Do you like the use of squads locally?

[Jim Norman]

Unless when a shooter is done with shooting a stag he moves on, and if even half the shooters did that you would have trouble.

Jim

[Noah Gladstone]

we have had the situation were the majority of a squad moves on to the next stage leaving 3 people to finish the stage, with open squading this would be allowed. If enough people just move freely from stage to stage someone will have to pick up the burden of making it work.

[vluc]

Must be a local thing. Of the four clubs I shoot at, open squadding is the rule. When you see and shoot with the same group of folks over an entire month, you develop a bit of a protocol. East Huntingdon, Pitcairn-Monroeville, McDonald and Clairton. I imagine Castlewood is the same, though I have yet to make it there.

Do we have the inconsiderate few that jump in, jump out and move on...of course we do. But they get ID'd pretty quick, and we have no shortage of shooters who will render an opinion to them about helping. RO's constantly remind each squad that help pasting targets and setting steel is greatly appreciated.

There has been the occasional discussion on the pro's and con's of OS. An RO that travels with a squad can work with a new shooter, catch some bad habits that develop, or ID those shooters who may have a safety concern. But there is enough shared information that those items are quickly identified in casual discussion after the match. Stage RO's allow a consistency at a stage that you don't get with traveling RO's.

But again, since so many people RO at different clubs, that informal quid pro quo is a valuable addition. You almost do have a traveling RO with every squad.

I can't imagine having only one or two clubs to shoot at in a month. My heart goes out to you folks that don't have a weekly match somewhere close. We are blessed in Western PA.

[Jim Norman]

The longer this thread runs, the more I understnad what is actually happening here. You guys call what you do Open Squadding, I reality what you have is apparently Self-Squadding on a formally informal basis. You get groups of friends that stick together through the match for the most part. A couple people that actually work the match as Open Squadding are ID'd and it is made known to them that that is not how it works.

The one really nice feature you have is that you are able to set-up on Saturday and run your RO staff through the match. Then your shooters get to just shoot on Sunday. THAT is the thing I would love to have, but we have to high a usage rate on the range here as well as in life to take off the second day.

As to matches, we can't shoot all the matches available to us here in NJ and Eastern PA.

Jim

[vluc]

The longer this thread runs, the more I understnad what is actually happening here. You guys call what you do Open Squadding, I reality what you have is apparently Self-Squadding on a formally informal basis. You get groups of friends that stick together through the match for the most part. A couple people that actually work the match as Open Squadding are ID'd and it is made known to them that that is not how it works.

yep

[racerba]

The longer this thread runs, the more I understnad what is actually happening here. You guys call what you do Open Squadding, I reality what you have is apparently Self-Squadding on a formally informal basis. You get groups of friends that stick together through the match for the most part. A couple people that actually work the match as Open Squadding are ID'd and it is made known to them that that is not how it works.

yep

And the only reason it runs faster is that there are dedicated ROs and an extra day. It's really a two day match.

(see my previous post)

[Sestock]

The longer this thread runs, the more I understnad what is actually happening here. You guys call what you do Open Squadding, I reality what you have is apparently Self-Squadding on a formally informal basis. You get groups of friends that stick together through the match for the most part. A couple people that actually work the match as Open Squadding are ID'd and it is made known to them that that is not how it works.

yep

And the only reason it runs faster is that there are dedicated ROs and an extra day. It's really a two day match.

(see my previous post)

One of the big reasons we shoot the staff on Saturday is to find any bugs, shoot thrus, etc on the stage. This helps the match flow better on Sunday.

If the weather is bad on Saturday, we often just set up and shoot the staff on Sunday with the other shooters. We put a dedicted RO on the stage to start while the other RO shoots the match, the we switch. The match will run just as smoothly as if we had shot on Saturday.

[Sestock]

The way I see it, open squadding only works if you have dedicated ROs, a dedicated set-up and tear down staff, and the all important - two days. Around here, everything is done in one day. I'm sorry, I just don't see it happening at the clubs around here. From the folks that are arguing for the open squadding, I noticed that you dedicate a day to set up and shoot the ROs and another day to shoot other shooters. And you also argue that the steel matches are also run this way. Well, steel does not take long to paste or walk through - so that argument goes out the window. I also want to know if any of the open squadding clubs do it all in one day.

When we set up our monthly matches, we do NOT dumb down our stages. Half of them are Area match quality. Most can be Area match quality with very minor modifications.

Personally, I like squading because I get to shoot with different people and make new friends. It also gives me the opportunity to see how different people in different classes analyze a stage. If I'm always shooting with the same people all the time, that knowledge would never be expanded. I would only like open squading if I only want to show up shoot and leave as soon as possible without haveing to work.

