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Posted on the Talon Owner's forum this morning 10-11-04.

The reason: Simply post the truth so readers don't only have the lies to read. I must always decide if I will address hecklers or not ... however: While I was away - a few keyboard heros tried their best to smear all our efforts with Standing Stone 4 and the fine people who had made it all a reality. That went over the line.

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Joined: Oct 11, 2004
Posts: 1
Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2004 2:11 am    Post subject: Standing Stone 4 - Inside View
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Morning All,

Interesting little "Fluff Up" here over our Airgun Festival. Funny how so many people could have had a great time and a few could represent all of our efforts in such a spiteful way.

Here's alittle background: The Cumberland Valley Sports League and Myself produced the Festival. I'd done it three previous times at a Penn. gun club. In Kentucky, the guys worked for six months and spent thousands of dollars preparing. I did the same here at Barnes Pneumatic.

When folks arrived, they were greeted with the prepared grounds - including a complete FT course. There were all manner of small bore games including fields of steel targets with Paint ball kill zones on golf tees, and rack and racks of popsicle sticks - some presented flat - some on edge. As well, rack upon rack of playing cards on edge - some presented vertical - some horizontal. Games and courses were set up in brackets of 10-25 yards and 25-50 yard classes. Olympic type Gold and Silver medals were to be awarded for all of these games. We figured there were skill levels there for anyone and everyone. That's unless you are bored with edge cutting playing cards @ 50 yards. I'm not yet.

 

From there, players could enjoy the small bore hunting camp game. It had 20 steel reactive targets set up for play between about 10-55 yards. Tired of that, our ATV mini-trucks (staffed with a range officer each) would haul you and your equipment down the wooded trails to the "Wood's Walk" game down by the river. (Pics - pics_ss4.html )
The Wood's walk game had 4 lanes out to about 75 yards thru the woods. A shooter would stand inside a 4' by 4' shooting box (pvc square on the ground). From there, they needed to find the targets suspended from trees and frequently partially masked. Targets were steel plates on steel braided rubber sheathed hose. A strike rang out and the target danced from the hit. The river was to your back the whole time. The range officer waited while your group played through. It was a great conversation time for everyone. When complete, you were hauled in the ATV trucks back up to the clubhouse.

"IF" you had big bore - OR wanted to try one - you could hang out at those benches and try them all you liked. The winners of all the big bore events at Standing Stone 4 were shooting borrowed guns!!! So - you got to try something new without buying the rig. The range had 20 steel reactive big bore targets and all kinds of sight -in backers too - out to 104 yards. Not much of a surprise that big bore is my particular speciality - therefore, I was swamped with folks who wanted to try out my seven guns I had on hand. They were busy for three days straight - we shot thousands of rounds thru them. There was plenty of staff on the grounds - so - I doubt anyone should have been surprised that I wasn't personally manning the FT range, for example, while someone else handled the big bore range.

Every day - we had HOURS of "FREE SHOOT" at the ranges. If you needed a few sight in shots before any game, we gave them to you.

We had a free bluegrass concert under one of the 30-50 foot tents on Friday evening. Chairs and tables were set out under both tents for all three day's use. There was a free bon-fire with hotdog and marshmallow roast Friday evening. A trailer type bar-b-q cooker was cooking up hot burgers, hotdogs, chili all weekend - all day. There were 4 ATV trucks in operation hauling folks to and fro for three days.

Now ... after all that ... WHAT on earth was the problem? Very simple. Under one of the big tents, we had tables and chairs set up as shooting benches with multiple rows of chairs behind them as a gallery for friends to watch and gather. In the field were lanes of plastic pop bottles suspended from "I" bolt bearing assemblies. They were constructed so the thread-on bottle cap was fixed and new bottles could be replaced easily by the Boy Scouts who were there renewing the targets.

The range was set up with targets to 50 yards and was intended for sight-in and for kids to play some shooting games with the bottles. We started the show with 3-4 hours of free shoot. During this time, rather than explore what was available, a couple of people set up at these sight in tables and began shooting. Quickly becoming bored with the 20 oz. pop bottles, they started shooting the fixed bottle caps on the bearing mounts. This, of course, ruined the caps and made it impossible to renew the targets. The situation was explained - folks were asked to not shoot at the caps. We turned our backs ... and they resumed shooting at the caps. We asked them again - explained it again ... turned away ... and they resumed shooting at the caps and mechanisms. Great fun - they could do what they darned well pleased you see. Claimed they were bored with the bottles. Some started shooting weed stems and flowers, etc. Evidently it never occured to them that we hadn't spent quite a few thousands of dollars and six months work to set up a festival of bottle caps and weed stems. They were insisting upon making up an activity that was NOT part of the festival. That's why they were not happy with it.

