Making Shotgun Stages Weigh More

[DJPoLo]

I hosted a 3-Gun match this weekend and am looking for a way to weight the shotgun stages heavier. I realize that I can specify 2x poppers in EZWinScore, but when I try something with paper targets I can't double weight it.

At yesterday's match I had a 12-round all-steel field course which could be scored as 60 points or 120 points (if choosing 2x poppers in the scoring program). I also had a 12-round slugs-only stage using IPSC Classic targets. Unless I'm missing something, I can only score that stage at 60 points.

The two rifle stages were 120 points each and the pistol stages were 120 points and 115 points.

I opted not to double-weight the shotgun steel stage, since I couldn't double weight the shotgun paper stage.

So, as often happens with any shotgun match that uses paper, the match was unbalanced:

Pistol 235 points

Rifle 240 points

Shotgun 120 points

Is there any way to even up a shotgun match that uses paper targets without adding rounds (I'm sure no one wants to shoot 24 rounds of slugs on one stage)?

[warpspeed]

Why only 12 round shotgun stages?

[Tom Freeman]

Just tell your computer that you are looking for 24 hits and just double whatever hits they earn. 10A and 2C = 20A and 4C.

We sometimes put paper out and score the two best hits with 00 buck. Just to keep it interesting, we put no-shoots close by to see who knows how their shotgun patterns.

[Neil Beverley]

DJPolo

Tom has offered a good option and the IPSC Shotgun rules specifically allow you to nominate the best 2 hits to count per target. You can also specifically nominate an ammunition type to provide for this, e.g Only permit 00 Buck as suggested by Tom.

If you check out the IPSC rules you will see that there are some fairly new paper targets that can be copied onto either ANSI A or ANSI B paper. This deals with patching difficulties.

Returning to Tom's comments I am heartened to learn that someone else is using penalty targets to make it interesting with calling the pattern spread. All too often penalty targets are placed to far away to offer any real challenge.

A combination of distance and penalty targets reduces the average number of hits per target for patching.

The net result using buckshot is usually 10 points per single shot on paper targets.

[rhino]

Just tell your computer that you are looking for 24 hits and just double whatever hits they earn. 10A and 2C = 20A and 4C.

That's what I did for our 3-gun match for slug stages last March. Every hit with a slug counted as two of whatever it was ... one A hit = 2 As in the actual score. We also counted no-shoots as two as well.

Aside from that, the best way to weight the guns equally is to consider each a separate match and then average the competitors match percentages. That way the pistol, rifle, and shotgun all account for 1/3 of the total, regardless of the actual number of match points available in each.

[Neil Beverley]

Rhino

Your method of calculating Tournament scores is exactly what the IPSC rules committee came up with otherwise a disparity arises on available points per HG, SG or R. While it's a good idea to try to balance the points within reasonable tolerances it's not always possible. We did the math and were able to prove that unless identical the gun type with the highest points available always favoured the competitors who were better with that gun type over the others.

The new IPSC Tournament Rules read:

3.1 Each component match must be scored separately and independently of any other component match.

3.2 Tournament results will be calculated, by tournament division, by treating the actual unadjusted match percentile attained by each competitor in each component match as tournament points, calculated to four decimal places, as illustrated in the following example:

3.2.1:

Competitor registered in Tournament Open Division

Component Match/Division Percentile Attained Tournament Points

Handgun – Open                      79.4562%            79.4562

Shotgun – Open                      82.8473%            82.8473

Rifle – Open Semi-Automatic    45.1097%            45.1097

Total Tournament Points:                                  207.4132

3.2.2: The "percentile attained" in the above example means: “the percentile attained by each competitor against all other competitors in the component match and division, including competitors who are not registered for the tournament".

[Flexmoney]

Neil,

We shoot a lot of multi-gun stages. What then?

[rhino]

If I were doing that, I'd consider adding the stage points from a multi-gun stage directly to the tournament points. If you're shooting multiple guns, you've already "weighted" it as much as you can, I think.

[Neil Beverley]

Flex

I'm not sure that there is a perfect solution for multi gun stages. My reply didn't attempt to address these, rather I was acknowledging Rhino's solution as being a good solution for single gun stages in a combined tournament.

IPSC doesn't permit multi gun stages. For Tournaments the 3 disciplines are treated as separate matches and then calculated for tournament score as per my posting. This could be, for example, a 9 stage Tournament consisting of 3 matches of 3 stages. The number of points per match don't have to balance although we have suggested guidelines.

For this type of Tournament the IPSC (and Rhino's) scoring system is very fair to all but I fully accept it doesn't solve the balance in multi gun stages.

Rhino's suggestion in his last post has merit. It does balance the results as best as possible as far as I can see.

The scoring program would need some work though.

[Neil Beverley]

I've been thinking about this some more and simply adding the points scored in multi gun stages still creates a disparity but this is easily solved if the multi gun stages are also treated as a separate match and then treat the percentage gained in this "match" as points and add it to the points from the separate HG, SG & R "matches".

In this way no one segment of the match overshadows any other with regards to score. All scores are weighted to the gun type ands so no advantages if someone is brilliant in the highest scoring component of the Tournament.

OK it may be a bit of a pain to write the scoring program but I can see how it could be done in something like Excel.

[rhino]

Excellent idea, sir.

[Flexmoney]

"Joey da score",

Have you ran/scored any 3-gun matches with the current version of EZ? I haven't run any 3-gun.

[glockster96]

Flex,

I'm not Joey, but I have scored a couple of 3 gun matches with the EZ Winscore system. I was fairly impressed with how easy it was.

[rhino]

Have you ran/scored any 3-gun matches with the current version of EZ? I haven't run any 3-gun.

I used whatever version of EZ score was current last March ... I vaguely recall doing a few unorthodox things to get things to work out okay, but I don't remember the details!

[George]

If you only run single weapon stages at 3 gun matches, EZ-Winscore is very straight forward if a little tedious to use because it requires a bit more setup and a few more steps along the way (you are basically doing a lot of things 3 times). I think Excel and IMG time based scoring is real fast and easy in comparison if you just wanna' expedite things and aren't worried about the overall USPSAness of things.

If you run combo stages like we do at our club, then EZ-Winscore requires a few workarounds. Easiest thing I have found for handling combo stages is to score it as one big pistol match and disregard PF by designating every one major across the board. This works well for local club matches where you want quick and easy results and can let a few things slide.

The other way to handle combo stages with EZ-Winscore is to do the full-on 3 separate match thing that EZ-Winscore demands for 3 gun and on the combo stages, you segregate the rifle, pistol and shotgun by assigning different target types to the different weapons to prevent blurring the PF line,ie: pistol on steel and rifle on paper or shotgun on steel and pistol on paper, etc. You also have to throw the combo stage into the main match as a single weapon stage of whatever weapon type that used paper targets, or arbitrarily if all it's an all steel combo stage. This works OK, but requires the cooperation of the stage designers.

--

Regards,

[Flexmoney]

If you run combo stages like we do at our club, then EZ-Winscore requires a few workarounds. Easiest thing I have found for handling combo stages is to score it as one big pistol match and disregard PF by designating every one major across the board. This works well for local club matches where you want quick and easy results and can let a few things slide.

I am pretty sure this is the way to local match has handled scoring so far with their 3-gun match.