"I feel your pain"
I am the president of the local sportsmans club.
We have 2200 members.
The vast majority of people today just want a place to hang a target and blast away.
They couldn't care less about events, meetings, or how/when any work and repairs are done.
Our events all have a core group that show up to help, shoot, and enjoy the day.
But getting new members involved is like brushing hen's teeth.

I tried the survey idea...
It has been in every newsletter for 2 years now (12 issues).
I have about 50 that have been returned (12 issues times 2200 members, equals 26,400 possible).
That tells me that all the majority want is to pay their money and blast the backstops into oblivion.

The saving grace...
My focus since day one has been the youth.
I required youth programs in all the shooting disciplines.
I started a youth indoor air rifle program that has grown beyond my wildest dreams.
All juniors participate for free and most of the time get free ammo.
The club now has more juniors using the grounds in any one week than they have had in whole years previously.
It has not been an easy road and there are still some that just want to get rid of these programs.
I have been told, to my face..."we don't want kids here, they just get in the way".
My response was... "aren't you glad that they didn't tell you that when you were 12 years old?".

Our future is in the youth.
Concentrate on them and your events will get bigger and better.
Nothing brightens your day more than watching one of your junior shooters take the center out of the target.
I don't know whos smile is bigger, theirs or mine.

Sorry for the long post but this is an issue that fires me up.
Thanks for listening,
Dave

 

It is a shame that we just don't have the participation we had years ago at the local level. I belong to a small club and at one time we would be getting upwards of 14 to 17 shooters at our bimonthly matches, (Not bad for a population base of 1100, and way out in the middle of nowhere - so to speak).

We dwindled down to 12, then 8, then 6, then 4 & 3... Now who knows how many will show up for the Fall, Winter, and Spring gong shoots. We kind od thought going to gongs as reactive feed back would stimulate some interest, but sadly it hasn't.

Hate to say it, but I personally feel the computer age has finally taken our youths outdoor gaming/shooting away from us. I think we're feeling the effects of the 80's technology, and I see no solution to this at this point.

Don't know about back east, but out west here the good ol' Rondy's are shrinking pretty fast as well these days.

I think something grand has to come along and capture not only our youths interest, but the interest of the adult population where they say,,, hey, I'd like to get into that, this old muzzle loading sport/hobby. What that might be, I just don't have a clue...



 

A friend in the MDC (Missouri Department of Conservation) related a story our state black powder association about how when the movie "Hunger Games" came out there was a spike in interest in archery not only with Juniors but also adults. 

I recall as a youth the movies "Jeremiah Johnson" & "The Mountain Man" seamed to spark interest in Black Powder / Rendezvous.  There is new movie due to release December 2015 "The Revenant" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYiT-vLjhC4

Above is a link to the movie trailer - "Legendary trapper Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) withstands a brutal bear attack, but is left for dead by members of his own hunting team. Betrayed by his confidant John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), Glass endures unimaginable hardships as he navigates a vicious winter in a relentless quest to live and find redemption. Determined to make it home to his family, Glass must use sheer will to survive against all odds"

While I'm not a huge fan of Leonardo - the movie looks to be pretty good and it might spark some interest.  However, it may be a short lived boost that will pass with the wind.  Thank you to everyone that has posted on this thread, it has given me some things to think about.  I'm going to do everything I can keep this sport going as long as I can.

On a side note I recall when the showed the Mountain Man - we all went in dressed out in buckskins - I'm just guessing that's not such a good idea for this new film!

I know the feeling, for me my High School, College and first 15 years in the work force after College were very slim for shooting.  For about 20 years there, I was at the most shooting once a year.  I think that is why now I'm going at it so hard to make up for lost time.  Nice picture of you and your son!

One of my Clubs Ft. Osage Muzzleloaders made the move to any metallic sights about 3 years ago.  For the most part - all the die hard shooters are still shooting open sights, some of the older shooters are shooting peep sights.  We for as long as I know have always had a class system for rifle A (130+), B (90 - 129) & C (0-89).  You would think this would help bring in a decent percentage of shooters, club has about 100 members and March we had 19 shooters, April we had 7, May and June were big 3 day shoots, then July we had 8 & August we had 9.  That is an average of a little over 10 shooters (10% of the club).

