Why no 3 Gun ..?..Whats wrong with people..

[fnq22]

With the popularity of all the new straight pull/lever release/push button/pump action centrefire and shotties how come there is no interest in outdoor 3 gun shoots..?...

Seriously looks like about as much fun as you can possibly have with your pants on and how good is the pistol stage in the scrub.....


https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DPvcToEMTk8

A local gunstore tells he he cant keep up with demand on all these new rapid fire tactical style firearms....Why arent any ranges looking into these types of matchs..i would be there in a heartbeat......I sometimes look at the benchrest guys at the range and wonder how their life became so damn boring...

[deye243]

Have you looked at the price of ammo lately in the grand scheme of things bugger all people reload so it's just too expensive that's just one excuse the other is everything's just overregulated so hard to have fun pistol shooting these days

[womble]

There’s a lot of things wrong with people.

It needs to generate more interest here.
There’s a Facebook page but I don’t do Facebook.
And older video on YouTube. https://m.youtube.com/@3gunaustralia487/videos and these people look like they could use the exercise tbh.
Find it on Facebook, second google result. 3000 followers. ssaa club somewhere near Brisbane.
Ammo price. Hobbies cost money and everyone needs a hobby.

[fnq22]

Have you looked at the price of ammo lately in the grand scheme of things bugger all people reload so it's just too expensive that's just one excuse the other is everything's just overregulated so hard to have fun pistol shooting these days

Not sure where you live mate but the ranges I attend in FNQ..EVERYBODY that does matchs or shoots regularly reloads....with 9mm and 357/38 none of the guys in service pistol or IPSC use factory ammo..and none of the local shops sell pistol calibre ammo as nobody buys it despite my closest club having at least 120 pistol members..
All the guys that shoot the lever action matchs and benchrest reload...almost without exception..

But with the cost of reloading components these days even thats expensive with 90 rounds needed for a Service pistol match and between 100-200 for a club ISPC shoot..still plenty do it though...

From what I see there seems to be an increase in club shoots that allows the use of rimfire in a separate class though and there is no reason why rimfire handguns and rifle couldnt be used in a 3 gun shoot and just add a couple of boxes of shottie shells and you are probably not much more then $50 for a days shooting...though I'm sure plenty would use.223 which is pretty inexpensive to reload...

and the only difference between owning handguns and rifles in QLD is you are only legally allowed to shoot your handgun at a range..Which is a dumb and annoying rule for sure...What state are you in and whats the issues with Handgun regulations there..?

I generally try and get to the range when its going to be relatively quiet so i can take up 2 or 3 lanes with a bit of a shooting gallery and cycle between Rifle, Shotgun and Handgun....I'll generally use 350-500 rounds (mostly rimfire) in 2-3 hours with such a setup..I just wish we could just set it up and add in some running and movement with the 3 guns like in the youtube video..

[womble]

Would be awesome with rimfire and target a whole new demographic pun intended.
Plus you could have a more active environment
And maybe a genuine need for a 10/22

[Wapiti]

That's why the infestation of the 223 in these rifles... It's cheap and it's for putting holes in paper fast.
And so many people are hanging out for the 9mm pop gun from Eureka.

Some primary producers sons out here have bought some of the 223 versions, and all wonder why they couldn't have had 20" barrels for more ooomph on the pigs in the lucerne and pumpkins/watermelons. They call them only fun guns too now.
I thought I was maybe on the wrong track wanting a 308 version for all round stuff, so it's good to see I ain't as we all are saying the same thing out here. If something is wrecking your livlihood you will swap a $1.50 cartridge for a $2 one any day, any time.

You city shooters certainly are very well catered for, none of you should be afraid to have a go. If you're not using them, what's the point of them?

[bladeracer]

We have a small clique of 3-Gun shooters in my area, perhaps a dozen of them. They're using straight-pull and button- or lever-release rifles and guns. They're not very reliable though and the manuals of arms occasionally even stump people that are very experienced with their firearms. I would stick with a lever-action rifle and a coachgun for it myself.

