ATLDave

Yes, that's a fair reading, too. But it's certainly not what people who use the phrase mean. Under your reading, a car traveling at a steady 150 mph would have a zero rate of speed. Nobody who uses that phrase is trying to talk about the derivative of speed. They just mean speed. So either it's pointlessly redundant (my reading), or it's affirmatively wrong (your reading). In any event, it's a phrase that needs to pass from common use.

Precisely. Thank you.

Why do people feel the compulsion to recite "per 8.1.1 and 8.1.2" in WSB? The parent rule - 8.1 - specifies that those are the default. If you just say "loaded and holstered," then 8.1.1 and 8.1.2 apply. It's like saying "high rate of speed." All speed is a rate. There is literally no difference in meaning between "traveling at a high speed" and "traveling at a high rate of speed" except some people think the latter sounds more O-fficial or more smarterer.

Yeah, that's what the scorekeeper-RO is supposed to be doing - watching the blind side (things the RO can't see because he's screened by the shooter's body, for example), watching the shooter's feet near fault lines, watching for spall from walls or barrels where there's a likelihood of the shooter putting one through hardcover, etc.

You're looking at that backwards. Precisely because those are classifiers that are shot fairly frequently, they likely had enough reported scores to meet some arbitrarily-set number of instances to have the CO data set used for its own HHF. There were people shooting those. It was just disproportionately not the serious shooters at that point. Again, USPSA's HHF percentage system means that it doesn't matter what the average shooter does on a stage, nor what most shooters do on a stage. It only matters what the best shooters do on a stage - or, rather, have done up to the point the HHF gets set. Early in a division's life, it is pretty reasonable to expect that few of the truly top shooters will be racking up classifiers in that division. So those were right in the sour spot - enough people shooting those classifiers in CO to get CO's own data used, but not enough serious shooters in CO there to set the HHF scores at places of similar skill to those in other divisions. Again, this is mostly a consequence of the dumb percentage system. It seems sensible because it seems similar to how we do match scoring, but since the purposes and processes are totally different, it's a dumb choice. Have continuously updating percentiles and this weird condition doesn't last very long.

A continuously-updating percentile system would quickly sort out this kind of weirdness. The percentage system's sole focus on the far right end of the curve means that the presence or absence of world-class shooters and world-class efforts in the data pool dramatically skews outcomes throughout the whole range. But, it works approximately good enough for the low-stakes game of classification. So HQ won't undertake the relatively modest task of coming up with a more sensible system.

Small sample size. The data used for the revised HF's had lots of data of highly skilled shooters in Production, while relatively few such shooters were part of the CO data at that point. Yet another example of the failings of the (nevertheless still roughly workable) classification system.

Let's not forget the other solution offered: Have matches at the extraordinary ranges that are willing to throw the range's staff and money at the club/match. Kind of a "nice work if you can get it" solution," right up there with "be born rich" as good financial advice.

Yeah, we're all just masochists here. You got our number.

As a golfer, this makes me laugh. First of all, golf has a very mixed relationship with the plebians. Many courses are specifically intended to not allow them. There are all kinds of barriers that are intended to make "those people" not feel welcome. Second, golf is struggling as a business right now. Big time. The last 10 years have not been kind to that industry. Using them as a model in the modern world is pretty laughable. Third, even golf expects a fair amount of volunteerism. Players are expected to rake bunkers, replace divots, fix ball marks on the green, etc. The only exceptions are for those who are additionally and separately paying a caddie - see my earlier comments about paying some dude to do your setup duties and carry your ammo between bays. A caddie will typically cost you $100 or $150 all in with tip. You might be able to pay a servant that and get them to caddie for you during your USPSA match. But no matter how much you pay them, your caddie won't be responsible for keeping your score and calling the rules - unlike USPSA where a fraction of the shooters serve as RO's, in golf you have to call your own penalties on yourself. And that's just for recreational golf. For serious amateur competitive golf and even a lot of pro golf, the game is heavily dependent on volunteers who aren't even playing. They love the game so much they'll go officiate multi-day tournaments just as a service to the sport and to see players compete. Finally, if you look at the kind of golf that the plebians most frequently engage in - banging balls at the range or playing at their local municipal courses - the costs are very similar to typical match fees. Golf balls are more expensive than individual rounds of ammo, but you shouldn't be losing very many of them in the berm during a round of golf!

