Is this much one has to spend to practice trap shooting?

[karizman]

I just came across this link of DGFT & was shocked to see the amount of arms & ammunitions imported in one consignment by our renowned shot Mr. R. Rathore.

Imports of arms & Ammunition

He imported arms & ammunitions worth only Rs. 7,01,98,600/- on 1/8/2008. Even a shop like Gunmark imported goods worth about 46 lac Rs. within a span of year & see what a single person is importing in one go.

I don't have doubt that a Colonel in army must be earning that kind of amount or may be he must have got donations from whole world but I don't understand how & when someone can find time to shoot that much ammo. Is this much ammo really required for practice? Are all renowned shooters spending that kind of money? Is this much ammo imported for his personal use or for selling in open market? But isn't commercial import of arms & ammunition restricted?

Cricket & Cricketers have lost their credibility because of betting. Now I hope nothing that sort of thing happens to our very own shooting sport & once again import of ban on airguns is imposed.

[penpusher]

was shocked to see the amount of arms & ammunitions imported in one consignment by our renowned shot Mr. R. Rathore.

Why are you shocked?A shooter is allowed to import 15000 cartridges.What do you think they cost?He is not buying toffees for gods sake.Many find even this quota inadequate and buy from the NRAI.Add to this the cost of a dedicated trap gun,the cost of hiring a good coach,trips to competition venues in India and abroad and the cost goes up dramatically.Some shooters even travel abroad to train due to the lack of coaches in the country.

I don't have doubt that a Colonel in army must be earning that kind of amount or may be he must have got donations from whole world but I don't understand how & when someone can find time to shoot that much ammo.

Heard of sponsors?You will be surprised how much ammo you can use up in a very little time.

Is this much ammo imported for his personal use or for selling in open market? But isn't commercial import of arms & ammunition restricted?

Any shooter who is serious about competing internationally has no ammo to sell.In fact he would be more than happy if some one will sell some to him.

Commercial import of ammo is allowed.

Cricket & Cricketers have lost their credibility because of betting. Now I hope nothing that sort of thing happens to our very own shooting sport & once again import of ban on airguns is imposed.

Your home made air pistol poses a greater threat than the legal import of ammo.

[hamiclar01]

airdevil, i am shocked. maybe you are naieve, but to outrightly tar shooters with the same brush as bookmaking cricketers is insulting.

as penpusher says, clay pigeon shooting involves enormous costs, unlike cricket which can be practised in your backyard , with your friends, with very little equipment.

ammo, goes off with a bang (it's supposed to, innit). you can shoot around 100 odd shotshells easily in an hour. if you practise, say 4 hours a day, that's 400 shells, or around 12,000 rupees per day if you take the price per shell as 30, (likely to be more, of imported trap rounds).

i remember a russian shooter who won the International sporting at malta two years ago. he stayed at malta and practised there for six months, so he was in peak form before the contest. can you imagine what his budget would have been.

incidentally, we have not yet gone into the costs of the gun, the coach, the clays, the ground fees.....

[mundaire]

The amount of ammo a shooter requires for practice is his business, and his business alone! The only reason this is even being brought up by anyone on an open forum is because the general public is so deprived of ammo... and arms for that matter.

Lets leave the professional shooters alone and concentrate our effort on getting the situation rectified for the general public - what say? Otherwise we'll be nothing better than the proverbial crabs in a barrel

Cheers!
Abhijeet

[MoA]

15000 rounds of ammo is not a lot to go through.

I dont shoot competitively on a serious basis, but on an average range trip I will go through about 90-150 centerfire cartridges easily, and at least as many .22 LR. For me its about 4 range trips a month on an average.. which makes it about 1200 cartridges a month.

Now if I was shooting to win medals it would be a lot higher.

[karizman]

First thing first, I did not mean to insult anyone & I fully respect the senior's opinion about my question. I do not want to start an ugly debate over here. I am sorry if I have hurt anybody un-knowingly. My intentions are very well expressed by Mundaire. May be my language was little harsh.