With the popularity of all the new straight pull/lever release/push button/pump action centrefire and shotties how come there is no interest in outdoor 3 gun shoots..?...

Seriously looks like about as much fun as you can possibly have with your pants on and how good is the pistol stage in the scrub.....


https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DPvcToEMTk8

A local gunstore tells he he cant keep up with demand on all these new rapid fire tactical style firearms....Why arent any ranges looking into these types of matchs..i would be there in a heartbeat......I sometimes look at the benchrest guys at the range and wonder how their life became so damn boring...

[womble]

Pump action 22 would work nicely.

[bladeracer]

Even in IPSC I've been surprised to find that there are people that are using factory ammo. In my day the only people shooting factory were sponsored with free ammo. A member of the club loaded ammo for most of the other members very cheaply, and the rest loaded their own.

When I was chasing 9mm brass earlier this year I ended up buying 5000rds of cast S&B 9mm ammo for 52c a round. With the cost of primers now I'm not saving a whole lot in reloading them, but I bought plenty of powder when it was cheap. I've experimented with a few loads already that run fine, but I decided to stick with the factory stuff until it's all emptied, about 2000rds left now. I'm just now starting to load all the brass. I have enough brass already to load 10,000rds, which should last me a few years.

Before I left for Qld I bought factory .44-40 ammo for backup in case I had any issues with the black and smokeless handloads. Very painful shooting at $1.60 a round The bullets I got with the pistols are only .427" and are tumbling. They're fine for most Cowboy shooting but hopeless for Classic Pistol. I'll use .430" .44 Mag bullets once I burn the rest of these things.

Shooting blackpowder is very expensive too. At $200 a kilo now I'm using 68gn of FFFg in 12ga., 26gn in the .44-40 and 15gn in the .38, compared to 21gn, 4.5gn, and 2gn of much cheaper smokeless. And using lubed wads adds 20c to each round - I need to start making those real soon.

Have you looked at the price of ammo lately in the grand scheme of things bugger all people reload so it's just too expensive that's just one excuse the other is everything's just overregulated so hard to have fun pistol shooting these days

[fnq22]

And you are one of the lucky ones Bladeracer...

Living in closer proximity to a city gives you a lot more ammo options then us out in the sticks...

I have to do a holster course so was looking for some 9mm ammo in Innisfail the other day ...all they had was American eagle at $84 a box..could easily use 2 or 3 boxes for a club ISPC match if you start spraying a few...the other option is to drive 150 km's each way and if its stocked will be about half that but still about $1 a round minimum if you are real lucky....so if you can buy bulk deals for anywhere near 50 cents a round down there then its and absolute bargain and as mentioned no real different to handload cost but we will never see such prices up here..The cheapest small pistol primers to be found in FNQ on a recent trip was $28 per 100 in Cairns..

The only real reason in that case to handload is so you can reduce the load a bit..shooting a centrefire handgun for 100-200 factory rounds in a session can be a bit hard on the hand and wrists and not everybody enjoys the constant recoil and noise just for close range target shooting...

A fella I know that has started shooting regional IPSC matchs tells me thats the only place they dont pick up their brass as its silently scoffed upon by the more elitist competative shooters..

At my range its courtesy for everyone when we go out to patch and score to pick up any stray brass and return it to its rightful owner.....

I realise you enjoy the cowboy action shoots but you are not interested in the 3 gun style like the youtube video i linked...?..
Personally i'd love the physicality of it, the movement, trying to shoot out of breath...its just looks like a real challenge and adreniline rush...

[bladeracer]

I don't go near the city, but I have two shops an hour in each direction that keep pretty good stock, and are happy to order anything else. And one is open Sundays when I'm up there shooting anyway.

I did 5180km on the QLD trip as I had to get to places other than just Cleaver. Fuel cost me $667. On the way up with more than 1000kg of gear the van averaged 11.8kpl, coming home mostly empty it averaged just over 15kpl, averaging 13.6kpl over the entire trip.

