After today's shoot, I can add to my list of personal pet peeves...

3d shooting -- in my opinion -- should not be based upon if you can see the freakin' scoring rings! It should be on two things: Your ability to judge distance, and your ability to hit a spot at that distance.

I've shot targets that were "shot up" before, and that contributed to the problem a bit today... but mostly it was because the scoring rings appeared to have been burned into the target too lightly, or else they were too old and faded. One or the other.

When you're standing 27 yards away from the target and strain for a solid two minutes with 10-power Nikons and still can't ever see the 10-ring -- let alone the 11 -- something's not right.

Now I can see why people say they need to "see the targets" all the time that they're going to be shooting in their bigger shoots... not only so they can learn detail to help judge distance -- but to learn where the darn bullseyes are!

I used to pack the cards for that, not as good as being able to see the scoring rings, but helped some. I dont even know if you can still get them.

That's why you need the absolute best binos you can afford to shoot competitively.Even on some new targets,the rings are really hard to pick up.Most pros have their own ranges which helps with knowing the scoring rings but is also a huge advantage when trying to judge the yardage of the targets.