comfisherman
Well-Known Member
Might be all that, but I'd surmise it's even more benign than that. Phil Harvey's "the rest of the show" saying often is forgotten when information is transfered on the internet/tv/magazines/sportsmans gun counter...
As such partial information gets relayed, usually only the juicy bits.
I'll give an example, a childhood friend of mine once shot clays off the back deck of my boat with his 45. It was kinda his parlor trick with a pretty decent hit %. Onlookers were pretty wowed by the feat.
You could ask about his gun, his technique and his aftermarket sights. Could even sorta understand or at least try to understand when he says he practices a lot... but the rest of the story was a bit more complex.
He was an accomplished shooter before wntering the service, clear back to childhood. He was divorced right at the end of the service so didn't have much social going on. Took a high paaying miserable job to squirrel away money for a year or so to make his transition to college easier. He drove a beater, ate cheap food and lived in a rented room... to keep himself entertained he went to the range when he wasn't at work. Figures he shot 5 figures worth of ammo in about 18 months in just that gun (at Bush administration ammo prices). Were talking borderline obsession level range time.
Now that's "the rest of the story"... hrs and hrs of practice every day for more than a year. Never mind some innate skill and early age introduction combined with the funds to make it all happen.
The issue is, honest observers could accurately tell you they saw him use x gun, y ammo and open sights to shoot clays... doesn't mean 99.9% of people have the capacity much less the resources to duplicate the whole story of the feat.
Truth is shots 500+ take skills and practice to master, heck just wind reading takes many many hrs. To a certain extent many shooting skills atrophy, wind reading certainly seems to for me. Problem is half the story, the easy technical bits are available on forums and YouTube even the TV. Fair enough, those are the actionable bits bullets/barrels/stocks/range finders etc. But it's easy to try and group the knowledge/application in with the technical. It's a lot easier to watch a 20 minute video on wind judging, than to spend hrs and hrs afield applying it.
Families/careers/Heath it all takes priority, only natural we in the west would like to hit the easy button and buy our way in.
On the actionable front, maybe those of us on the forums can add a few more words per post and try and frame "the rest of the story". Could potentially better frame the sport as well as better educate newbies.
As such partial information gets relayed, usually only the juicy bits.
I'll give an example, a childhood friend of mine once shot clays off the back deck of my boat with his 45. It was kinda his parlor trick with a pretty decent hit %. Onlookers were pretty wowed by the feat.
You could ask about his gun, his technique and his aftermarket sights. Could even sorta understand or at least try to understand when he says he practices a lot... but the rest of the story was a bit more complex.
He was an accomplished shooter before wntering the service, clear back to childhood. He was divorced right at the end of the service so didn't have much social going on. Took a high paaying miserable job to squirrel away money for a year or so to make his transition to college easier. He drove a beater, ate cheap food and lived in a rented room... to keep himself entertained he went to the range when he wasn't at work. Figures he shot 5 figures worth of ammo in about 18 months in just that gun (at Bush administration ammo prices). Were talking borderline obsession level range time.
Now that's "the rest of the story"... hrs and hrs of practice every day for more than a year. Never mind some innate skill and early age introduction combined with the funds to make it all happen.
The issue is, honest observers could accurately tell you they saw him use x gun, y ammo and open sights to shoot clays... doesn't mean 99.9% of people have the capacity much less the resources to duplicate the whole story of the feat.
Truth is shots 500+ take skills and practice to master, heck just wind reading takes many many hrs. To a certain extent many shooting skills atrophy, wind reading certainly seems to for me. Problem is half the story, the easy technical bits are available on forums and YouTube even the TV. Fair enough, those are the actionable bits bullets/barrels/stocks/range finders etc. But it's easy to try and group the knowledge/application in with the technical. It's a lot easier to watch a 20 minute video on wind judging, than to spend hrs and hrs afield applying it.
Families/careers/Heath it all takes priority, only natural we in the west would like to hit the easy button and buy our way in.
On the actionable front, maybe those of us on the forums can add a few more words per post and try and frame "the rest of the story". Could potentially better frame the sport as well as better educate newbies.
