AlamoShooter Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 (edited) I was not at this event, But most DQ I know of are from taking a risk not worth the reward. Edit to add that my coment is for the origional poster plan his first Nationals. As in shooting a target near the 180 to save 0.25 seconds "best case" - over shooting that same target first and not risking the 180 trap , but it takes 0.25 seconds longer = "worst case" Does 0.25 seconds make a difference at the end of the match ? yes at some levels it does, I have to see at least a full second before I will push near the 180 if the stage does not require it. But I am kinda old & slow any way. Edited August 16, 2011 by AlamoShooter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Hefta Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 It wasn't hot, I shot all day Fri and worked as an RO for Saturday and Sunday on the all steel stage, I'm from MN and hate hot weather so that was for sure not the reason. There was nothing about this match that should have prompted so many DQ's. We only had one on our stage and it was an AD from a very good Open shooter. The high round count and lots of long field COF must have been the reason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poppa Bear Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 I was not there but know several who were and my understanding is that there were several stages where it was easy to break the 180 if you ran quicker than you could shoot. It would be interesting to see where the DQ's were at. My guess for the 180's is stage 9 if you were slow at swinging from the right side targets to the left side targets, and stage 12 if you ran past the targets behind the walls and swung back past the 180. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roundguy Posted August 16, 2011 Share Posted August 16, 2011 The only DQ i seen was a person sweeping themselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nik Habicht Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 I earned mine was looking to far ahead and swung to a target that I ran by, 180 the second I did it I new. first 1 ever and I started in 84. and this match was set with gun handling in mind with a lot of places to break 180 if you lost your train of thought for just a split second.well I did, and the only one to blame is me not the stages or the RO's they all did a great job, great match and I will be back next year Thanks Larry This tells me that if a stage looks at all complicated, good stage planing will be important. I'm shooting with 2 good friends. Hopefully, we'll identify the more technical stage, plan a strategy, and for me, take a more deliberate approach. Joe At Nationals, there were some stages I looked at, and simply decided that while I couldn't gain significant ground, I could certainly either lose ground or DQ. I made sure to shoot those stages safely and clean -- if you can't compete on time, try not to leave many points.... Some stages will be potential survival stages for you -- identifying those, and adjusting your plan/execution accordingly will keep you in the match.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ima45dv8 Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 "Risk vs. Reward" can be a cruel conundrum. You pays your dime....you takes your chances. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kimel Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 Some stages will be potential survival stages for you -- identifying those, and adjusting your plan/execution accordingly will keep you in the match.... Absolutely! One of the big things that people tend to readily acknowledge and then totally forget when they get to a big match is that a HUGE percentage of this sport is the mental part of the game. Know your mental as well as physical strengths, acknowledge your mental (and physical) weaknesses. In any match there will be stages that play to your strengths and stages that test your weaknesses, especially mental weaknesses to the breaking point. Realize which stages are which and burn down the stages that you are strong at and survive the stages you are weak on. For instance: I used to have this weird mental thing about hard cover. Put a bunch of hard cover on a target array and my mind would go some weird place and I'd put most of my shots into the hard cover. Not by much, but by enough. So, I'd just plan on shooting Cs instead of As because a C hit is way better than a miss. I finally got over that, thankfully. If a stage is going to be rough for you for whatever reason, don't try and set up a high risk scenario trying to go for maximum points at the risk of going home. Set up a safe plan and stick to it. Yeah, you might give up some points but it is better than handing in your score sheets to the RM and becoming a spectator. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nik Habicht Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 Some stages will be potential survival stages for you -- identifying those, and adjusting your plan/execution accordingly will keep you in the match.... If a stage is going to be rough for you for whatever reason, don't try and set up a high risk scenario trying to go for maximum points at the risk of going home. Set up a safe plan and stick to it. Yeah, you might give up some points but it is better than handing in your score sheets to the RM and becoming a spectator. I'll also add, that sometimes really normal stages will have a small survival/dq element in them, such as ports that need to be pushed open, or door locks/props that require manipulation, without sweeping yourself, or letting the muzzle drift.... Identify those, and approach them with required level of focus. Better to give up a second, than to sit out the rest of the match.