u can miss fast enough to win.

[Chills1994]

I started out in IDPA. The rule of thumb I had heard there was that the top IDPA Masters will shoot a major match with a final score right near the minimum round count for the entire match. So a 180 round match the top finishers in the three semi-auto pistol divisions will finish around the 180 second mark. (Yes, I know everything gets converted to time in IDPA, including penalties, procedurals, no shoots yada yada...so yeah, it's not quite an apples to apples comparison to USPSA).

So I went back through the performance summaries of the 12 competitors I listed above. The Minimum Round Count (MRC)for Limited Nat's was 357 rounds. That is a constant for everybody who shot the match. So then I added all the stage times together to get a cumulative match time. Then I divided the MRC by their cumulative match time.

So this is how things shook out:

1. 215.63 seconds 1.66 MRC ratio

18. 264.19 seconds 1.35

37. 302.54 seconds 1.18

48. 298.62 seconds 1.19

83. 322.31 seconds 1.11

109. 318.71 seconds 1.12

185. 404.24 seconds 0.88

201. 514.68 seconds 0.69

207. 465.01 seconds 0.77

208. 538.07 seconds 0.66

209th guy didn't shoot all the stages so his raw stage times were set to 0.00

214. 992.44 seconds 0.36

I don't know if that helps anybody at all...or not... especially as far as describing it as a fast or speedey match.

Was it a hosefest?

I dunno... I wasn't there. I would have to defer to Flexmoney's opinions on the hit factor. Looking over Nils's performance summary again, only one stage had a higher than 10 hit factor.

As far as the whole, "OMG! The Limited champ shot 6 mikes for the entire stage! " response...well...ya gotta look closer at Nil's performance summary. Three out of the six Mikes came from stages with a maximum amount of points well over 100, so, theoretically, a Mike on those stages hurt him proportionately less vs. the other 3 mikes (and a no shoot) that was on a short course (or some sorta standards stage).

Out of the 18 stages, Nils placed in the top 10 on 15 of them.

That's saying something.

Edited December 28, 2010 by Chills1994

[Sean Gaines]

I see a splash of Henning, Sevigny and Crocodile Dundee

in all seriousness though, almost everyone here sees a shooter who shoots fast and throws misses. I don't see that, I see a youngster, who is going to be a force to be reckoned with. We must remember where Nils started, He started shooting revolver a few years back and made GM in revolver. I believe he and Jerry were the only GM's at the time. Nils achieved this before he was old enough to buy a beer.

In regards to his misses, I had a match similiar where I threw a bunch of misses and alot of them were in the hardcover maybe a 1/2" from being an "A" hit. I don't think you can really judge a person skill level by their misses at a match, on paper. If you are there and his misses are a foot off or don't even hit the target, that is a different story. I don't know how his misses were made, but there is a differnce between a close miss and one that was in the next county, when evaluating a shooter as a spray and pray shooter, or one that just got unlucky. I unsterstand that a miss is a miss. But he is the champion. All the other top GM's had their misses also, which leads me to believe it was not a hosing match, and that it also tells me that it was a very difficult match, and Nils shot a bad match, but not as bad as the others. If that makes any sense.

Nils definately has the skills, and I think we will be seeing more of him, in years to come...

[ChuckS]

in all seriousness though, almost everyone here sees a shooter who shoots fast and throws misses. I don't see that, I see a youngster, who is going to be a force to be reckoned with. We must remember where Nils started, He started shooting revolver a few years back and made GM in revolver. I believe he and Jerry were the only GM's at the time. Nils achieved this before he was old enough to buy a beer.

It was about 3 Area 2's ago where Jerry said that "we are going to have to get that boy a mortgage and a wife"! The guy goes to the Nationals and wins the first time out. Just wait until he learns how to shoot better!

ETA: But that hat? Really?

Edited December 28, 2010 by ChuckS

[Chills1994]

I started going through the 214 performance summaries....but quickly got bored with that.

I am probably wrong on this, but it looks like Bob Vogel was the only one who shot a clean match....no mikes, no no shoots, no procedural penalties, and no extra shots.

[Jake Di Vita]

How did you get the data for "no extra shots?"

[Chills1994]

in the performance summaries there is a column marked XS which I am ASSuming is extra shots which would only apply to a standards/classifier type stage that is virginia count.

sorry, I didn't make that clear.

[Jake Di Vita]

Gotcha...

I'd really like to get an actual mapping of all my split and transition times with video for every stage of a major. Along with notes, that could yield some pretty interesting and valuable data.

[Flexmoney]

Gotcha...

I'd really like to get an actual mapping of all my split and transition times with video for every stage of a major. Along with notes, that could yield some pretty interesting and valuable data.

That would be handy. And, it is possible.

[Sean Gaines]

Gotcha...

I'd really like to get an actual mapping of all my split and transition times with video for every stage of a major. Along with notes, that could yield some pretty interesting and valuable data.

I am sure if you ask the ro nicely, you could probably have someone close by with a timer and then all you would need to get is your draw time, and your total time from the RO, and you can write everything else down when you get to your bag from your personal timer with out disturbing the time schedule of the match.

[Chills1994]

I just recently watched a couple of the very old Jerry Barnhart videos on VHS (yes, I still have a VCR). Jerry was using an old PACT timer which I am assuming had some sort of infrared transmitter on it (like a TV remote). He also had a printer that PACT made. So "The Burner" was showing some drills with the PACT timer clipped to his pants pocket. He stopped for a minute, pulled out the PACT printer, put it in a tandem position with the PACT timer and hit the print button. Sure enough, the printer was putting out a strip of paper that looked like a receipt that had his times for each shot and the splits. I thought that was pretty darn neat.