We had figured that several hours of time was plenty of time to check and verify your zero. That could easily be done with the multi-range bottles, the labels on those bottles, etc. When it came time to begin he festival games, all the wails went up. "You mean we can't sit here and plink at bottle caps and weeds for three days?" No - that's for sight-in and kids plinking. "But we WANT to do this!!" No - we have an entire festival of games of skill for you to play. Several of the staff explained it in detail. didn't matter - they wanted to do what they wanted to do and decided to have a fit rather than participate in ANY of the infrastructure which had been set up.

So, they wanted to know how they could camp there, where they were, and shoot. We told them a game was $5. They had fits again and started projecting hourly rates for them to insist upon sitting there for three days straight. We started trying to reason with them that - for the tenth time - that was NOT a game and therefore we HAD NO HOURLY RATE for sitting there and plinking the festival away.

Result - they stormed off. Ran to the web - tried to poison the waters and prevent anyone else from arriving. Some arrived and were met with outrageous claims of what we wanted per hour to plink, etc. We were busy having fun - running the festival. We had no time to run around behind the few mal-contents and do damage control. So - they left and ran to their keyboards. "Barnes and the Cumberland Valley Sports League are nuts - greedy - don't go - terrible time - horrible treatment ... etc."

So, they went to the festival and TOTALLY missed the festival. Their gate ticket of $10 included one free $5 tournament play. One game alone had 5 moving targets on cables and pulleys. You stood at the firing line and called "Pull". A steel target with a balloon kill zone would emerge from behind a curtain on the right and travel left across your field of view. FIVE of them. The cables, pulleys, clamps, rigging and stuff cost ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS. That's not the work involved to make and rig them. But - the few still wanted to shoot their weed stems instead.

They could have had themselves and their stuff hauled down by the river in the ATV trucks by our staff who would have waited the hour - 90 minutes it took for their group to play through. They could have enjoyed the concert and the free picnic with bon-fire. Could have talked and gathered. Only "IF" they'd cared to, they could have shot any number of expensive handmade airguns just for a hoot. Nobody sits and shoots 8 hours straight for three days. You look around and mingle - watch things. Have a burger.

Basically - you can never please all the people. You've read the comments which were posted here. After all that work - so did the members of the Cumberland Valley Sports League. They'd worked for six months to prepare. Some of them actually took vacation time to prepare and staff the festival. One of those guys had NOT taken a vacation in THREE YEARS and took off a week to help and staff. As a reward, they were kicked around on the net like theives. They were EXTREMELY hurt. Wondered what on earth people expected and what kind of people felt so "entitled" as to come in and demand everything be changed to humor their personal wishes.

There were all sorts of international visitors which arranged to come to Standing Stone 4. Can you IMAGINE what it cost them to do so? Some traveled 10,000 miles! One told me his simpliest trip he could plan cost him $1,500 dollars. And, they came and had a marvelous time! How were they reviewed here? They were written off as coming to bow before Gary Barnes and shoot his "costume jewlery". Boy - make an effort to try to pleease the public sometime. Lots of luck.

So, there it is. We had a ball. We lost out shirts on the expenses. That should thrill some. However, after loosing our shirts ... you know what we did? We went on vacation. We had a ball there too. Barnes Pneumatic offers an exceptional handmade product for a reasonable price for the HUNDREDS of hours of work that go into each one. Nobody arm is twisted to wait in line until I can make each one - they wait because they understand what goes into each. Standing Stone is not a "Company Picnic" which I OWE the world. It's an effort we pioneered in order to allow reasonable folks to have a great time actually shooting airguns - not just looking at them laying on tables. Standing Stone is not quite "Free" enough for many. Well, it's not quite "Free" for the Cumberland Valley Sports League" or myself either. When you set up your totally free version - I humbly suggest you start with the MILLION DOLLAR liability insurance. You'll find that's not free either.

Thanks for reading. I have no intention of arguing each point made here. What you've read is the truth. I invented the thing. I planned the thing. With the help of some really great people, we executed the thing. And we PAID for the thing. I'm pretty sure I know what I'm talking about. Sorry some came and could find no redeeming qualities in our efforts.

Best,

Gary

End Copy ...

As the owner of the Fun Supply Forum said regarding the topic there .... "No good deed goes unpunished".

ha ha ;?)