Troy's answer is exactly how I have understood it. Thanks for submitting and getting confirmation!

It is wonderful if you have a club and match that is seriously sponsored by/supported by the range. Many, many, many USPSA clubs do not have that. The range tolerates the club/match, but are certainly not going to lift a finger to staff it. The (indoor weekly) match that I ran had to pay rent to the range for the match. It wasn't in any way put on by the range. One of the better and longer-standing monthly matches in my area has been shut down multiple times (for months at a time) by the range because the BOC's running the range think that shooting steel is dangerous. The chances that those same old Fudd's are going to want to pay one cent for some staff member to work the match that they're perpetually trying to kill is ZERO.

About 99% of the same guys who don't want to swing a hammer wouldn't want to pay, either. They're just jagoffs.

And it's all well and good for the more fortunate (and/or profligate) among us to say, "hey, $60 is no big deal to me, I drink that in wine three times a week; pay the plebes, and let us senatorial class shooters just shoot." But most shooters won't have that reaction. So instead of the extra cost of the "hired help" being spread among 100 shooters, it's only spread among 50. And instead of the fee going to $60, it has to go to $120. For a 6-stage club match with a field of 50. Not many people will be interested in that, so next month the field will be 20 guys and the fee will be $250. The parking will be ample, but all the cars and trucks will be very nice. For a month or two, and then the match will be dead. Not a viable model in most places. Just because some of us aren't very price sensitive doesn't mean that a good portion of the shooting population is. If you're really price insensitive and hate setting up, you could just bring your own valet with you. He can do your setup and teardown duties and pick brass throughout the match for you. Carry your bag between stages, too! Like a golf caddy.

Of course. That's a great way to do it. My comments are in response to the notion that the volunteer-based approach is a bad one and we should have more "professionally" set-up matches where some workers do all the work, and the shooters are just consumers. I was trying (perhaps poorly) to explain some of the reasons that doesn't work. One of the big ones is that you can't just get landscapers and expect them to get it right - not within the time constraints most matches have. So you'd have to pay the rates of people who are doing the setup. I MD'ed a weekly indoor match for 4 years (taking a break - burnout is definitely a thing!). I did it for free, because I love the sport and the club. If you take away that volunteerism and wanted to pay me to do it, I'd charge something approaching what I charge in my professional life. Let's just say that the match fees would have had to go up a lot to cover my bill. It's just not a workable model in most circumstances. This sport simply has to have a significant amount of volunteerism to continue. That's my ultimate point.

And do you have a grid on the ground at the range? Are guys using lasers to measure things offs? Tape measures everywhere as though they were setting up a classifier? Or are they guys who have shot matches and built stages and know how to get it to work? Do you think if you brought in some landscapers who had never seen a USPSA match and never shot a gun they would get it built correctly? And do so in the space of an hour per stage or less? My point is not that sketchup is bad (it's not). My point is that having very cheap unskilled labor build the stages is not really viable in most US locales.

I think you are wildly underestimating the typical expense of paying true market rates for competent setup. A clays course has a big initial outlay to get it set up correctly, and, after that, you're just running things mostly in maintenance mode. USPSA matches are all different. There's design work on every stage. This means you have to do one of two things: Someone either has to spend a huge amount of time laying out very, very precise stage designs on precisely scaled bay plans or the people setting it up have to have enough knowledge of the game and rules to be able to understand the concepts the designer is using and make minor tweaks to get things to work right. The first of those - have construction-grade blueprints for each stage - is not really viable for most matches. It would take countless hours of work by the MD for every single stage. There's a world of difference between a typical sketchup stage depiction and a true blueprint (as anyone has ever built stages from sketchup diagrams can attest, it never builds exactly the way it is shown - there's always something that doesn't quite work on the ground the way it worked in sketchup... it's just a very good starting point and guideline). So that means you have to have a game-knowledgable workforce. You can't just go down to Home Depot and grab a couple of dudes from the parking lot and pay them $70 each to setup, tear down, and hang around all day in between. I mean, you can do that, but all you'll really get from them is carrying of props or hammering spikes. You still need very nearly as much shooter-contributed labor. Now, if you are in some 3rd world country where unskilled labor is basically available for free, sure, you can throw a couple dozen dudes at it and have one knowledgeable person supervising setup. But in most of the U.S., that's simply not a viable approach. Club matches would cost what major matches cost or more. And when other club matches are available for a quarter or a tenth of that price and just ask for a little sweat equity, those matches won't clear enough money to pay for the workforce.

