The Numbers Don’t Add Up

Many years ago, at my first major practical pistol match, I was struck by all the banners set up around the range and how many shooters were wearing shirts festooned with NASCAR-style advertising. And none of it was appealing to me, a beginning shooter. I saw great shooters running Glocks, I saw great shooters running Springfields, I saw great shooters running Smifs. More importantly, I rarely, if ever, saw any advertising from the gun companies about why those great shooters were winning with those guns. I met Michael Bane a few years after that and gained more knowledge about the gun business worked, but to this day I am still trying to figure out how gun companies see any ROI from 99% of the sponsored shooters out there. 

The 1% is pretty easy to spot. Lena Miculek and her dad are awesome ambassadors to the sport, as is Rob Leatham. One of the best is Julie Golob, and it’s great to see here at Springfield now, where The Armory Life Blog is just CRYING out for her content. She will do well there.

The biggest problem I’ve seen with most every other sponsored shooter is making their skills relatable to Joe Schmo who shoots once a month in a lane on an indoor range. That kind of person has no context for what, say, Max Michel can do, because they’ve never seen top-level shooting in action. 

SIG had a good idea awhile back to create a team that was partially made up of mid-range (C Class-ish) shooters and have them document their efforts to make it to the big time. I like that, but why not take it one step further, and create a video/blog series that takes the idea of “Zero to Hero” to its logical conclusion. 

1. Pick a sponsored shooter.
2. Find a beginning shooter near them who is willing to do some training.
3. Hire a freelance videographer/editor for, oh, 3 hours of filming each week. 
4. Have the sponsored shooter walk the beginner through the process of getting better. 

Steve Anderson mentioned a while ago that with regular intensive dry fire, just about anyone could become a GM in a year or so, and I think he’s right. There are diminishing returns on this process at around B Class or so, but even still, a before/after montage at that level would be like night and day.