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Allowable calibers in matches

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I was at an informal local match today when one of the shooters said that his ~36 caliber was illegal in the match. He continued that the smallest allowable caliber was .45. I have never heard such a claim. He said it was started in WVa years ago. Is there any truth in what he said?
 
That is how they runn a match near me. It is for deer legal flintlocks, minimum 45 caliber as required to hunt whitetails here.
 
Here we have several matches that limit caliber. A squirrel rifle match, 40 and smaller and a big bore 58 and larger. However, there are generally parallel aggregates without limits.
 
At my range ,we have no limits for matches. It goes from 26 cal up to 62 cal. 32 is now common.There is plenty of 45s and 50s being used. We can't afford to turn anyone away for such reasons. There is few enough of us already and we are getting older.
True we need more shooters, not trying to restrict shooters!
 
I was at an informal local match today when one of the shooters said that his ~36 caliber was illegal in the match. He continued that the smallest allowable caliber was .45. I have never heard such a claim. He said it was started in WVa years ago. Is there any truth in what he said?
Illegal in the match? Or out of competition for prizes? Local club I belong to doesn’t have muzzleloader shoots, but you can shoot any weapon in a match, your score is published, but you are considered ‘out of competition’ for prizes. Have seen folks shoot original trapdoors in CMP matches. They do ok until the timed rapid fire when competing against the semi autos and bolt actions. But they are not disqualified. No reason someone couldn’t shoot a Bess, though they would not score very well.
 
I was at an informal local match today when one of the shooters said that his ~36 caliber was illegal in the match. He continued that the smallest allowable caliber was .45. I have never heard such a claim. He said it was started in WVa years ago. Is there any truth in what he said?
Never heard of such, in the northwest almost all of our Rhondys are on very large private ranches, so we have a lot of room. Our rifle trail walks are normally shot with 45 and up. In order to swing the steel targets at up to 100+ yards. We will also have a separate trade gun trail 54 and up with 5/6 clays at the end. For the 40 and under we will have a squirrel trail usually 75yards and under and small targets. Many have now added a derringer trail. All trails will be swinging steel. Almost all have a shotgun event for ML and BP cartridge both singles and Doubles. Of course we will have paper ,long gong etc. Very few if any tourist, mostly local ranchers.
Doc,
 
The shoot close to me was so desperate to get shooters, there wasn't a bore minimum. Just 2 classes, rifled or smoothbore. Smooth required no rear sight. They stopped the shoot a few years ago when one of the driving forces behind it passed away. Never saw anyone beat him in smoothbore class. He was GOOD.
 
I shoot competition and we do have rules for caliber but since we're Civil War oriented, that's pretty much what the calibers are. In that light, our rules stipulate that an arm must have had a minimum number purchased and deployed. There are "classes" to keep the muzzleloaders shooting against muzzleloaders and repeaters against repeaters. As for an informal local match, it could be any and everything and that depends on who organizes the match.
 
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