Cleaver's retail on CCI Standard is $675. The best price the club could find locally was $800. So we saved $125 per case by buying up there over what we could possibly get it for here - most people don't buy by the case so would be paying $900+ for the same ammo. A trip directly up to Cleaver and back I would only need to buy six cases to be well ahead on the fuel cost.

Hopefully I can make the trip again next year but we'll plan well ahead so everybody can order tons of stuff. I got a phone call at Millmerran saying the club had ordered some ammo for me to collect. So I decided we should open it up to all club members, and I got messages from other people as well that knew I was up there. It worked out well for a bunch of people. One mate asked for a brick of Mini-Mags, but they were only $875 a case, so I bought a case. I gave a brick to a mate at Dunedoon and I'll feed the rest out to my mate a brick at a time as he uses it.

I bought bricks of Federal large pistol primers for $215 each, which is still steep. I reload because I have a mountain of components and I don't need to worry about outside supply. I found the BP .44-40 loads are too much for Cowboy. With the .38's I can hold the pistol on target and just flick the hammer, the smoke doesn't really matter since I'm already on target. The BP loads have too much recoil for that, and too much smoke so I can't find the targets again quickly. So I need to back them way down. At a Centrefire ISSF match though I think the other shooters mostly enjoyed it

I've been waiting since February for a holster course. I believe there are four people across Victoria qualified to do it. It's got to the point that I'm going to chase up getting qualified to do it myself - it's ridiculous.

I am interested in 3-Gun but not with the rifles and guns most use now - I have zero interest in the designs, and seeing the problems they have in competition I wouldn't want to own them. I would want to use my milsurp rifles - shooting 3-Gun with the Hi Power, Coachgun and SMLE would be tons of fun, or the .357 revolver, under/over and M1903. The group here don't have a ton of physical effort in their courses that I've seen so far, less than IPSC. I think it's partly tamed by having to stage guns around the course as we can't sling them as you would more likely do in reality. IPSC flows more cleanly I find as you don't have those positional constraints on how you choose to tackle the scenario.

Most of the pistol clubs can't use rifles as far as I'm aware so there are very limited opportunities for 3-Gun.

And you are one of the lucky ones Bladeracer...

Living in closer proximity to a city gives you a lot more ammo options then us out in the sticks...

I have to do a holster course so was looking for some 9mm ammo in Innisfail the other day ...all they had was American eagle at $84 a box..could easily use 2 or 3 boxes for a club ISPC match if you start spraying a few...the other option is to drive 150 km's each way and if its stocked will be about half that but still about $1 a round minimum if you are real lucky....so if you can buy bulk deals for anywhere near 50 cents a round down there then its and absolute bargain and as mentioned no real different to handload cost but we will never see such prices up here..The cheapest small pistol primers to be found in FNQ on a recent trip was $28 per 100 in Cairns..

The only real reason in that case to handload is so you can reduce the load a bit..shooting a centrefire handgun for 100-200 factory rounds in a session can be a bit hard on the hand and wrists and not everybody enjoys the constant recoil and noise just for close range target shooting...

A fella I know that has started shooting regional IPSC matchs tells me thats the only place they dont pick up their brass as its silently scoffed upon by the more elitist competative shooters..

At my range its courtesy for everyone when we go out to patch and score to pick up any stray brass and return it to its rightful owner.....

I realise you enjoy the cowboy action shoots but you are not interested in the 3 gun style like the youtube video i linked...?..
Personally i'd love the physicality of it, the movement, trying to shoot out of breath...its just looks like a real challenge and adreniline rush...

[fnq22]

Just be careful bladeracer or next time you may have to hire a B double if too many people catch on that you are visiting Cleaver..!..Strange though that you are 2 states away and its probably the same distance to Cleaver as me in QLD..!