I don't remember anyone saying that it will work for every club. I only put it out as another option to just squading for the whole match.

[Sestock]

Who tapes targets and resets steel with open squading???

The shooters

[Jim Norman]

Who tapes targets and resets steel with open squading???

The shooters

If all the shooters tend to self squad and stay toghether and flow through the match in their self determined groups (Squads) all is likely well. If everyone actually exercised Open Squadding and just did a shoot and scoot, it would fail. vluc said it, if a few people do this, they are noticed and castigated by the rest. THat sort of makes what you do informal self squadding, not really and truly Open Squadding (Think Glock Match) Walk up, put your name in. RO calls top name, not there, call next till you get a shooter. Shooter shoots, scoots to a point where he can hear his name called from a couple bays and does it again.

I like the idea of a dedicated RO staff. THat part MAY be something that we can try to use. But most of us like to shoot with our group of friends. So what happens is I get to run a stage for about 1/2 the match time while my replacement races through his match so I can then race through my match.

Jim

[racerba]

If the weather is bad on Saturday, we often just set up and shoot the staff on Sunday with the other shooters. We put a dedicted RO on the stage to start while the other RO shoots the match, the we switch. The match will run just as smoothly as if we had shot on Saturday.

How long does that match take? Never said it wouldn't run smooth.

I don't remember anyone saying that it will work for every club. I only put it out as another option to just squading for the whole match.

I don't see where I said you said that. What we're doing here is basically trouble shooting the idea of open squadding. We do not have the experience so we are asking this and that in order to see what you (the experienced people) do in those situations.

[Rotwang]

You guys call what you do Open Squadding, I reality what you have is apparently Self-Squadding on a formally informal basis. You get groups of friends that stick together through the match for the most part.

I'm not sure that this applies. We do have several larger groups that arrive together, shoot together, and look like your idea of a squad. They still shoot the stages in any order they want.

But a lot of our shooters come in 1, 2, 3 at a time and do not form themselves into squads for the match. The liitle groups of friends stick together but what seems like a squad on one stage breaks apart and travels in different directions to the next stage to form new groups of shooters.

Most are cooperative about pasting for the people they are with on the stage, some people take advantage of the situation.

[Jim Norman]

And as long as the majority of people do the work the minority of people that show up, shoot and scoot will do so and you will work for them at the expense of taping for people that once they shoot disappear.

Or maybe not.

Somehow, i think that an unbiased review of the logistics of how people move through your match and a similar size "traditionally squadded" match might reveal that the random go here and shoot because we are done on #1 and #2 is busy so we'll shoot #3 might not be happening quite the way we are precceiving it from here. I think it is more likely that if you are shooting a stage and the match has any kind of balance, that the psuedo-squads wiull likely travel in a pattern that makes reasonable sense.

I have shot several matches at Easy Huntington, so I am fammiliar with the general range layout although not how you set up a monthly match. I could see the squads up on the hill roatiting through those stages before crossinghte stree and likewise the squads below doingh the same, I doubt the squad on the last up hill pit is going to wander down across the road to shoot in one of the far away pits. or visa-versa.

Someday if I get the chance I do intend to make a trip out for a regular match just to see.

Jim

[Ron Rodgers]

I have shot several matches at Easy Huntington, .....

I like that!

Rotwang pretty well summed up the shooter flow through our match. Open squadding - or whatever you want to call it - works well for us because we're blessed with:

- use of the range all weekend

- a large group of great volunteers

Without both of these, our system probably wouldn't work for you.

We usually have enough help to assign 2 ROs to each stage on the Sunday match day. One can work the stage while the other shoots or has lunch. He then relieves his partner to do the same. By afternoon, both ROs are back working the stage - minimizing wear and tear. ROs shooting Sunday, get a "shoot-through" pass, allowing them to get back to work sooner.

A real benefit to our open squadding is that anyone wanting to shoot 2 guns can pretty well do so. We've even had people shoot 3 guns on Sunday! I'm guessing, but a normal match will have about 15 or 20 people shooting a second gun. This is a real plus for the shooter - and the club can use the $$. We charge $15 for the 1st gun and $10 for reshoots. Our average match is 80 to 85 guns and we sometimes go over 100. Tear-down is normally completed around 3 or 3:30.

"Open squadding" is the norm here in SW PA. While travelling for business, I've been able to shoot matches in other a few other states. No one there has ever seen this done. Must be a Pittsburgh thing

[Jim Norman]

I never claimed to be able to type.

Jim