RickT

That would be a fine solution if the MD permitted, but that's not the case. Paint on request would appear to address shred's concerns. I believe the rule without exception for Tier 1 requires painting between shooters; that might tend to stretch out matches a bit especially given the prevalence of 10 gun/5 shooter squads, but there should be a soft landing somewhere.

Our local week day matches don't allow painting. It's not a cost issue since the 4 stage matches are only $5 for club members. There is absolutely nothing at stake other than a)bragging rights if applicable and b)classification, but when the 11th gun comes up in Five to Go one or more of the targets can be absolutely black and depending up sun angle and background said target(s) can be nearly invisible. I'd like to see a rule that requires,as a minimum, that targets be painted after every 4 shooters; wouldn't take much time and would provide every shooter in a squad a reasonably clean target. Clubs would be free to skip the painting, but then couldn't upload their scores to SCSA. Thoughts?

So in Tier 2 and above offset of mag pouches are a thing?

Prior to our move to Idaho 5 years ago my wife and I shot the SLOSA match every month with 80 guns at every match (single gun match). The SLOMO match was added to allow 2-guns. The most months the regular match didn't break 30 guns, the SLOMO match around 40. There are very few centerfire handguns in either of these matches. An Action Pistol/Rifle match has been added which appears to use USPSA-type scoring. In our current locale an Action Steel match is now being offered. Given the discussions regarding the convergence of performance among CO, LO (if added), and OPN doesn't it make sense to a)combine CO/LO/OPN into Centerfire Open; b) combine Production and Limited into Centerfire Irons? Is the current trend likely to change?

My wife's reclassification request (from M to A) was denied even though we pointed to an obvious score entry error. Not a big deal but very strange result.

Makes perfect sense. I was referring to preferential treatment of a more personal nature. RO duty is simply performed by those in the squad who feel comfortable doing so and setup is a large gang of anyone who shows up early.

I don't manage any of the local matches. I'm personally fine with approaches 1 or 2, but have a real problem with preferential approaches. I've often been the only 1-gun and centerfire handgun shooter in a squad and don't find that sort of squad composition particularly enjoyable, but that's life in today's Steel Challenge. I also prefer being able to select a squad at registration, but the whole 1-gun/2-gun thing makes this awkward for MDs unless the match is first come/first serve.

What approaches seem to work best - Tier 1 1. Accept all first guns, lottery for second guns (registration cut-off for first gun) 2. First come, first serve 3. Second gun preference to frequent match supporters? 4. Other? How does this interact with squadding? Squad during registration versus MD creates squads?

All of the above makes sense. By inference the only place/condition in which you can leave your gun unattended is bagged and in either your range bag or gun cart. Rifles/PCC need not be bagged if they are properly mounted in a cart.

That fits within my standard practice.

Clubs use various items for marking the rimfire aim point. I've seen whiskers only, small cones, buckets, and more official looking items ranging from 0 to 24" high. Regardless of the height of the aim point I've had no problem with shooters at ready provided It appeared the point of aim to be no higher than approximately 24" above the marker provided the azimuth was reasonable accurate. I'm more concerned when the "direction" of aim wanders toward the draw plate. The rules don't provide guidance in this specific instance. How is this generally handled? (Edit: Tier 1 matches)

Even after I clean my wife's Mamba-X mags and replace springs as necessary she is still experiencing slow feeding on occasion. I've seen threads on other forums discussing using light oil on these mags. Thoughts/experiences welcome. At this point I'll try everything. We use CCI mini-mags and try to keep this warmer during our matches in min-30's temps FWIW.

I've identified two unrelated issues which are readily addressed 1. The rotary magazine springs do wear out and I'm fairly certain I under-tension magazines that have seen some rounds. 2. I do run bore patches through our 10/22 barrels, but we just discovered that mini-mags don't seat readily when I perform the equivalent of a centerfire drop test. I nylon brushed the chamber and the mini-mags now seat with ease (manually). This is a bit baffling given a)I do clean the barrel, b)We haven't seen this before, and c)why just mini-mags, our go-to SC round, when CCI AR, CCI Camo, ... all drop into the chamber. From now on I'll repeat this drop test as part of my cleaning routine.

I don't personally have much of an issue unless something is really out of wack and at my "used to be A class" speed in SS things have to be really out of wack to matter, but the rule book should address relaxed rules for Tier 1 matches to legitimize scores for these matches. +-2 inches for whisker location is a good goal using the standard 2-tape method. Better and just as fast would be adding a laser tape from the box/stage center for slant range, but that's just me. Why do all that without making some effort to roughly center the plates over the whisker; you can come darn close doing this. Painting is a different story. Shooting a 10" plate at Pendulum distance with a bad background and bad lighting conditions is a big deal when the plate has been hit 45 times. I think this should be a hard requirement for SCSA accepting scores given the potential disparate effect across competitors.

The MD generally does a good job and there are plenty of people there for setup, myself included, but he's a my way or the highway guy. I'd bring my own paint, but he would never allow that, etc., etc . Volunteering to square up the setup prior to start of match would put us further up his "black list". I made a reasonable, polite suggestion regarding one particular match where he limited the headcount without sending out a prior notification and all I got in return was a nasty response. We don't have enough matches around here to bail out of this one so we're stuck.