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chills1994 Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 OH! MY! GAWD! Those B and C class shooters are a dangerous bunch! Just kidding... Most likely they made up the most shooters there and their number of DQ's is proportional to their attendance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas H Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 I was not there but know several who were and my understanding is that there were several stages where it was easy to break the 180 if you ran quicker than you could shoot. It would be interesting to see where the DQ's were at. My guess for the 180's is stage 9 if you were slow at swinging from the right side targets to the left side targets, and stage 12 if you ran past the targets behind the walls and swung back past the 180. Stage 12 had two DQs, and both were at the front wall right at the beginning of the stage. One person didn't get far enough back to get their gun around the wall safely, so they pointed it backwards to clear the wall. The other person got around the wall all right, but didn't pull the gun back in before starting forward, so the gun was left behind when they moved, ending up pointing in an unsafe direction. In general, the 180 DQs seemed to be related to people getting tunnel vision about what they were doing NOW, and forgetting other things---so they'd swing back to something they missed, and flat out break the 180. The 180 DQs I heard about (and I worked the match, on stage 12) weren't a matter of taking a calculated shot that happened to hit 181 degrees, or cases where they had to made a shot close to the 180 and miscalculated---they were cases of "Oh, I forgot to shoot that" and pointing the gun obviously in an unsafe direction. ADs...well...they happened. And to some unlikely people, too. I will say that it certainly seemed like a number of people were over-running their current skill level, and pushing harder than they could handle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Hefta Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 I was not there but know several who were and my understanding is that there were several stages where it was easy to break the 180 if you ran quicker than you could shoot. It would be interesting to see where the DQ's were at. My guess for the 180's is stage 9 if you were slow at swinging from the right side targets to the left side targets, and stage 12 if you ran past the targets behind the walls and swung back past the 180. Stage 12 had two DQs, and both were at the front wall right at the beginning of the stage. One person didn't get far enough back to get their gun around the wall safely, so they pointed it backwards to clear the wall. The other person got around the wall all right, but didn't pull the gun back in before starting forward, so the gun was left behind when they moved, ending up pointing in an unsafe direction. In general, the 180 DQs seemed to be related to people getting tunnel vision about what they were doing NOW, and forgetting other things---so they'd swing back to something they missed, and flat out break the 180. The 180 DQs I heard about (and I worked the match, on stage 12) weren't a matter of taking a calculated shot that happened to hit 181 degrees, or cases where they had to made a shot close to the 180 and miscalculated---they were cases of "Oh, I forgot to shoot that" and pointing the gun obviously in an unsafe direction. ADs...well...they happened. And to some unlikely people, too. I will say that it certainly seemed like a number of people were over-running their current skill level, and pushing harder than they could handle. Thomas, you did a great job warning the shooters of the potential 180 situations and all of the CRO's did the same (at least they did when the RO squads shot on Friday) If you remember when I shot your stage, I had trigger freeze on one of the targets in question and could have easily broken the 180 but I didn't. I loved your stage... that one was fun! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jadeslade Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 This is an interesting , thoughtful thread. I agree with the above posters about risk vs. reward and being in a "survival mode" on some stages. Maybe the stages had subtle things that just add up to a blip in our normal curve. The barricade that was mentioned, etc. Some stages can look like-"wow I can go fast on this one" because the target array is plain to see-like some classifiers. But the draw and indexing speed of top GM's vs. others is phenomenal. So, just "shoot what you can see". At a comfortable speed. You will not shoot faster than you do in practice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bear23 Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 Most were in B class, we need to remove B classification immediately. What were the weather conditions like, Hot and Humid? Maybe shooters were a bit under the weather? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Hefta Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 Most were in B class, we need to remove B classification immediately. What were the weather conditions like, Hot and Humid? Maybe shooters were a bit under the weather? Weather was not a factor, it was in the 80's but there was a nice breeze most of the day. As most of you know C and B shooters make up the lions share of USPSA competitors and B class can be very competitve, some B shooters are even better than their classification states. I am one of those B shooters trying my hardest to win not only my class but OA. I fell way short of this goal at this match but managed to finish the match safely without even a foot fault. My experience from ROing this match was that shooters were really trying to shoot beyond their abilities, perhaps they watched the GM's shoot and thought they could do that too. I met Dave Sivigny several years ago the night before a big match, we were looking at the stages. He showed me the way he was going to shoot the stage, I looked at him and said, "I can't do that Dave! I'm just a C shooter!" He laughed and agreed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chills1994 Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 danscrapbags wrote: ...some B shooters are even better than their classification states.... I'm absolutely shocked. SHOCKED!! I tell you!!! why?! why! you could knock me over with a feather. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kellymc Posted August 17, 2011 Share Posted August 17, 2011 danscrapbags wrote: ...some B shooters are even better than their classification states.... I'm absolutely shocked. SHOCKED!! I tell you!!! why?! why! you could knock me over with a feather. I doubt it with those pernament sandbags tied to your legs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pskys2 Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 Actually I think it was more of a case of lots of wide open targets, fairly close tempting us to push the envelope. I usually don't do a lot of "on the move" shooting, but in this match I seemed to be doing it on every stage. On Stage 1, with the activator set off of the path, I was focused on the first swinger and after engaging it, I pivoted to the first target on the left. It just felt like I was on the 180, I stopped backed up a step and engaged the target. Then at the end I actually engaged the right target in the air. And looking back I had to be close to the 180. At bigger matches I always seem to err on the side of caution with target engagement, always aware of a DQ threat when I've paid some moola for the fun. It was a good match, and the number of DQ's was definitely out of the norm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt P. Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 The majority of the DQ's were due to people earning them. What that means is Accidental Discharge, dropping a gun from the holster, Accidental Discharge on Reload, sweeping your self, etc..... The 180 violations were within the normal level and really it wasn't about stage design or setup. These stages were not "stand and shoot" so all of the basic safety rules apply. 31 DQ's seems like a lot but, you just don't expect Masters and GM's to have AD's. etc.... etc..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
West Texas Granny Posted August 24, 2011 Share Posted August 24, 2011 It appears that revo shooters are a very safe bunch that have great trigger finger awareness! They can't afford to waste any rounds. Yea you got to make those 6 rounds count. Switching over to revolver did a lot for my ability to put a round on target. My accuracy improved greatly once I made the switch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tk4 Posted August 25, 2011 Share Posted August 25, 2011 (edited) I was not there but know several who were and my understanding is that there were several stages where it was easy to break the 180 if you ran quicker than you could shoot. It would be interesting to see where the DQ's were at. My guess for the 180's is stage 9 if you were slow at swinging from the right side targets to the left side targets, and stage 12 if you ran past the targets behind the walls and swung back past the 180. Stage 12 had two DQs, and both were at the front wall right at the beginning of the stage. One person didn't get far enough back to get their gun around the wall safely, so they pointed it backwards to clear the wall. The other person got around the wall all right, but didn't pull the gun back in before starting forward, so the gun was left behind when they moved, ending up pointing in an unsafe direction. In general, the 180 DQs seemed to be related to people getting tunnel vision about what they were doing NOW, and forgetting other things---so they'd swing back to something they missed, and flat out break the 180. The 180 DQs I heard about (and I worked the match, on stage 12) weren't a matter of taking a calculated shot that happened to hit 181 degrees, or cases where they had to made a shot close to the 180 and miscalculated---they were cases of "Oh, I forgot to shoot that" and pointing the gun obviously in an unsafe direction. ADs...well...they happened. And to some unlikely people, too. I will say that it certainly seemed like a number of people were over-running their current skill level, and pushing harder than they could handle. I was the second shooter referred to above on stage 12. I am Master class and have been shooting major matches for quite a while. I have never DQed at any match before, although I am sure I will again someday. Before we shot the stage I sat there and told my brother, this is just plain dangerous to set up a stage like this, referring to the exact spot where I DQed. I was aware of the spot, there just was not alot of room to get into and out of. As I was trying to get back around the wall my forearm bumped it and caused the gun to break the 180. In hindsight I should have stepped backwards out of the fault line. Sometimes you get it in your head that you aren't aloud to step out of the shooting area, or maybe it will just take to long. I am sure all or most of us earned our own DQ. The fact is there were alot of places to run past targets and a lot of targets set near the 180. This is why there were a lot of DQs. In my opinion, if a RO is supposed to be watching a certain spot for possible 180 violations, maybe you should move a target or a wall a little so it will be safer. Edited August 25, 2011 