Moving targets at the 2004 Nationals

[Flexmoney]

I think most of the moving targets at the Nationals were just plain too hard.

I watched the Limted Super Squad go through Stage 2 (with one of the easier swingers of the match)...many of them needed to take 3 shots or more. The squad I was on was pretty flush with shoting talent...and we saw difficulty in getting hits of the various movers. Nobody really complained...but, if we all had trouble, what about everybody else?

I know there is a point of view that "this is the Nationals", but I think we reach a point were we aren't testing shooting as much as we are testing luck?

I also heard a point of view that they were trying to test the Grand Master shooters (I assume in Open Division). Well...I not sure that that makes much of a difference. And, in doing so, the rest of the shooters get hosed.

[Flexmoney]

I want to point out that it was a great match, and I really liked the stages...just thought the movers were a bit too tough.

[Phil Dunlop]

From time to time we see the same problem over here Flex. The worst is the bobber that flashes accross a port. The competitor never sees the target at rest, and just guesses he's hit it, often firing 4 or 5 rounds to do so.

For me thats not a shooting test but a measure of luck

P.D.

[Jake Di Vita]

The only mover I considered too difficult were the bobbers and maybe the windmill on 16. The other movers weren't too bad, even though some required one shot per pass, such as the top swinger swingers.

[ErikW]

Yes, particularly the windmills and the top-axis swingers. For divisions other than Open. Stage 16's windmill was heinous.

But that may be sour grapes because I would have been in the Limited top 16 without the moving targets to drag me down.

This is a problem with combined-divisions matches where the M.D. can't tailor the courses to a division.

[Bill Schwab]

The windmills were hell, and some of the other movers were too far, such as Stage 2 Speed Up! Maybe "too far" isn't the right way to describe it, let's say they were further than movers I had ever shot before, thus my lead on them wasn't sufficient resulting in Mikes.

Prior to the match I proclaimed myself very skilled on nailing movers, after the match I was left thinking I needed to go home with my tail between my legs and practice them.

[Dead Buff]

Does someone have vid clips of these movers...would like to see...

We put our movers between 10 and 30m...what was the average at the nats?

[rhino]

It seems to me that the nationals is the place where there actually should be stages that push the abilities of the best shooters around. I can see why club matches need to be geared toward D and C class shooters, but I think the nationals actually should have at least some shots that are too tough for everyone to complete without penalties.

I would think that tougher shots might spread the results among the top 20 a bit more too.

[Alan Meek]

I personally found the movers challenging but not impossible. I also feel the match was great match.

[Patrick Sweeney]

Hmm. By movers, do you mean just the swingers, or are you including the bobbers, bear traps, etc? Because I hammered them. Except for one miss on the propeller on Stage 16, my scorecard is chock full of A hits on them. I have two A's on almost every one of the drop turners, bear traps and bobbers. I have at least one A on every swinger. And I did it with a revolver.

I saw top shooters putting three shots on swingers, too. In many cases I think it might have been simple arithmetic: the extra half second for a shot is small insurance for a sloppy hot or miss.

I may be biased, but I thought they were fast but not hard.

[BDH]

It seems to me that the nationals is the place where there actually should be stages that push the abilities of the best shooters around.

I agree. Then again, I did not shoot the match, so if I had, maybe I would have a different opinion.

Just FYI... I 'think' I probably had more Mikes on my left static (the one with the no-shoot), than I had on my swinger (which looked fast to me)...

[Mistral404]

What about the drop turner on on of last stages--sorry I forgot the number and I am not near my book. You open the door, and the drop turner immediately falls.

Our squad had problems with it, but I got to watch the Super Squad Open on that stage. I thought very few actually got two hits on it.

I thought it was expecially diffucult.

The wind mill was a pain also. Most people seemed to get a mike on it.

For the most part I was ok with the movers, a couple of them seemed to be out of reach for the majority of shooters.

[Patrick Sweeney]

That would be Stage 19? Two A's. I think a lot of people got themsleves in trouble on that stage due to an insistance on "getting a stationary before the drop turner" which is now so expected that not doing it is considered unmanly.

Do not attempt turners, movers, swingers, etc. on "what others do" but on what your personal math is. If it takes you (as an example) 0.50 seconds to hit the stationary target and swing onto the drop-turner, and the DT flips open at the 0.40 mark, you're going to screw it up. If the DT opens at 0.60, you've got a chance to make it.

