Why arent pistol cal carbines more common?

[444]

" They are NOT very popular, and it's fans are being largely over-ruled by the vast majority of shooters who simply know better. "

I don't know if I agree with this. Let me tell a little story.
At the local gun club that I belong to, I shoot a couple monthly matches. The match director of one is a friend and the match director of another one is another good friend. After shooting one day, we stopped in a tavern and after solving all the worlds problems, one of these guys decides that we need to start another shooting sport. We have all been active competitive shooters in various venues at various times and he thought we could come up with a fun little match to put on that is different from anything else offered locally. After much discussion, we came up with the idea of putting on a match with pistol caliber carbines. There were actually numerous reasons why we came to that conclusion. Most of the reasons were because it would be similar to holding an pistol match. We could use the shorter range "bays" the club has. We could shoot steel targets that were far less expensive than the ones we use for full bore rifle matches. We can shoot the targets at closer range than would be safe with a rifle. We can use the "shoot house" We can shoot the club's pepper poppers. We can use the club's plate racks. We could use cardboard silhouettes and paper for some of the stages which isn't practical in some of our other matches because we don't want to have to stop everything to go a couple hundred yards downrange to check and tape paper targets. But at pistol distances, it wouldn't be a big deal. We even took into consideration that we could all use our submachine guns on semi-auto if we wanted to and decided we could make this submachine gun friendly and attract some of the machine gun guys to this match also. It also didn't hurt anything that a lot of the cowboy shooters had guns ready to go for a match like this (these two guys had been avid cowboy shooters) which is yet another source for people to attend our new match. There were a lot of things that we could do with pistol caliber carbines that would take a lot more effort and expense to do with rifle caliber carbines. I personally started the whole idea by saying that I would like to start a match shot with carbines like AR15s/AKs/SKSs etc. But after discussion, I realized that doing that would be a lot more involved than using pistol caliber carbines. And, since I already owned an AR15 in 9mm, I didn't put up much of a fight.
It came as no surprise to me that all three of us owned more than one gun we could use for this match (we were all three certified gun nuts). What DID surprise me was when they announced this match at the club, prior to the matches that these guys normally put on. They mentioned that they were considering this and wanted people's opinion on it. Obviously, if no one was interested, we wern't going to pursue the matter. The response was overwhelming. There were probably 50 shooters there when this was announced. Most of them raised their hand that they were interested in such a match and way over half of them said they owned a pistol caliber carbine to use. In the following weeks, these guys got a number of phone calls from people wanting to know when these matches were going to start: they couldn't wait.
One of the primary reasons given was that they owned a pistol caliber carbine and didn't have any particular use for it until this match was conceived.
So, I don't have any numbers to back this up, but you might be surprised how many people own these carbines. You might be even more surprised to find out that you are not in the mainstream: you only think you are. You might also be surprised that when talking about a hobby or recreational activity, not everyone needs a good rational reason to take part or to buy the gear for it. You might also be surprised that not everyone is broke/down on their luck/cheap and they buy things just because they want them and don't feel the need to justify it to anyone. I am not trying to be a jerk or be critical of anyone: I am just trying to put out something to think about.

 

[Tony Williams]

Along the same lines as 444's contribution: here in the benighted UK all handguns and all self-loading rifles (except .22LR) are banned. I'm no longer in touch with the shooting fraternity and the one gun mag we used to have which covered competitions closed years ago, but the last I heard there was a boom in sales of lever-action carbines in pistol calibres

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

 

[444]

One thing that prompted me to suggest such a match is the fact that there are all kinds of rifle shooting matches at long range: NRA Highpower, metalic silhouette, Palma and the like. We shoot matches at our club with milsurp rifles where we shoot steel plates. Etc.
BUT, there is nothing here locally where you shoot rifles/carbines at close range: CQB range. Home Defense range. Room clearing range. Across the front yard range.........
When I have taken carbine classes at Gunsite and Frontsight, a lot of the work was done at close range. Home owners, police officers, and even soldiers probably have a lot better change of engaging in a firefight at close range than at long range.
Those of us that shoot at longer ranges with rifles know where our rifles hit at 200 yards. We know the sight dope to dial in for 600 yards. But what if you had to make a precision head shot against a target holding a hostage and only a small part of the head is visible. Do you know where your rifle hits at 10 feet ?
One element in most shooting sports and especially pistol shooting sports is the balance between speed and accuracy. Precision shooting requires most of us to slow way down to make the shot. The sport I proposed would lean more in the direction of speed. Putting shots quickly into COM at relatively short range. Making the stages a lot like pistol stages: multiple targets, engaged against a shot timer, with reloads on the clock.
This type of sport would simply be much easier and cheaper to put on with pistol caliber carbines rather than rifles.

 

[444]

One thing that prompted me to suggest such a match is the fact that there are all kinds of rifle shooting matches at long range: NRA Highpower, metalic silhouette, Palma and the like. We shoot matches at our club with milsurp rifles where we shoot steel plates. Etc.
BUT, there is nothing here locally where you shoot rifles/carbines at close range: CQB range. Home Defense range. Room clearing range. Across the front yard range. Across the bedroom range.........
When I have taken carbine classes at Gunsite and Frontsight, a lot of the work was done at close range. Home owners, police officers, and even soldiers probably have a lot better chance of engaging in a firefight at close range than at long range.
Those of us that shoot at longer ranges with rifles know where our rifles hit at 200 yards. We know the sight dope to dial in for 600 yards. But what if you had to make a precision head shot against a target holding a hostage and only a small part of the head is visible. Do you know where your rifle hits at 10 feet ?
One element in most shooting sports and especially pistol shooting sports is the balance between speed and accuracy. Precision shooting requires most of us to slow way down to make the shot. The sport I proposed would lean more in the direction of speed. Putting shots quickly into COM at relatively short range. Making the stages a lot like pistol stages: multiple targets, engaged against a shot timer, with reloads on the clock.
This type of sport would simply be much easier and cheaper to put on with pistol caliber carbines rather than rifles.