I don't know if they make 'em like that any more though.

What would be really cool is if somebody would make an eyeglass cam or a hatcam with a built in timer that would start once its microphone picked up the beep or at least the first BANG! Then the times for each shot and the splits would be displayed in a corner of the video. Barring that, a picture in picture video where the main vid would be all the action and shooting and then in the little vid would be video of the timer's display.

[jkatz44]

Interesting thread...

[smokshwn]

Nils achieved this before he was old enough to buy a beer.

To add to this, Nils also won this Nationals before he was old enough to buy a beer

[Sean Gaines]

Nils achieved this before he was old enough to buy a beer.

To add to this, Nils also won this Nationals before he was old enough to buy a beer

well he looks old enough! If I see him I will buy him a fosters

[BPiatt]

Not to put down any shooter, especially anyone that has done as well as Nils, however my comment on making penalties more costly comes from and in conjuction with the scoring system used is some 3 gun matches which is two hits anywhere is a neutralized target (no penalty). Without heavier penalties, we're almost condoning and encouraging "poor shooting".

I guess I'm just "old school" where a "miss" was thought of as REAL BAD... not so today.

It's all still fun and that's what the game is all about.

[38supPat]

Lol...you've been shooting Action Pistol too long, there a miss is DEVASTATING!

To be honest I don't know if it's really that bad, I think this year was an anomaly. The shots were harder than usual and there appears to have been a break even point where speed could over ride accuracy if the shots are hard enough.

[TWHaz]

http://www.uspsa.org/legacy/stage_display.php?year=2006&match=USPSA_Limited_Limited10_Revolver_Nationals&dir=Revolver&file=Pistol_Finals.dat

2nd place revolver.

Edited January 1, 2011 by TWHaz

[Bongo Boy]

Man!

it's

going

to

be

a

long

winter!

That's a definite 'hit' there, pal. I have to think that, while 80% of why I suck is because I don't shoot matches, the other 20% has to be because I read about how to get better on the internet.

Edited January 21, 2011 by Bongo Boy

[Steven Cline]

If you are competing against people of similar skill level then No, you cannot miss fast enough to win.

If you are a GM shooting against C class shooters, you wouldn't even need to shoot all of the stages to win.

I think this summarizes it very well.

In the OP's illustration, he compates a .70 draw to a 1.10 draw. That .40 difference is huge, it's not an apples to apples comparision of skill.

The video of Nils above seems to illustrate a healthy balance of speed and accuracy is still required. Nils shot the fastest, but he dropped enough points that the second fastest beat him with superior accuracy. Nils's balance wasn't healthy enough on that stage. It was healthy enough across the match.

I know just enough now to see how very small amounts of time will help me make huge gains in HF and overall. It takes mere hundreds of a second to ensure a hit over a miss and only a few more hundreds of second to ensure an A hit over a miss. Who wouldn't take 2A in (using the OP's draw illustration) .75 A and .20 A totalling .95 2A instead of .70 miss .20 A, .20 A, totalling 1.10 2A? One is a 10.5 HF, the other is a 9.1 HF and 86.7% of the other.

I think a larger picture view of the match results would bear out that fewer misses in fast times wins the match. All those GMs are throwing Mikes. I suspect that the GM throwing fewer Mikes while maintaining speed takes home the HOA.

To quote Ted Bonnet, "Speed wins stages, consistency wins matches."

And, let us remember that line is for the people who think we just spray and pray. Those who don't understand that often the GM who just smoked them with a time 1/3 of their time ALSO shot 90%+ of the stage points and probably more points than the griping complaining naysayer. It should be addressed in context.

Edited January 28, 2011 by Steven Cline

[TWHaz]

http://www.uspsa.org/legacy/stage_display.php?year=2006&match=USPSA_Limited_Limited10_Revolver_Nationals&dir=Revolver&file=Pistol_Finals.dat

2nd place revolver.

And more recently;

Western States Single Stack Championship

Match Date: 01/29/2011

Place Name USPSA Class Division PF Lady Mil Law For Age Points Stg %

1 Jonasson, Nils A48138 M Single Stack Major N N N N 1191.9757 100.00%

2 Leatham, Rob L684 GM Single Stack Major N N N N 1142.2099 95.82%

3 McKenna, Cody A64035 U Single Stack Major N N N N 1104.9402 92.70%

4 Voigt, Michael RD4 GM Single Stack Major N N N N 1100.9462 92.36%

5 Butler, Taran L2354 GM Single Stack Major N N N N 1097.9168 92.11%

6 Hobdell, Angus L2546 M Single Stack Major N N N N 1097.5833 92.08%

7 Shelby, Glenn TY56885 M Single Stack Major N N N N 1094.7747 91.85%

8 Shroufe, Steve TY42898 A Single Stack Major N N Y N 1087.5642 91.24%

9 France, Eric A40144 M Single Stack Major N N N N 1036.2065 86.93%

10 Lin, Mike TY49831 M Single Stack Major N N Y N 1024.4770 85.9

Arizona just keeps on giving. Cody is another young shooter coming up.

Edited February 4, 2011 by TWHaz

[Panic Flinch]

If I shot a match that required 100 shots...and I shot 100 A's...I would be lying if I didnt say to myself, "Hmmm...too accurate, I could have gone faster"..."I did not push the envelope enough to falter with a couple C's". Furthermore, if I shoot a perfect match, I kinda feel like I did not properly split the difference between speed and accuracy. I'd also be thinking, "I could have gamed it better". Two cents...G

[Tonyscomputery]

I can tell you one thing for sure. I can miss slow enough to lose I have also hit slow enough to lose. I haven't really tried speeding up to much let. Need to pick a gun and stick with it and get into better shape