Penpusher I am shocked because same person was cribbling about lack of sponsors after loosing in the Olympics & because I have never heard someone spending this much in a year on ammo alone. I am fully aware about the cost of imported ammo because I also have a rare "Tulle" 12 bore & I shoot atleast 300 cartridges a year which are imported by myself. I am not into competative shooting due to my work but I am in touch with many professional shooters from Mumbai. I am not completely naive.

Another point to note here is that even if we go by the modest calculations of Hamiclar01. This much amount can buy ammo that will last for 16 years if someone shoots it 365 days a year. Now still if anybody says that I am wrong in expressing my fears then I should not have brought up this issue on this forum where we all are struggling for the betterment of our shooting sport.

[Vikram]

I am a little surprised that Airdevil did not spot the numerical disagreement.

The document says Col. Rathore imported goods worth ''Rs.70198600/- US$11922.40/-''.

Now, $11922.40X48.3092 (www.xe.com) = Rs. 5,75,961.35/-. I think, whoever prepared that document got it a bit mixed up or forgot to put a point before those two zeroes.

15,000 cartridges are nothing for an Olympic shooter. An internet acquaintance of mine shoots god knows how many flats a month.He is a state level trap shooter in US and he shoots a good tens of thousands of cartridges a year.

I understand your surprise and shock especially if the money runs into crores. But, before put those words in print,at least you should have read the document carefully.That man's achievement deserves at least that.Isn't it?

Best-
Vikram

[nagarifle]

heck man 15000 pops! its noting, i used to pop 100 rounds in an hour on the ranges.

to be top shop it do't happen by dreaming, costs lot time and money.

[shahid]

A shooter past MQS ( renowned for whatever ) is allowed 15,000 cartridges.

Ths implies 50 cartridges or 2 rounds for 300 days every year.

At competitions and events more cartridges are sold to participants by NRAI but yes at a higher cost going up as much as Rs. 35 each.

Now a shooter does not practise every day. If he goes to the ranges thrice a week and fires 3 rounds and does some angles from various stations he requires 4 boxes or 100 cartridges. THis he can afford to do 150 times of the year.

If a shooter among the top 20 then this time in preperation for COmmonwealth games, each shooter is getting 50,000 cartridges and 50,000 clays free form the govt. ang with a foreign coach to train the squad. 750 cartridges will be given to each shooter on each day of practise if a guy can shoot that much. My guess is one should not shoot over 100 to 150 before an important tournament in each session.

All this is fine but if a shooter importing cartridges for Rs. 12 odd sells half of them for Rs. 25 odd and tries practiseing with only 5,000 cartridges, then the problem starts.

But the question is - no sponsorship, no food, no accomodation, no facilities, what can a shooter do ? BCCI has sponsored Abhinav Bhindra, but he is past that need now, how about taking on a new crop of shooters. How about cutting down their wining and dining expenses on trips to Dubai ( ICC headquarters ) and other places. Divert some funds to other sports.

As for Rathore, he brought us Olympic glory, lets not forget that, but he is not over it yet, and wishes to make some money too on the side. I happened to meet hi over lunch at the Palm club a few weeks ago. The guys chief concern at the moment was not the ISSF championships or commonwealth games but how to sell his Perazzi for six lakhs.

Focus boy, focus. Rathore has reached a stage where cartridges, clays, equipment, travel, accomodation is free, yet he fails to be a role model of dedication to the India team.

Unless he buckles down to serious hard work again, he is history. Young Indian shooters are fast catching on annd these days at the ranges when our top twenty shoot five rounds in practise you will be surprised at the scores, at least five of them would have shot above the last olympics gold medal score. THe future is bright for Indian shooting.

If IFG members remember I had predicted before this year's national about my ward Sheikh Shiraz. He won the Junior Gold and Senior Bronze at Jaipur last month!

[Vikram]

Shahid Wrote

''The guys chief concern at the moment was not the ISSF championships or commonwealth games but how to sell his Perazzi for six lakhs.''

Where people are ready to pay Rs 2 lakh for a Baikal O/U, what's wrong with selling a Perazzi for six lakh? How do you know that probably that particular gun does not fit him well or he doesn't shoot it well and wants to replace it with a newer/better gun? Why does six lakh for a Perazzi look so odd or is it really a preoccupation for him? I heard he is quite well off to be greedy over six lakh.

