Encouraging New Shooters

[Neil Beverley]

I've been undecided whether to post this or not, but what the hell. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

A long (long, long) time ago when I first was starting out I went to my first shotgun match.

The organiser had his own thoughts on getting everyone to mix and bond a little.

He organised a Man v Man side shoot where pairs of shooters competed against other pairs. He drew the names for each pair completely at random out of the hat so forcing new and old shooters, and shooters from north and south to shoot with each other as a team. They worked as a relay team with only one of the team shooting at a time but dependent on each other for the result.

It wasn't intended to be too serious but instead a bit of fun and with the primary intention of getting people to mix where otherwise perhaps they wouldn't. He sponsored a small (silly) prize/trophy. I don't remember what it was, it doesn't really matter (I know I didn't win it).

What I do know was that it was well supported and appreciated by all and it achieved it's aim of getting people to meet. The guy that won the match ended up partnering a newbie (not me). How bad is that?

[Vince Pinto]

Neil,

Sounds like fun. I've been toying with the idea of having an IPSC "luge" or "équipage" event where you would have 3 or 4 guys on a common firing line (similar to a Standard Exercise), but they would actually be shooting at different parts of the same stage for a single score, but without moving away from a fixed position, for safety reasons.

The competitors would decide among themselves which individual shoots which targets. You could even do it by insisting that each member fire a different gun (all different handguns or perhaps a HG/SG/R combination).

They would be loaded simultaneously and would respond simultaneously to the same start signal. The final shot (whoever makes it) would be the time, and you'd score WYSIWYG for the group.

Or maybe I'm nuts

[mactiger]

I've done this several times in the past, usually at a post-match "stake shoot", where you get partnered with 2 other people, and compete against other teams. First team to cut the wooden stake or post in half by shooting it wins. It takes a bit of strategizing, especially if everyone is shooting different caliber ammo. It's great fun, and you get to mix, as Neil says, with a lot of different people that you might not normally shoot with.

Troy

[BSeevers]

We have a peuedo IPSC non affliated club that does this at the end of the match. Great fun and exciting but when my team lost, the new shooter felt so bad and apologized to me so much I really felt bad. Still more exciting than man on man singles though.

[Neil Beverley]

The team event we did was a relay. The empty shotguns for both shooters in each team were placed on tyres. The target array was 4 banks of 3 targets for each team plus a stop plate. The competitors stood about 5 yards (metres) behind the guns. On the beep the first shooters from each team ran forwarded, loaded for 3 targets, once down they had to put unloaded shotgun back on the tyre and then leg it back it to tag the second team member and then repeated until the final array and stop plate.

It only required 2 ROs because there could never be more than 2 shooters hot at a time and the shooting position was static.

Actually a great many things would work but the tagging relay seemed to work well and made for a very visual race.

[BDH]

I LIKE it! Anything that potentially exposes new shooters, is a worthwhile event!

[mcoliver]

I was once a (new) member of this club that held a really weird but very fun year end club shoot. It required 5 or so members per "squad".

One stage I particularly remembered was "The Lingerie." It required that you don a bra and a (really large) thong before you can shoot the targets (of course, over your existing clothes ). Since time was a factor, this required some breaking down of the squad into "committees". One was in charge of prepping the bra ready for wear while another was taking it off from the last shooter. The others took care of the thongs prep, holding it out so you can wear it in fast. I distinctly remember not being able to shoot straight because I was laughing so much!.

It was really fun and I probably knew half the members then because of that single match.

[pwalker]

We ran a fun "Steel Games" match at the end of a recent Level III here in Thailand.

Using the same stage setup as for the Shoot-Off (5 poppers and 3 plates at various distances, with an overlapping stop popper), we had a couple of hours of challenging fun.

Entry was voluntary for anyone who had shot the match. Entrance fee was small. Shooter order was randomly selected and we used a "sudden-death" ladder to manage the rounds.

Their match percentage was used to set each shooter's handicap. The top percentile had to shoot down all targets. Lower percentile shooters had one less target for every X% that they were below 100% in the match results. So we had some new shooters having to shoot down only 4 targets shooting against guys having to shoot down all 8. The handicappiing worked OK because we had some new shooters and some experienced shooters make it through to the final rounds.

The entrance fees were used to pay prize money of X, Y and Z% to the top three in each division.

If anyone is interested, I have the stage layout, procedure, rules and ladder in a PowerPoint document.

Regards

Peter

[ivanhu]

I've participated two such events.

First:

fifteen steels on the stage. Four shooters form the team. Each shooter is allowed to shoot five rounds. After the first shooter finishes, the second shooter appears on the line and shoots at the remaining targets, then the third, and - if needed - the fourth. We measured the time of each. The fastest time with no standing metal left won, down to the slowest time with no missed target. The next is the fastest time among those who left one metal standing, and so on. (Some of the metal plates was placed over 40 meters, while some others were much closer). The trick was, who shot at the distance targets, and who shot at the closer ones.

Second:

A regular stage with some targets (only paper targets). The stage consists of three strings. First shooter of the team appears, and shoots the stage. The time is noted. Without scoring, the second shooter of the team appears, and shoots the stage. The time is noted. Finally, the third shooter of the team appears, and shoots the stage. The time is noted, the targets are scored. Best six hits count. Any competitor who has finished the stage was asked to step aside, and the team members were not allowed to talk to each other between their turns. (Actually, the stage was built that they didn't see each other). We never called FTE penalties, just scored the six best hits. Some targets were close, others were in quite a distance.

[JFD]

The 15 steels at various distances really sounds good. Lets the newly formed team assign targets based on ability, but all targets are equally important which makes the new guy feel just as vital to the team as the GM who takes the 40 yard head shots. Shooting a stake in half is also good, but I really like shooting things in half, and the opportunity to do so doesn't present itself very often.

Man-on-man shoots are fun if you're a fairly solid shooter, but mostly I've seen the newbies slink away to the nearest hole after getting beaten badly by an experienced shooter. The experienced guy goes back to his friends to continue the usual discussions while the newbie is deciding golf may be less embarassing. The twist of having 2 man teams is either an improvement or the newbie gets to add the feeling of letting his teammate down to his embarassment. Golf would once again look pretty good at that point.

The worse thing I've ever seen is a 2 person team concept applied to a stage that was part of a regular match (outlaw). This match was the last match of the year, and this group only gave prizes (new guns) to class winners as decided by their results for the year. I was basically tied with another shooter for the Overall win (really good gun) and the entire year's effort came down to that stupid stage. It was a simple stage with 3 paper targets and a single USP for each shooter. After your partner missed the USP twice and yelled "help!", you could shoot the plate for them and end the misery. My partner actually threw up while we were on deck and I kind of figured my quest for the Overall victory was over. I shot it in something like 5 seconds and my partner yelled "help!" about 65 seconds after that. After penalties our time was over 2 minutes. My opposition was teamed with a "C" class sandbagger and they shot it in under 10 seconds. My teammate was not motivated by the experience and as of 3 years later, has not shot the match again.