Are the shooting sports dead?

[Virgil Lantey]

I'll admit, it's a depressing subject.
Consider CAS, for instance. What's the average age of the participants in your club? Ya, I know, there's a few youngsters in the game but are there enough to save the sport? I'm not a member of my local SASS club but I know the average age and it's gotta be 70 +.
I've taken an interest in metallic silhouette shooting and I attended a local club match last weekend. The directors were all but begging me to join and at 60+ years of age I'd be in the below average age of members.
My local USPSA club is very active and attracts  younger participants but they're running out of primers and powder!
I can't in good faith interest younger folks to start reloading because the shortage of components will make it all but impossible.

I read the other day that target shooting was the #1 sport in the U.S until baseball took the lead. Don't know if that's true or not but I fear that the shooting sports are dying a slow but inevitable death, and the anti gun political climate ain't helping matters any.
Am I all wet? Brighten my cynicism if you can.
If nothing else, maybe we can have a lively debate.

[Abilene]

Well, your subject title said "dead" and your post said dying slow.  Those are very different things.  I'd estimate the average age in central Texas is closer to 60.  There are clubs shooting every weekend and I'm going to estimate the average attendance is about 40.  True, we are years past the huge peak in the early 2000's, but if it is dying slowly here, it is very slowly.

I guess I would add that the "component shortage" is mostly over.  Bullets are totally available.  New brass can be hard to find right now, but there is plenty of used available.  The big bugaboo has been primers, and they are essentially available by now.  A lot of people just don't like the higher prices.

[Virgil Lantey]

Good to hear, Abilene! Are you optimistic about the future?

[Abilene]

I added to my previous post after you posted.  But to answer your question, yes!  Because I am always an optimist!    To quote Meher Baba: "Don't Worry, Be Happy" 

I mean, it's likely that CAS will just disappear except for some small pockets some day years from now, but I'm not going to fret about that.

[Baltimore Ed]

Shot a .22 zsa match last weekend with 7 others. The only guy near my age was the match director, everyone else was in their 20s I believe. Tomorrow I'm going to try a uspsa match with my pcc .45. Should be fun and the weather is decent for a change. I can see the organized shooting sports dying a slow inevitable death between the old guard fading away, ranges closing due to urban sprawl, legislation and the high cost to play the game. Bullseye was all the rage after the war but not anymore. I shot bowling pins for a while but not now. Shooting tastes change. Things get hot and then die out. I've been into cas since the 90s, I still shoot cas but at my club using WASA rules and WASA guns. If it was a stuck up sass club I would have probably quit. I saw the writing on the wall when Founders Ranch folded. All the work that was done there for nothing. I said that we were nearer the end than the beginning. Time to circle the wagons. Somebody will be shooting something I'm sure but what? I hear airguns are becoming very popular.

[Virgil Lantey]

ZSA? I had to look that one up!
"Gotta shoot em in the head".
              Night of the Living Dead

I assume head shots are the only scoring shot!

[Cowtown]

Dying slowly? Possibly.

The "end" seems to really depend on where geographically you're talking about. Some clubs appear to be alive, well and growing while others already gone. The reasons for either are probably quite similar for both.

The real reason some of the clubs and the game itself keep going are the dedicated few who devote their energies and passion to the game week after week, year after year, seemingly tirelessly. To all those folks, a hearty THANK YOU is in order.

[Coffinmaker]

  Cowown and All 

I can't speak to the "other" shooting games.  I gave up on IPSC decades ago and have never been tempted to go back.  From my perspective, SASS/CAS is slowly imploding.  The majority of shooters most places I shoot are late Fifties and Sixties with many in their 70s.  The participation everywhere has been on the decline for years.  Ranges that use to see 70-80 shooters per match are now lucky to break 40.  Major matches, once attended by 450+ are now lucky to make 250 with many only approaching 200.  The simple truth being, there are literally no young replacements in the numbers required to keep the game going.

I use to be able to shoot 4 matches a month and never drive more than 70 miles to any match.  Now there is only one and today's match saw 6, yes SIX stalwart folks come to play.  It's sad.  From a plethora of options in Western Pennsylvania, CAS is near extinct.

I am not at all optimistic for a rosy future.  I just want to play the game for as long as I can.

Play Safe Out There

COVID didn't help at all.

[Cliff Fendley]

Shooting sport? absolutely not at all.

CAS? not dead but really dwindling at least in our area.

