Attention MDs - What is Faster/More Efficient

[mjl]

We are enjoying a healthy increase in the number of shooters at our matches. Today we had over 60 shooters. Including the classifier, we have 5 stages. We had 4 squads of 15, and with new shooters it was somewhat slow. I don't like to start shooters out on the classifier, plus they typically go fast and would cause a backup if we had 5 squads of 12 on the 4+1 stages. If we increased the stage count to 5+1, and had 5 squads of 12, starting on the 5 non-classifier stages, would it go faster? Or would it just seem to as there are fewer shooters in each squad? Its a great problem to have, but how do you handle growth?

[b2alphaplease]

I have found that a squad of 10 moves quickest. That being said, 12 is closer to 10 than 15 shooters.

Maybe you could do 5 + 1 stages if the classifier is a single start string, with a short course right next door.

If the classifier has multiple start strings, stay with 5 stages.

There usually is bottleneck somewhere.

Tim

NC-18

[mjl]

I am pretty sure I am going to go to 5+1 with smaller squads, may not take less total time than 4+1, but at least you are shooting more and standing around less.

[sperman]

Split the shooters up into 5 squads. Yes, there will be a little down time for the squad after they shoot the classifier, but overall it will still be quicker than 4 squads.

[Graham Smith]

We've been getting around 80 shooters for our matches (7 stages) and here is what I have found. It takes roughly the same amount of time to run a given number of shooters regardless of squad size, but there are some caveats to that. You basically want to keep the turnover down to no more than 3.5 minutes per shooter but there's no one best way to do that.

You can get a squad too small to be efficient. You have five people "busy" at one time - the shooter, RO, scorekeeper, on deck, just finished and reloading. With a 12 person squad, that leaves 7 people to paste targets, have a snack, pick their nose, etc. If the squad size gets too small, you stay too busy constantly and always feel rushed so you end up with only 2 or 3 people pasting which slows things down.

Another consideration is stage design and sequence. Classifiers are usually fairly fast, so we try and put a classifier and a speed shoot back to back and only put one squad starting there. So, while we have 7 stages, we only have 6 squads. We also try and limit a match to two long courses (30-32 rounds), three medium, and two short. That usually keeps the flow going. And that's the key - there's usually going to be some kind of backup somewhere, but if you can minimize it, then you will be OK.

If you search on this, you will find the same topic discussed before.

[elkboy]

I prefer 7 to 10 per squad. There seems to be a human nature component that turns a big squad into slugs. When you have 12 or more the mindset becomes "there are plenty of people here to reset so I don't need to be out there every time". Yes it is up to the RO to motivate the squad but with smaller squads it just seems to monitor itself. That being said if you have to have bigger squads, keep them as small as you can.

[Nik Habicht]

Eight is the absolute minimum for a squad size -- and I only create additional squads when I reach a multiple of eight. So, if I have 15 shooters -- that's one squad. 23 is two, 31 is three, and so on.....

Going beyond 12 isn't really helpful -- because at that point it gets to be a little like herding cats, in the sense that people think they can visit with their pals, because there are so many folks on the squad to do the work....

Bottom line -- in your situation you need additional stages/pits. Yes, some folks will need to start on the classifier, or on a quick speed shoot co-located with a quick classifier....

[remoandiris]

if the classifier is a single start string, with a short course right next door.

+1 on this. Short course to warm up then a single string classifier. Remaining "hot" between the stages cuts a few moments of time per shooter as well.

[Flexmoney]

It's just math. Your constant is how long it takes to turn over from running one shooter to the next. Lets call that 4 minutes per run.

You had 60 shooters.

On 4 squads, 5 total stages

60/4= 15 shooters per squad.

15 shooters x 4 minutes = 60 minutes per stage. Add in 5 minutes of travel between stages and 5 minutes for a walk-through = 70 minutes per stage.

70 minutes x 5 stages = 350 minutes.

On 5 squads, 5 total stages

60/5= 12shooters per squad

12 x 4= 48 minutes per stage. Add in 5 minutes of travel between stages and 5 minutes for a walk-through = 58minutes

58 minutes x 5 stages = 290 minutes

You save about an hour with 5 squads. The classifier is just another stage. Start shooters on it! Most every other club does so. The shooters are used to it (or should be).

