A or upper A/B?

[Nik Habicht]

Comstock --- lower A zone.

Virginia Count --- Head for sure.....

[sincityshooter]

I would say it depends on your confindence on the shot... if I'm shooting well and the center mass shot doesn't look too tough that's where the shots will go. If I'm not on my game most days I would be 100% happy leaving with 2 B zone shots. I just go by feel on those... If I look back at the dozens of arrays that I've shot like that I'm probably around 50%. ???

[Jake Di Vita]

Your going to have to slow down more to make 2 reliable hits to the head (plus most likely dropping points) than you would to shoot the lower A zone.

If you get a no-shoot while shooting at the lower A zone, you are going too fast for that particular target.

[benos]

Hardly ever would I not shoot the lower A zone on that setup.

be

[carinab]

No shoots? What no shoots? I only see brown and never bother thinking about the no shoots. Of course, having said that....

If it is late in the day at a major match and I am fatigued, have points up on the competition and no need to push, I may then be more conservative and purposefully s l o w d o w n for the head shots.

[TriggerT]

Lower A zone. That is the only part of the target I want to be aiming at anytime, unless it is blocked by hard cover or a no shoot.

[Kevin Kline]

I was going to ask what distances are we talking about, but anything 20 yards and in, lower A. Just slow down a little and get the hits. Anything with irons beyond 20 yards might change my mind.

[Bear1142]

Lower A zone

Respect the no-shoots by redefining your acceptable sight picture, don't fear the no-shoots by running away from it.

Erik

[Tman33_99]

I look at that target setup as a guarantee of 2 alpha at most distances. It definately lowers my hit factor by slowing me down to setup a better sight picture. On a full target a sight picture near the A/C line is acceptable, but on this target array that is not acceptable, so I slow down and make sure my sight picture is what I want before letting the shot go.

[Jake Di Vita]

What Erik said.

[JerryDGeek]

This is a very OLD question.

Still .. shoot for center-of-mass.

If you miss, you probably have C-hit, at worst.

If you're feeling tricky, shoot for the edge of the lower A-zone; hope for a A-hit and settle for a C-hit.

When you go for the B-zone, it's a much smaller target. A miss is the same penalty as hitting the hard-cover, but much less rewarding for a 'near-miss'.

In my personal opinion, anyone who shoots for the B-zone when he doesnt' have to, just isn't paying attention to the shooting problem. THere is MUCH more target area around the lower A-zone. The B-zone is ... what? Approximately the same area as half the lower A-zone?

Do the math.

[Detlef]

A miss is the same penalty as hitting the hard-cover,

excuse me? Those flanking targets are no shoots, and you incur -20 for an unnoticed miss, vs. -10 for a miss in the A/B.

"Do the math" in this case means "do the probabilities":

The A is about twice the size of the A/B, but I would surely go for it in 1/2 the time...

Expected no. of points:

"Shoot lower A": 80% probability of shooting two A (10 pts), 19% of shooting A/miss-no-shoot (-15pts), 1% 2 miss/no-shoot (-30 pts) => expected value 4.85 pts (I haven't even considered C's because I very rarely shoot the C zone above and below in such setting)

"Shoot upper A/B": 20% shooting two A (10 pts), 40% A/B (9 pts), 10% shooting B/B (8 pts), 25% shooting B/miss (-6 pts), 4 % shooting A/miss (-5 pts), 1% 2 miss (-20) = expected value 4.5 pts

In other words, it's a wash for me point-wise, but going for the lower A zone would save me the time to make it the better option. Admittedly, the probabilities are guesswork, but this is really the way to attack such question. Practice will tell you what the numbers are for you

--D.

[bayoupirate]

I'm with D on this one.

Please correct me If I'm wrong.

Shooting Major PF, B's are not points down.

I can hit the head shot three times faster than I can slow down to hit the squeezed in A between those no-shoots.

Either way the Oh-Shucks factor is much less on the upper A/B.

a miss is -15

a miss and no-shoot -25

Sure I could pick up the miss, but I can't take back the N/S.

But that's just me and my B class ability.

In B class, matches are won and loss by the shooter who avoids the big mistakes.

then again, what do I know?

[Jake Di Vita]

A B for major is 4 points.

Hold on....your saying you can hit a target half as big as the A zone 3 times faster than you can hit the A zone???

In my humble opinion, someone going for the upper A/B zone in this instance is doing it only because of a lack of confidence to make the shot when it counts between the no shoots.

[bayoupirate]

Jake,

Yes, you are correct sir. B=4 pts.

I did mean that I could hit the upperA/B with 3 as fast as I could hit the Lower A twice. I realize that doesn't make sense, but in my very twisted mind it does.

You are correct on the third point as well.

My lack of confidence to avoid the N/S is the 99% of the reason I'd choose Upper the A/B. The fact the I shot like an E class shooter yesterday does have some bearing on that statement.

Hey that opinion isn't Humble. It's accurate. "If is looks like a duck, and sounds like a duck...."

QUACK!!!!!!!

[Jake Di Vita]

Ah ok that makes more sense now...even though I don't agree I understand where you are coming from.

[mcoliver]

Yep it's a mind thing. Sometimes I get bothered too much by the no shoot I just start shooting it. And why don't I ever miss a penalty target!?

[MoNsTeR]

I go for the big A zones, and most others in my section seem to as well.

When I'm in the middle of a stage, I don't even see no-shoots unless I hit one. I've been able to internalize this into my stage planning, so that I never shy away from a shot for fear of getting NS hits.

[REVOLVER]

I don't understand the problem A/B shots are at best a crapshoot at long range. I feel that I can keep the front sight on the A zone better than the A/B If I screw the pooch and hit a N/S or Hard cover so be it. It will teach me to hold tighter. This is the humble oppinion of a Weel Gun Shooter.

[j1b]

At A4 we saw a stage just like this, I shot just below the head, not shooting for the head, but not focused on the body A either.

Did I drop points? Certainly. Did I remove the disaster factor in the stage? Certainly.

While fundamentally I agree with what a lot of you are saying I am also a realist. I've had plenty of misses and no-shoots in my day - none of them planned

In speed, during a major match, I conciously decided to shoot the "most available" section of the target which was really the "upper C" zone.

All of this is contingent upon what I see at the match - because we all know it changes. If what I saw at a match was what I see in the diagram above then yeah, lower A makes sense.

I see where everyone is coming from, but I know that I decided a different avenue under the pressure of the match. It worked though - I lost like 3 points to the stage winner.

Oh - and for the bonus my strategy changes with whatever I see and feel confident with. Generally with a dot (were I shooting a dot these days) I'd go for the lower A because I feel like points are a little more valuable there.

JB

JB

[Kyle J]

I would most definitely go for the bigger of the two A zones. Why go for and area about the same size as a 7-round mag or smaller when you could shoot at a nice big area? If you know where your bullet is going to go then there is no need to sacrifice points on a B hit instead of an A hit.

[gino_aki]

Main A zone all the time...Open gun center the dot and squeeze, let dot settle again fully and squeeze again. Limited gun up close settle the front sight between the two no shoots and squeeze, let the front sight return and squeeze again. Up close, I go for looking at the the front sight as a black square in the rear notch. Farther away I make sure I can see the striations in the ramp.

If I get all my hits slower that usually beats faster guys with a miss or no shoot, especially on Virginia count.