[Rye Miles]

I don't think the future of CAS is necessarily in the hands of young shooters. I think there's new shooters in their 40's and 50's who have been shooting and have the money to get involved. I've seen quite a few new shooters at the different clubs I go to and most are "seasoned" shooters and CAS is all new to them! JMHO
Rye

[Jeremiah Jones]

OP is correct, but it is not just shooting sports.  The younger generations seem to only want to do on-line stuff.  When I quit racing in the Sports Car Club of America, the "graying" of the membership was a big issue.  A Mason friend of mine recently said they may have to close the local lodge since no one is joining and the current members are dying off.  From what I have been told the VFW and American Legion are withering away despite 20 years of GWOT.

[RRio]

As it is in all aspects in life now, money is the big factor. they only truly inexpensive shooting sport is going to be .22 rimfire.  Ammo has gotten crazy, especially big bore.

[Ranch 13]

 Shooting sports dead? No I don't think so. Some venues are slowly withering away, yet others are exploding.
Currently, F class and palma matches are selling out to range capacity in many places and the competition is fierce with plenty of young shooters. PRC same thing. Trap/skeet/ sporting clays are very much alive and doing well. Airgun and rimfire PRC are growing fast. Levergun, Hipower and small bore silhouette would seem to be alive and well
Some of the nitch venues, ie BPCR, Schuetzen and CAS are fading, some handgun disciplines have  all but disappeared.
Interest in the shooting public change periodically and that's what we're seeing now I think

[Dave T]

Most everyone thinks CAS is at least dwindling if not actually fading away. I wonder if a return to the early days of CAS (my start in it) when it wasn't strictly a speed contest but one of shooting skill, with smaller targets farther away. Could that generate some new interest?

Just askin'
Dave

[Abilene]

Most everyone thinks CAS is at least dwindling if not actually fading away. I wonder if a return to the early days of CAS (my start in it) when it wasn't strictly a speed contest but one of shooting skill, with smaller targets farther away. Could that generate some new interest?

Just askin'
Dave

Dave, I really hate to say this, but the answer is "no".   The clubs with smaller further targets are doing more poorly than large/close.   "New interest"?  There would be a few folks who would say yeah, I remember those days, I'll shoot that.  But only a few, not enough to even survive much less grow. Part of the issue, IMO, is that active shooters have been spoiled by the ease of hitting the targets.  They might enjoy a retro stage but not a whole match.  I have been to a club in Colorado twice, about 9 years ago and again 3 years ago.  They are staunch "retros" with small and far targets.  They also have barely enough shooters to make one posse every month.  I enjoyed the challenge, just like I know I would enjoy the challenge at an NCOWS match (which I have yet to make, but I am aware of their target placements), but people like me are in the minority.  There is a club not too far from here (but further than the clubs I shoot at, so I haven't been there in a good while) that had a reputation for small/far.  They were dwindling and have in recent times been moving them in and that has been more popular.  The game has transitioned from accuracy to speed.  It is still fun, for me anyway. 

[Dave T]

Abilene,

Looks like I was wrong. Guess folks have changed since back then. I haven't but that's probably obvious.

Dave

[Bart Slade]

Speaking as a relative newcomer (I started shooting SASS in 2018 at the then age of 48), my feeling is that it's the expense of the sport that keeps people away rather than disinterest.

Bottom line (to me), it's a sport for people who don't have kids living at home (either because they just don't have kids, or the kids have moved out).  The investments in time and money are just too high.

That said, I also feel like I'm at the tail end of generations who admire cowboys and are interested in the old west.  So for CAS specifically, there's probably a double whammy of "expense skyrocketing" and "nobody cares".   

[DeaconKC]

I think that a conversation I had yesterday with a Medical Resident [who was stitching my skull up] showed me something interesting. She told me that she was fascinated by cowboy movies now. One of the other residents is watching Lonesome Dove on the Midnight shift and this was her first time seeing a western movie. She is intelligent, articulate 29 and had never heard of John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, etc. She is a Tom Selleck fan from Blue Bloods, so I pointed her to Quigley and Crossfire Trail.
We have not had any good Westerns in too long, so the younger folks don't have any interest because they haven't seen any.

[Baltimore Ed]

We shot our monthly yesterday with a couple new faces. Had 15 shooters, a crowd for us. Great to see. But they were from the Raleigh area so we'll see. There are a lot of bigger clubs around that part of NC. As non competitive as I was I tried shooting gunfighter for the first time after lunch break for 3 scenarios. I liked it. Much more practice needed but I will try it again....but with a couple of double actions. Remember we are a WASA club.