Perhaps a candid discussion with your shooting crowd about the importance of same-morning setup help versus having to move to another range (with less-nice facilities for use during the match) in order to set up the day before might generate some additional morning-of help. Not a threat, nor a demand, simply that you are considering that option.

Sports that involve equipment can generally be placed along a spectrum. One end of the spectrum is focused on neutralizing equipment as a factor. The other end of the spectrum is focused on equipment experimentation and development as an inextricable part of the sport. Baseball is an example of the former, while most auto racing is towards the latter. USPSA's approach in Open (and now in PCC, too), is to allow a lot of leeway for experimentation in the development of equipment. If (some of) the equipment has gotten so good that 9mm major can be shot as effectively as 9 minor, then that is consistent with the experimental ethos. Part of the original rationale for IPSC/USPSA was to allow competitors to try different techniques and different equipment in order to see what actually worked. Rather than getting sore about the efficacy of the equipment, we should simply marvel at how good some of the compensators have gotten and how good some of the powders are.

regor, I agree with your reading of the rule. Maybe a clarification from DNROI would be in order?

Agreed. I particularly think the medium course is criminally under-rated/used in USPSA. You can do a lot of cool stuff in a 16 or 20 round stage, and the result of some aspect you're emphasizing doesn't get watered down by all the other stage points. Consider a stage with an activator sequence of two mini-poppers, a swinger, and a clamshell. Imagine the optimal run on that lets a competitor shoot both steel, take the closer clamshell immediately, then take the swinger in one pass. If you miss a shot, then the sequence is thrown off, and you have to eat a whole cycle of the swinger. Put that array into an 18 round course, and how people shoot it will really separate the great shooters from the guys just scuffling around. Bury it in a 32 rounder, and there's the potential for people to "make it up" elsewhere in the stage to some extent, and the impact of that sequence gets pretty diluted.

How many times did you try doing that? Learning to build stages that are rule-compliant and fun/interesting takes reps. You wouldn't expect someone to shoot like a GM the first time they come to a match, no matter how good the coaching was nor how enthusiastic and smart they are. It takes time to become a decent stage-builder, to make the mistakes that gamers then capitalize on and learn from that. If you asked people to do this for 2-3 matches, then each of those people has built 2 or 3 stages (unless you've got some old hands around who used to MD). You have to anticipate some growing pains as people learn to do any challenging task. Effective delegation requires enough patience to get through those pains and eventually see the benefits. Once you get a few people really competent at this stuff, the system becomes much more self-sustaining. I would encourage you to stick with this approach, even if you have a few matches with late starts, a tossed stage, etc. Let the people willing to help learn. Don't quit on it just because they weren't perfect from the get-go.

I think even this is wrong. There is no such thing as "a hard cover target." Hard cover is applied over a target. It can be a whole separate object (and often is). If you paint a piece of 8x11 paper black and staple it to a target, then that paper is hard cover (with no non-scoring border). You have to have some area of the hit outside the black in order for it to score as anything. Hard cover and no-shoots are not the same thing.

The CW would be that the Tanfoglio will be slightly more mechanically accurate, and the trigger should start better and can be made much better than a Glock can get. You may have gotten a lemon. It's perfectly reasonable to decide you don't want to deal with a maker that sold you a lemon (although they all sell a few). But there's no particular reason to expect a Glock generally to be more accurate than a randomly chosen Tanfoglio Match. This is a little like having bought a sports car that has a bad cylinder and then buying a Chevy Silverado in order to go faster.