Lots of ears prick up at my range when they hear of a potential Cleaver run....I guess being a direct importer themselves gives them the power to have great deals...just be sure to ring first tomake sure stuff is in stock as their website is often not representative of what they actually have left in stock ..ordering online and then being on backorder with them can be pretty frustrating...

Fortunately a new guy has just started selling guns and ammo locally so I have gotten a few bricks of cheap remington .22 for $77 per 550 so $70 per 500 which is as good as anywhere ..no dud rounds and seems accurate enough and better then the $100 I pay up here for cci standard or $90 for Blazer...when putting thousands of rounds through it adds up....But I still use cci for Service pistol and Blazer for IPSC so the shot clocks pick up the louder noise ..

Our local IPSC guy usually does the holster course when there is 3-or 4 that want to do one but the excuse here is that SSAA QLD has broken away from the main australian body which has meant that things are in a bit of dissarray and holster courses are temporarily suspended..till when, well, nobody knows..

And I see on the SSAA victoria page they do indeed have 3 gun listed but with no further details ..

I was talking to the president of a smaller range up here about trying to get a service pistol shoot happening there as all they currently do is one ISSF 25 metre pistol shoot a week there and its not worth my membership costs for just that shoot ...He said he will try and get that organised though there is quite a bit involved and these clubs are all run by volunteers and some are older without significant computer skills so to get new shoots really means that somebody has to do all that work with no guarantee of sucess.....and nobody really likes to deal with WLB anyway...

[Jackaroo]

Single Action and Wild Bunch are three gun matches (actually four for SA).

[bladeracer]

Single Action and Wild Bunch are three gun matches (actually four for SA).

Down here Cowboy is 4-Gun - two pistols, rifle and shotgun for standard Cowboy. Wild bunch is only 3-Gun - 1911, rifle and shotgun. Pat Garrett is 5-Gun - two pistols, rifle, shotgun and a long-range rifle.

I believe SA adds a Derringer sometimes.

[bladeracer]

If I were to go directly to my daughter's place (20km from Cleaver) then it's an 1820km run. Few days with my daughter, load up at Cleaver, come home. 3650km would be less than $400 in fuel in my car. But, realistically, I couldn't do the trip without stopping in to catch mates at different places, so it would turn into a two-week 5000km trip anyway

The CCI stuff I picked up was imported by NIOA, which did surprise me. Yep - I told people to order and pay and tell them I'd collect for them, that way they'd be sure it was in stock.

A dealer I don't normally use was selling cases of Remington Cyclones last year for $550. I bought four and mates bought one each. Cleaver were selling it for $295 and I was planning a trip to grab ten for myself and a bunch for other people, but they sold out very quickly. I need to find a similar deal soon.

You're shooting Service with a .22? That would be cool but I don't think they'd allow that here.

Re holster courses: I was calling or emailing every two weeks and getting "we need need to organise half a dozen people to do the course", but every club I went to all had people waiting on holster courses. It's time it became a paid position instead of relying on volunteers I think.

The 3-Gun here is generally very similar every time I've seen it. 10-15 pistol plates at 8-10m, 6-8 shotgun plates at 8-12m, and two or four IPSC paper targets at 10-20m for rifle. Occasionally they'll do just pistol, just rifle, or just gun stages though, which actually look like more fun than a 3-Gun stage sometimes. As I said, having to stage guns around the place kills the flow.

I'm on the committee here and am seeing from the inside how difficult it can be to make things happen. In business you would determine what needs doing, get some quotes, pick somebody and let it happen, in exchange for payment. That rarely happens when you have a club of volunteers with little money. I'm still getting my life back on rails after the nineteen-day trip, and the long build-up to it. We've dropped eight calves now, twins this morning, so we're nearly over that as well. I came home to a dead computer and haven't had time to look at it yet, so I'm trying to cope with doing stuff on the phone.