Since it sounds like you have the ability to do so...

On 6 squads, 6 total stages

60/6=10 shooters per squad

10 x 4 = 40 minutes per stage. Add in 5 minutes of travel between stages and 5 minutes for a walk-through = 50 minutes per stage

50 minutes x 6 stages = 300 minutes

That is still nearly an hour faster than what you had before, and your shooters get to shoot an extra stage...and not have to wait around an extra 20 minutes on each and every stage. 10 shooters is a good squad size.

[Chills1994]

Instead of having a very structured start time and squadding process, where everyone starts at the same time, let me suggest just having an open window of time where the shooters can arrive, trickle in basically whenever they want, sign up, go "suit up" with their belts and holsters over in the safe area, and then meet up with their buddies to form a squad of how many number of shooters whether they want to just shoot with 3, 5, 7, or 15 in their squad. Then let them bounce around from empty bay/stage to empty bay/stage.

I reckon if Jim Bob, John Doe, Harry Holeczech, Craven Moorehead, and Ophelia Butz want to squad together they can either call or email each other during the week before the match and all agree upon a time to show up to the match, to meet up and squad together.

If your sign up time "window" is an hour long, then that gives the early birds an hour long head start on everybody else. Basically, they will be say like on stage 4, when the rest of the stragglers show up and begin on stage 1.

Edited February 27, 2012 by Chills1994

[Giant81]

Instead of having a very structured start time and squadding process, where everyone starts at the same time, let me suggest just having an open window of time where the shooters can arrive, trickle in basically whenever they want, sign up, go "suit up" with their belts and holsters over in the safe area, and then meet up with their buddies to form a squad of how many number of shooters whether they want to just shoot with 3, 5, 7, or 15 in their squad. Then let them bounce around from empty bay/stage to empty bay/stage.

I reckon if Jim Bob, John Doe, Harry Holeczech, Craven Moorehead, and Ophelia Butz want to squad together they can either call or email each other during the week before the match and all agree upon a time to show up to the match, to meet up and squad together.

If your sign up time "window" is an hour long, then that gives the early birds an hour long head start on everybody else. Basically, they will be say like on stage 4, when the rest of the stragglers show up and begin on stage 1.

Oh I like this. And if you need to, hold up the first group until you get the magic number of 10 or 12 then run them through, the next 10 or 12 up you start running them through after.

[stickboy44]

the way it works in western pa..you show up at 9am get in squads (max10)

we have an RO go out with that squad

If you show up late you have to wait til we shoot the second round about noon

works great around here

[22 shooter]

We had 5 stages also. We added another short stage, next to the classifier stage with 5 squads. This helped even things out. The classifier was ususally backing things up. There will always be some wait time, but this helped.

[Jim Norman]

I have yet to see how 'Open Squadding' works.

We run anywhere for 60 to 90+ shooters on 7 pits, usually 7 stages, but occasionally an 8th stage if the classifier is real short and fast. We run squads of around 10 until we hit 70 then the squads get larger. If we only have 60, we usually leave one pit empty and start the 'fast squad'

Everyone is to be signed in before 9:30, we do per-registration on line so about 80% of our people are already entered into the Nook. Everyone has to stop in and pay as well as turn in their paperwork, release etc. We squad people the morning of the match. You want to shoot with your buddies, get there early, get signed in and get ALL of your squads paperwork done early! We then send all 7 squads out at one time to their assigned stage, they then rotate through the match. We start set up at about 7:30 to 8 am. Registration opens at 8:30 and closes at 9:30, if everyone does their job we start shooting shortly after 10am. Usually we are done shooting by 3pm and picked up and put away by 4:30.

[CHA-LEE]

10 - 12 per squad is the ideal balance of workers and yappers. Less than that and its too much work. More than that and there is too much yapping.

The number one killer is allowing squads to catch one another due to a stage design error. Once a squad catches another the mega yapping and no working starts. Balance the stages to avoid log jams.

[millsusaf]

IMO the biggest hold up I've seen isn't so much squad size or the stages but the shooters . The fast/good shooters tend to gravitate toward each other with maybe a newer/average shooter or two mixed in but you end up with a couple of squads that are really fast and a couple more that have mostly new to average shooters in them and they slow things down quite a bit, sometimes to a crawl.