I completely agree as do many of the members of our club - Open vs Peep - you still have to hold and shoot the gun.  Also, if we 60 plus shooters at a monthly shoot consistently we could always split the classes up further if there was a need for it.

Just an observation Robin, but the modern inline (that has taken off in the hunting world) has been around since the 80's and those that shoot them, which are many, to my knowledge have had ample time to form in to some kind of specialty modern muzzle loading shooting/competition groups and I have not seen this happen as yet (at least in my known areas of the west). I expect at Friendship some turn out to shoot in the modern inline matches, but I do believe that most who shoot them are not interested in shooting matches but rather extending their hunting season from the centerfire season. I just don't see these inline folks filling the void or they would have done it by now IMHO. 

Here is an idea I've thought for a long time should have been pursued... Media Coverage...

I doubt there is enough funds floating around that this could be done through television, but a "You Tube Channel" dedicated strictly to traditional muzzle loading with new videos each month would eventually catch some eyes if this "You Tube Channel" was promoted.

Level the playing field would help a lot for those that stay at home with the additude they can't compete with the bullseye shooters. How do we do this?

Make it interesting, shoot reactive targets such as - gongs, hanging clays, and whatever else one can come up with, and always push the traditional side of muzzle loading.

Work shop vids, best buy on traditional related items vids, tutatorial how to vids, heavey on the shooting vids with both target and hunting vids.

This is only a small beginning step to grab and build some interest with traditional muzzle loading,

Build and promote six shooting classifications and cover them all;

Traditional Muzzle Loading

Flintlock (iron sights - no peeps or shaders)
Percussion (iron sights - no peeps or shaders)

Flintlock (AMS - any combination of iron sights w/ or w/o shaders)
Percussion (AMS - any combination of iron sights w/ or w/o shaders)

(I leave the Smoothbore shooter's to class the following)
Flintlock Smoothbore
Percussion Smoothbore

In short (IMHO)
You can't build or recover traditional interest in this sport unless you promote it through some form of media. Right now a Youtube channel is about the only avenue because of monitary costs.

Thowing this out there in hopes it will help.


 

Last edited by Candle Snuffer (8/21/2015 9:40 PM)

Our NMLRA chartered club is a small part of a 3,500 member gun club which holds all manner of competition for modern firearms.  We have been growing again in the last couple of years by working at getting other gun club shooters to try black powder shooting as well as working with youth groups, including the Scouts.  We always have people stopping at the BP range to watch us do our twice monthly shoots.  Additionally, since many of us are retired (Hey, it's Florida) some of us do most of our shooting during the week.  We try hard to get anyone that isn't a BP shooter to take a few shots, or even shoot a lot, while they're there.  We always try to have a few extra guns available for them to use, or failing that they use our guns and we just instruct.  Well, it's starting to bring some new shooters to our club.

The biggest problem these new shooters encounter is the cost to get started.  While there were many entry level traditional style muzzle loaders being made 20 years ago, that isn't the case now.  We try to locate some of these safe but serviceable old guns that they can buy.  In the mean time, they can come on out and use one of our guns when we shoot.  We have been gaining members with this approach rather than setting up tables at the local gun shows.  I've had little success getting people interested in trying BP when manning a table for the NMLRA at gun shows.  Unfortunately, at least in this area, most people that come to the gun shows are the ammo, camo, and AR crowd.

I didn't intend to run on so much, but I thought I'd pass along what has worked for us.

Don  

Last edited by MoleEyes (9/09/2015 2:06 PM)

System will not let me fix Link showing up that should not be there!