This weekend is Fort Bridger's "Gunfight at the OK Corral" Cowboy shoot so I'm loading ammo for that. Tested .44-40 Trailboss loads in the rifle and pistols. 3.0gn under a 200gn bullet makes 420fps in the carbine, but only 260fps in the revolvers - lovely to shoot but we need a minimum 400fps. 4.5gn is right around 400fps in the pistols so I'll load two or three dozen to get more data. If it's still close I'll up it to 5.0gn. The extra "recoil" doesn't matter in the rifle.

Once the OK is out of the way I hope to get stuck into some improvements at the pistol club.

Just be careful bladeracer or next time you may have to hire a B double if too many people catch on that you are visiting Cleaver..!..Strange though that you are 2 states away and its probably the same distance to Cleaver as me in QLD..!

Lots of ears prick up at my range when they hear of a potential Cleaver run....I guess being a direct importer themselves gives them the power to have great deals...just be sure to ring first tomake sure stuff is in stock as their website is often not representative of what they actually have left in stock ..ordering online and then being on backorder with them can be pretty frustrating...

Fortunately a new guy has just started selling guns and ammo locally so I have gotten a few bricks of cheap remington .22 for $77 per 550 so $70 per 500 which is as good as anywhere ..no dud rounds and seems accurate enough and better then the $100 I pay up here for cci standard or $90 for Blazer...when putting thousands of rounds through it adds up....But I still use cci for Service pistol and Blazer for IPSC so the shot clocks pick up the louder noise ..

Our local IPSC guy usually does the holster course when there is 3-or 4 that want to do one but the excuse here is that SSAA QLD has broken away from the main australian body which has meant that things are in a bit of dissarray and holster courses are temporarily suspended..till when, well, nobody knows..

And I see on the SSAA victoria page they do indeed have 3 gun listed but with no further details ..

I was talking to the president of a smaller range up here about trying to get a service pistol shoot happening there as all they currently do is one ISSF 25 metre pistol shoot a week there and its not worth my membership costs for just that shoot ...He said he will try and get that organised though there is quite a bit involved and these clubs are all run by volunteers and some are older without significant computer skills so to get new shoots really means that somebody has to do all that work with no guarantee of sucess.....and nobody really likes to deal with WLB anyway...

[fnq22]

You are certainly a bargain hunter mate....wish you lived up this way...mostly the clubs near me are old fellas that dont have those business management or interpersonal skills but unless I or others are willing to get involved then we have to just be grateful with whats offered...which isnt much but I cant deal with the politics and dramas of a club thats been doing things the same way since jesus was a boy....I'm happy to take my chainsaw or a paintbrush on working bee days though and jump in that way...but dealing with personalities and dramas is not my scene..

and yeah as someone mentioned above maybe some clubs should look into allowing rimfires into their own class at club matchs for Ipsc and service pistol and some shoots using these new-fangled quicker loading .223's and shotties to entice a new demographic into club shooting..the more the merrier I reckon..

I see a younger fella at Townsville Pistol club, where my son is a member, has recently started an IPSC shoot for just rimfire to allow new shooters and women to participate without the pressure of the more serious guys with race guns...

My clubs has seen an increase in shooters using rimfire for both the service pistol shoot and IPSC...This was the last Service Pistol shoot I went in...as you can see 13 out of 17 competators used rimfire and included several veterans, a woman, 2 teenagers, a cop, several RO's and some guys that had been shooting for decades..probably half also own and often use centrefire...

The guy that won centrefire and overall was using a Holosun red-dot on his CZ TS, so copped a bit of lighthearted flack for allegedly "cheating" and probably having a vagina in his pants...lol

I think its great to offer these options for club shoots..Not everyone is training to be a champion, some are older and also not the shooter they once were but still just want to enjoy a social shoot....so it caters for a mix of shooters..

and as you mention even if we were able to do a 3 gun shoot the course would be pretty basic and likely never be as elaborate as in the Youtube vid due to restrictions on our ranges here....its a shame though ..I guess i have to just appreciate the IPSC as the most practical shoot I can do that in some way mimics real life scenario's..

cheers Scott