This season of Top Shot

OakleyAnna,

There's plenty of rifle training and matches around.
Most of the training facilities supply the equipment.
For far less cost, there's also plenty of video and online instruction to start.
Then buy the rifle of your choice and go to local matches.
They can be found on brianenos.com, as well as the web sites for the sanctioning organizations, like uspsa.com, idpa.com, 3gunnation.com, and at many local clubs.
If matches aren't appealing, you can practice on your own, using abbreviated stage designs easily found on the web.
If you want to do it, the opportunities are there.
No need to join the Marines.
 
This was an excellent season and I enjoyed it.

I wonder if I could do some of the challenges - certainly not running around - you would still be watching to see me finish.

Good job.
 
Yeah, being a top shot is only part of it.
Gotta' be in terrific shape, too.
That's what the 3 guns folks always advise for their games.
I'd need oxygen tanks staged through out the course to make it to the end.
Maybe an electric scooter, too.
The moon would be coming up by the time I'd finish.
 
I don't really mind too much about the physical parts of the challenges, mostly because while favoring the young and spry contestants, everybody at this point knew there would be some form of running and/or obstacles in the finale. It is season 5 and they all were on the show before. And while I would have a tough time doing some of those challenges as fast as the contestants (being fairly young, but not incredibly athletic), I definitely understand the thought process of building their heart rate, stress, and adrenaline to make the shots harder.

However, I wonder at the fairness of using the crossbow in the final match, when they didn't get any training sessions and it was only used in an elimination challenge that Phil was in and Chris was not. Here you clearly have one contestant that was given a decent amount of time with a qualified trainer in manipulating and shooting the weapon, while the other competitor might never have touched that particular crossbow in his life.

The producers would have done better to use only weapons from the regualr challenges instead of the elimination ones. I know the elimination challenges tended to have harder to use or more interesting weapons (like the Hotchkiss), but it really puts the players at a disadvantage when one of them has used it and practiced with it and the other has not. The other option is to use firearms/weapons that neither contestant has used, making it very difficult but with a level playing field.

Don't know if this bothered anybody else, but seems like Chris got a little bit of the short end of the stick on that. Of course, it may not have affected the outcome at all, since he did have time to get in at least 3-4 shots for 3 targets before Phil moved on ahead.
 
However, I wonder at the fairness of using the crossbow in the final match, when they didn't get any training sessions and it was only used in an elimination challenge that Phil was in and Chris was not.
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I thought about that too. Even in the elimination challenge, one of the shooters still had loading trouble after being trained. It was a cinch that Phil, with the benefit of training, was going to have a pretty significant advantage over Chris.
 
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