by tk4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Hefta Posted August 25, 2011 Share Posted August 25, 2011 Lets just put all of the targets directly downrange and have no shooting at side berms at all, that way no one will ever get DQed for breaking the 180. When I shot stage 12 Thomas explained the possiblity of a 180 issue very well and 2 out of 300+ shooters had a brain fart and broke the 180, that's pretty low numbers on such a "dangerous" COF. By the way that was my favorite stage of the entire match, loved it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt P. Posted August 25, 2011 Share Posted August 25, 2011 Actually, 180 violations were less then half of the 31 dq's. A level III match should be more difficult in every aspect of the sport. This match was no different. Wide open targets can be deceiving. Mental errors usually cost us all something and sometimes a disqualification. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skydiver Posted August 25, 2011 Share Posted August 25, 2011 So far from this thread, I've gathered: 1 sweeping 1 AD 2 180's What off the other 27? Just curious so that we all can learn. [The United States Parachute Association had a really bad year several years ago with a unusually higher than normal number of injuries and fatal accidents. The individual DZ's as well as the organization as a whole took time to share knowledge about what happened so that people could learn from the mistakes.] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tk4 Posted August 25, 2011 Share Posted August 25, 2011 Lets just put all of the targets directly downrange and have no shooting at side berms at all, that way no one will ever get DQed for breaking the 180. When I shot stage 12 Thomas explained the possiblity of a 180 issue very well and 2 out of 300+ shooters had a brain fart and broke the 180, that's pretty low numbers on such a "dangerous" COF. By the way that was my favorite stage of the entire match, loved it! Wow. I need to stay off these forums. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas H Posted August 26, 2011 Share Posted August 26, 2011 I was the second shooter referred to above on stage 12. I am Master class and have been shooting major matches for quite a while. I have never DQed at any match before, although I am sure I will again someday. Before we shot the stage I sat there and told my brother, this is just plain dangerous to set up a stage like this, referring to the exact spot where I DQed. I was aware of the spot, there just was not alot of room to get into and out of. As I was trying to get back around the wall my forearm bumped it and caused the gun to break the 180. In hindsight I should have stepped backwards out of the fault line. Sometimes you get it in your head that you aren't aloud to step out of the shooting area, or maybe it will just take to long. I am sure all or most of us earned our own DQ. The fact is there were alot of places to run past targets and a lot of targets set near the 180. This is why there were a lot of DQs. In my opinion, if a RO is supposed to be watching a certain spot for possible 180 violations, maybe you should move a target or a wall a little so it will be safer. Well, opinions vary. For example, if people had stepped back and to the right, there was plenty of room. And every single person who stepped back and engaged the target on the right side first had no problems at all either with the wall, or keeping their gun forward of the 180. (And it didn't slow them down---quite the contrary, they saved a good amount of time, actually, since they didn't have to go so far into a position, and then get back out of it.) From observing the same stage over four days of shooting---if you crowded the left wall, it was hard to both enter and leave the position, as you had to bend around it--in one DQ case, a person was too close to the wall and bent the gun around it to get into position, and in the other case, the person left the shooting position before the gun was retracted from around the wall, which caused the gun to hang behind them as they left. The second person started moving before they brought the gun back. In both cases, crowding the wall caused the problem. If you stayed away from the wall, it was straightforward. Other people found that if they crowded the wall, but stepped to the right (it wasn't necessary to step backward) they could clear the wall easily after shooting to then move forward. The placement of the targets on the sides was actually such that if you stood at the middle of the back, you could shoot both the left and right target. You had to lean a little, but it was there. Several people shot 2 alpha on the left-most target from the right side of the shooting area. (And the right side target wasn't nearly as crowded of a shot as the left side.) So----the only reason it was potentially a dangerous spot was if someone crowded the left wall. Which was a shooter's choice, as it wasn't necessary. Everyone who went right (and/or shot right first) had no problems. As for "a lot of targets near the 180" ----I disagree. I really can't think of a single target (even the back right one on stage 12) that was near the 180. We can't stop people from turning around and shooting something they have passed, though. In the match I shot, there was space and time to shoot every single target without coming near the 180. Maybe I'm crazy, though. If someone is moving faster than their skill level can support, AND if there is a problem as they shoot---then they might end up doing something they shouldn't. (Heck, people got DQed on stage 1 for breaking the 180 on the wide open targets on the left side!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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