''Focus boy, focus. Rathore has reached a stage where cartridges, clays, equipment, travel, accomodation is free, yet he fails to be a role model of dedication to the India team.''

What do you mean he fails to be a role model of dedication? How is that? By not winning a gold? Is it not possible,despite best efforts, some times one loses? What makes you think that he is not working hard?


''Young Indian shooters are fast catching on annd these days at the ranges when our top twenty shoot five rounds in practise you will be surprised at the scores, at least five of them would have shot above the last olympics gold medal score. THe future is bright for Indian shooting.''

I have no doubt that India is producing some top quality talent.

Best-
Vikram

[marksman]

I suppose now we all know why a few decades ago, one only heard of Ex Rulers and big industrialists making it to the national level and national teams in all kinds of shooting sports.
Marksman

[hamiclar01]

"....Focus boy, focus. Rathore has reached a stage where cartridges, clays, equipment, travel, accomodation is free, yet he fails to be a role model of dedication to the India team.

Unless he buckles down to serious hard work again, he is history....."

Ah Shahid, we miss you. the only retort I can think of is Bulliwaif's, to Wigliff's, in Michael Crichton's "eaters of the dead",

" I thank the lord for his advice, though I cannot remember any exploits of his, apart from ..."(edited)

[shahid]

I would not like to mention many personal issues here as it is a public forum but Col Rathore.

Is not very well off. He has a Royal connection but that does not get you much. He got some money from various pvt. / public agencies but not what cricketers get nor much endorsements.

A role model will give his Perazzi to an upcoming shooter, not sell a 1.7 Lakh gun for Rs. 6 lakhs. if it did not fit him for the import price.

Learn to read between lines, this is not a direct accusation on anyone but yes many top shooters are selling cartridges.

Now the role model who has a huge catche of cartridges lying around and does not practise enough did not come forward during the last Indian nationals practise time when top 20 shooters were yet to get their cartridge import papers cleared from govt. deptts. and NRAI too had delays in their cartridges arriving and was not in a position to return cartridges borrowed from shooters for Mavlankar and other events.

COl. Rathore does not practise with the upcoming shooters to give them tips and encouragement. A role model should. It doesn't take much to spend a few hours on ranges on a lovely Delhi winter afternoon, believe me its fun.

The recent scores of COl. Rathore at the last few events including the olympics point to the obvious, he is not working hard enough and is not focussed

[shooter]

I did notice the discrepency but even if the decimal point is shifted 2 places, it still doesnt addup.

15000 is not enough for top level shooting. This just translates to 300 rounds of double trap or 600 rounds of skeet.

From what I heard (from col's coach and other indian team shooters) is that he is the most hardworking shooters. The amount of ammo he shoots is much more than other shooters. his coach has stated for the record that he was worried about col. RVSR working too hard.
His team mates have stated he shot almost double of what they did.
Currently in the US, he shot 900 rounds on a day.

Low score can mean a lot of things. It can mean lazing off but it can also mean trying to improve ones technique or a temporary lapse in form. but form is temporary and class is permanent.

please dont equate the international price of a gun with the indian market. koi bhi aadmi in tni mehengi cheez free mein nahi deta.

For a man of rajyawardhans income, a perazzi has the same value that millions have for tendulkar.

But yet the following arent role models :

Tendulkar as he didnt give away his bat etc for free to (then) upcoming sehwag.
Leander paes as he didnt give away his tennis racket to sania mirza.
Ronaldo doesnt play with the upcoming footballers but is busy playing for barcerlona / whatever.

Role model to aap hain ki without knowing a person, at your choosing declare openly on this forum that the a particular person is not invited to shoot with you.

One does however hears about renowned shooters selling ammo. but i wouldnt know if they are national team members or just renowned shots.

I do agree that india is producing some top quality shooters.

[shooter]

another update:

Kim Rhodes of the US womens skeet team and world champion shoots 1000 rounds in a day!!