is our voice and representation? If we as the majority want something to happen, it should happen. Why isn’t it?
Money in the right pockets of course. The liars profit and we suffer for it. Sounds sort of like our Federal Gov’t doesn’t it?
Kudos to Accurate Shooter for revising the NRA blog report. I am still incredulous at nonsense which they broadcasted via their blog.
Mr. Cors in the October 2015 Rifleman article claims he wants to encourage competitive shooting. I would point out to him that the competitors were told at Bristol this summer by the NRA that it costs approximately $20K per page to publish an article in the Rifleman. If I take that number and then multiple the number of pages in Mr. Cor’s article the NRA spent $100K to tell us they want to encourage competitive shooting. If they are so concerned with finances, wouldn’t the $100K have been better spent running the National Championships?
My $.02