MoleEyes and I shoot together at Port Malabar Rifle and Pistol Club in Palm Bay (Brevard County) Florida.
It's a large private club, complete with electronic locked gates and a gate guard on the weekends.
I mention all that to reinforce his point, and what Sharpsman is saying. Sharpsman sort of "codified" the ideas MoleEyes wrote, about how we try to get folks interested. We have 2 organized ( and I use that term VERY loosely) Black Powder shoots each month. On those days Non-Members wishing to access our range only need inform the guard that they are there for the BP shoot. That helps get non-members to come by and give it a try. More importantly, we encourage our fellow club members to come by as well on those days to take a look and give it a try. Like Sharpsman suggests..we make it real clear that they only need to show some interest and if they do, somebody will put a muzzleloader in their hands and provide all the instruction required to get them safely shooting.
When I talk to some of these "newbies", in my attempt to get them interested...I am often asked a question something like: "Do I have to shoot in a match to participate...??
Newbies don't want to feel like they have to compete from Day One. We do offer some fun matches for folks who enjoy competition, but NOBODY has to enter if they prefer to just shoot practice...and enjoy the day with their rifle or pistol shooting at whatever range or target type they prefer.
Reactive targets....GREAT way to get more interest. We have recently installed a set of mounts which allow us to hang metal gong targets from 25 out to 100 yds. We're going to have our first "Gong Match" next weekend.
I wish I had something to say about getting more younger folks interested. Our aging demographic is the greatest threat we face. Certainly, making rule changes within the various existing disciplines, even developing new disciplines such as Table Shooting to accommodate older shooters is helping keep our numbers up, but it's not bringing the new younger ones in we need to have to remain viable in the long term.

my big club is having the same problem. around 100 member and 75% are over 65  .the kids I know sort of shoot .want to go shooting with dad put a 30 round clip in the m16 or 22 semi auto and then just pull the trigger as fast as they can no aiming.computer gaming has flat pucked up 4 generations of kids for doing anything .shooting muzzle loaders is slow and requires lots of  practice .now try flint.kids don't want nothing to do with it. no instant gratification  or kool factor
dag

Howdy Hookie....  Way to go.  For pure fun I like silhouette gongs .  The bad thing about some paper shoots is the top guys win all the prizes.  I know they deserved them,  but it does keep many average guys from participating.  The trick is to have something for the plinkers who come just for the camaraderie. It looks like you have fun for all.

Hi kermit , I cant offer any real suggestions  or reasons but suffice to say the  club i belonged to went from the strongest in New Zealand  ( on our best day had  130 shot gun shooters in the trap line ) to 2 shooters at most on an ordinary day then the club folded ..Now I pay to shoot at the handgun metallic silhouette club where there are about 8  ml shooters active but those shooters hold a prize shoot every three months we put on a hot cooked  lunch and award pretty good prizes and charge about $20 entry we have an average of 36 shooters who fire around 30 shots on the day and some travel as far as 350 miles to attend ..  the shoots are all offhand with little restrictions on sights but all must be iron , no glass any caliber or ml rifle .. At first they all shot to gether as had been done at all shoots in the past but after the first shoot I suggested that as the same 1/2 dozen guys always won the prizes  we should grade them which we have done by keeping a record of all scores and they now shoot in groups so that shooters in each group are shooting against others of about the same ability this spreads the prizes over a wider selection of those present and we give out prizes in the  3 groups (grades the shooters have not caught on yet that they are really being graded ) down to 3rd place with always a small gift ( ususlly chocolate) to everyone who attends .. We are getting some new faces some who have not shot for years and we make about $300 per shoot .. probably not a lot of help but it seems to be working for us .. Rob

Last edited by oldtrobh (4/03/2016 4:54 PM)

These days my observation is most club members don't want to or are afraid to compete.  Local club has a shoot every Wednesday night during the warm months when I joined 20 years ago there would be 20+ plus shooters now there is 6.  Most of them won't compete at the state level with the WMLA.  And those shoots have fewer participants every year.

As far as the youth are concerned most of them want immediate gratification, can't be separated from their phones and are always bored no matter where they are.  At the last team match someone brought their grandson to the state match and all he did was play with his phone.  More than one attempt was made to draw him out but was wasted effort.

Sorry to sound negative but in the last 20 years fewer clubs and shooters.

Mulemauler, sounds like an impressive club.  I would agree to many events spreds people thin.  We have a similar problem in the Kansas City, MO area -  three major clubs (2) Blackpowder muzzleloader only and a modern club.  It's hard to find a free weekend.  On top of that a good number of our shooters travel around the state & region for different types of shooting.