Am a little puzzled?

[yellow bear]

At our club, we have monthly shoots involving 'buffalo guns' - also, I have not attended them, but the officially sanctioned black powder shoots some of the guys go to involve shooting from an offhand position - our club competitions allow sticks - I stopped beating myself up trying to shoot a 12 lb. rifle offhand and use sticks - my point is that in the market days, none of the hunters shot offhand but supported - why are competitions still insisting on offhand?  I mean they could have a naked shoot - that's up to the sponser - so anything is possible -
but why would you have a competition shooting offhand?

What does your club do? - am I'm missing the point?

[Ranch 13]

 Offhand targets have always been a part of the full match, goes way back to the original Wimbleton and Creedmoor matches in the 1860's. They thought in those days your weren't much of a rifleman if you couldn't shoot offhand.
 The Quigley match offhand target is the closest target 350 yds, if you can shoot a good score on that one you'll likely end up closer to the top 10 than if you don't