This coupled with the fact that those slower squads are more prone to DQs, ammo, and equipment issues lead to some pretty hefty backups at times.

Some of this can be mitigated by good ROs, stage design and order but IMO only marginally. If you want things to flow better, split up the squads so there is a good mix of new, average and good shooters.

The other benefit is the newer and average shooters have more of an opportunity to learn, talk to and watch the good ones hopefully improving their skills. Unfortunately this will likely ruffle some feather as shooters on the same team typically like to shoot together.

[PopPop]

We don't have near many shooters as you (25 on average). We setup 4+1. As we only have 4 bays, we normally setup the classifier and a speed shoot up in one bay. We try to keep our squads @ 10-12. More or less than that adds an extra hour or so on the range. Sometimes to get the squads balanced and into that 10-12 size, the staff will form up a very all squad and shoot on an empty stage then use our downtime to check in on the other squads and keep them moving. Works well for us but we do have a lower turnout.

[2MoreChains]

Another vote for the 9-12 person squads. Anything beyond 12 and it seems to drag the flow down. Less than that, and not enough workers to offset the yappers. If you're regularly getting 60 people showing up I would try to structure the match so there are enough stages to support this size of squad. Stick a speed shoot or standards course in with the classifier in the same bay if you've picked a low round count classifier, or run two short classifiers in the same bay now that HQ lifted the restriction for L1 matches.

Not all stages need to be 32 rnd'ers. Make the 32 rnd stages easy to reset (just paper and poppers) and put the activated targets in the shorter field courses to help reduce the log jams. Try to keep the number of activated targets per stage down to 1 or 2. Its the stages with the multiple activators combined with Texas stars or PPR that complicate the reset and bog down the match flow. Especially when the upstream stage is a quick one. Spread those types of targets out.

[Fuelie777]

For USPSA matches no less than 9 and no more than 12. For a SCSA style steel match, a squad size of 8 is idea, with 10 the max. Otherwise to much standing around. Also to few squad mates causes much to much work for the RO's who are included for a club match.

Go to six stages, as Flex Money pointed out do the math. I went to six stages for the SCSA style steel match and it took as much time or less and accommodated more shooters and more shooting for the same cost and time.

Good Luck.

[Graham Smith]

Since this has opened up again, I'll jump back in with our recent experience. We've been doing 6 stages and somewhere between 60-70 shooters most months for the past two years.

We've tried doing 6 squads and 5 squads and 5 seems to work better even though that's more people per squad. The reason is that we can start with one empty bay which seems to help stages from getting backed up as much. The backups still happen because some squads are faster and some stages are longer, etc, but if you walk around during the day (which I do as the MD) you will see that more often than not, if one squad is waiting for the prior squad to finish, it's usually only a short wait. And that short wait gives people time to fuss with their gear and eat and make a run to the porta-potty, etc.

[Nimitz]

Our local club match is typically 5 stages unless we have a classifier stage and then we'll usually have a 'warmup' stage in the same bay as the classifier and shooters just stay hot between them. With this setup as long as the squads are 10-12 everything always runs well. As soon as squads start to grow, for whatever reason, things get out of whack and squads catch up to each other and there is a lot of standing around, etc.

It does not seem to matter whether it's the guys on the super squad, noobs, old, young, fat, skinny ... Once the squad grows we have issues, under 12 and we're golden. Obviously the shooting gods, at least here in central Fl, prefer squads to stay at 10-12 shooters ...

[konkapot]

What we've noticed recently is that it's not the raw numbers of how many are on a squad, but more a matter of "who" is on the squad.

A bunch of workers/tapers/score keepers? Stuff's gonna happen, and they'll be done with their last stage torn down by 1pm.

A bunch of 2 cylinder people who can barely pick up brass? They're still shooting hours after the other squads are loooooooooooooong gone.

I'll take a squad of 12 studs over a squad of 8 window lickers any day.

[CHA-LEE]

For the Club Matches that I MD, I make sure there are at least 2 - 3 "Whip Crackers" on each squad. Doing this has gone a long way in keeping the slackers on task so the squads can churn through the stages effectively.