Growth

[Brian Payne]

Andy

Excellent post! I like the idea of simple mathematics to figure out the time you have available for each shooter on each stage. It really shows how saving just 30 seconds per shooter makes a huge difference.

Part of the problem with the smaller matches like we have been putting on is the fact you set up the match with the idea you are going to have 40 shooters, and you get double that amount. We have seen it at every match we have had this year.

I hope we don't reach a point where we need to turn shooters away.

[Jim Norman]

I have been advocating the math behind the match for a couple years now. Not new with me either. I got it from the person that preceded me at our club. Your longest stage runs your match. More stages require more walk-through time, but give your shooters less standing around time. Obviously we can reduce the walk-though time to 5 minutes and no travel time, Shoot a one stage match. That is ridiculous.

You need to have a reasonable idea of how long the stage SHOULD take a reasonable shooter to shoot and make sure that the majority of your shooters don't time out. Then you need to look at the reset times. Make sure that your rest and time-out times assuming worst case, everyone on the squad times out at the last shot so the entire stage needs a reset and multiply that by the number of shooters on your largest squad, then times the number of squads and you have your match time.

We run our club matches at about 3 minutes per shooter, add in ten minutes for walk-through and travel between stages. 15 shooters on a squad makes for about 55 minutes per stage. This runs us out to 385 minutes which gets our last shot off about 4:30 in the afternoon on a full match. Then we get to put it all away.

[webbo]

So I had another match on Sunday. We had right around 70 shooters. It went way better than the last match. The last shot was fired somewhere around 4:40, last month it was right about 7:00.

What I did different:

We moved the start time up an hour, though we got about a 30 minute late start due to last minute setup and lack of available staff for registration.

I added a stage while keeping the round count real close to what it's been in the past. This allowed for 5 squads instead of 4.

I made a conscience effort to keep the locations of staged and grounded guns convenient for fluidity and clearing.

I also made a conscience effort to keep reset fairly simple, less far away paper, more steel.

I used fewer activated targets.

There were some backups, nothing like before. My squad had to wait for about 4 shooters the whole day, and we probably only made the squad behind us wait for 6 shooters in all stages combined. It was not that perfect for all the squads, but thanks to some quick thinking by a few shooters, shooting a vacant stage as time provided, it smoothed out real nice like. Even with an electric running man target with 2 switches, there were few problems.

I will end up adding a time out as needed. I had shooters at over 250 seconds on our long range stage, and that is too long.

I'm trying to work out the math per shooter stuff but it has yet to make sense to me. I shoot the same way, I couldn't tell you what how fast I can shoot a bill drill, but when it's fast, I can feel it. Hell I don't even own a timer.

The best part of all this is, I don't think the stages suffered at all. It was difficult, fast, and fun. Also, we are getting money for better targets each month. It's only going to get better. Just don't tell people, or they will bring their friends....

[J.Schmitt]

Lucas and I spoke at the Sunday match. For those reading, we talked about limiting the rounds someone can use on the long range stage. We have all seen people go to a 3 rd mag of 30 before on a stage with 15 to 20 total engagements. We estimate an average shooter at 5 sec per target at distance. 140 to 160 max time limit. Of couse we had to shoot 5 targets off side off eye at the Sunday match.

Jay

[AFH]

I'm glad things went better! The little bit of delay you describe is nothing to be too worried about, but the shooters will be glad you are trying to address it.

Jay, a couple of thoughts. Instead of limiting rounds, I would recommend just using a time out. They can shoot all they want within X amount of time, and your ROs don't have to worry about counting rounds/mags. When planning, I went to allowing 10 seconds per long range rifle target where long range = greater than ~150 yards. Really helped get my number of time outs down to an acceptable level. Shooting on bays will probably decrease that time, but better to overestimate for a match, then go closer to your 5 sec allowance if things work out for you.

Good luck,

Andy

[J.Schmitt]

Andy, I hear what you are saying, We use the time out. We still had a couple of guys shoot into their 3rd 30 rounder on a 140 sec time out. Our stage was set with 20 engagements. A lolli at 100, 2 10" MGM;s at 150 and 2 MGM's at 200. We started with them sighted in on 200 even. Hell we can't save them all. If they want to shoot that much ammo and don't bring a solid zero with their rifle, I guess we let them shoot. It isn;t my ammo.

Jay