Sure, going for the DT first is going to potentially cost you 0.50 seconds, but going for the ST and then the DT is going to cost you 0.50 seconds too, and you may not get the points.

All stage strategy and tactics are simply a calculation of points gained vs. time spent. Don't spend the time if you can't be sure of the points. And if you have to spend the time to get the points then do it and stop beating yourself up about being "so slow."

[Flexmoney]

BDH, your swinger was fine. Others weren't so "normal".

Patrick, I feel that if the super-squad has to take "insurance shots", then something is amiss. An extra shot on a swinger (like those we saw) cost between 0.25 and 0.60 seconds...that is huge. I don't see many taking that unless it is needed.

Rhino, the Nationals shouldn't be easy. But, luck shouldn't determine the winners either. And, I think there was some of that involved. At least for the iron sighted guns.

[EricW]

If the top GM's agree that making the hits was largely a product of random chance, the course isn't too hard, it is simply unfair. I wasn't there, so I'm clueless. Hopefully some constructive discussion will take place in that vein.

[Alan Meek]

Something I noticed was a lot of the cables to activate the movers were fairly short and did not have the accustomed slack that we have grown accustomed to seeing. Therfore the net effect is those that are activated by a "short" cable would activate faster than we normaly see. On the drop turner through the door I got both of my hits took the drop turner first as it was a short cable that would activate the turner faster than I have normally seen. But that is part of course design and and should be taken into consideration for your individual solution for the stage. When you evaluate the risk vs rewards then you make the decision. Now in the what if category, although I know it doesn't apply as the drop turner was a Disapperaing Miss target, if it was a drop turner that a portioned remained visible I'm sure everyones plan of attack would be completly different than what they did.

Again I did not find any of the moving targets impossible and I am only a B class shooter.

my .02 1/2 cents

[ong45]

Some of the swingers that dropped out from the top were brutal, i fully missed the first pass on two seperate stages. This after watching the damn thing activate as often as i could.

I shudder at what would have happened if i had shot limited.

James

[Jon Merricks]

I think the windmills were pretty tough, even the close one on 2 I had to take extra shots at. The windmill and swinger on 16 handed me my ars. I think they were pretty tough but I was also just aiming for brown not A's.

[Nik Habicht]

I think most of the moving targets at the Nationals were just plain too hard.

I know there is a point of view that "this is the Nationals", but I think we reach a point were we aren't testing shooting as much as we are testing luck?

Kyle,

I disagree. I think the movers at the Nationals demonstrated that most of us who are involved in running club matches, fail to set movers correctly to provide practice for the Nationals. I say club matches, because I assume that most of us do not own our own movers.....

I missed movers on the stages where I wasn't shooting well --- and hit them when I was focusing on the front sight. Sometimes the hits sucked --- I simply can't seem to find the A-zone on a drop turner; instead I shoot all around it.

I also think that Patrick's comment

Do not attempt turners, movers, swingers, etc. on "what others do" but on what your personal math is. If it takes you (as an example) 0.50 seconds to hit the stationary target and swing onto the drop-turner, and the DT flips open at the 0.40 mark, you're going to screw it up. If the DT opens at 0.60, you've got a chance to make it.

has a lot of merit. I saw to many people shooting the match who did NOT KNOW if they could hit a static between hitting the activator and the mover.

Last but not least --- how many of us practice, or set up in stages we design, situations where you have two activating poppers next to each other and two movers available form the same position? That's one of those other places where people either gained match points or trashed their run.....

For the record: I count 22 movers total in the match with 220 points available. I shot two misses, 12 Charlies, and 12 Deltas and 18 Alphas as a C-class production shooter. I engaged all movers. I shot the bulk of the movers on stages or days where I wasn't seeing the front sight as well as I needed to. Making the movers easier, probably wouldn't have helped my performance. Practicing for them correctly, likely would have made a difference....

[carinab]

The only movers I think were problematic were the top axis swingers. I'm not certain that many below B class would know how to approach them. With iron sights, my philosophy on those was to get a sight alignment at where the a zone should be and then just look at the window. As soon as I saw brown appear, I would break the shot. I had hits every time. Most folks have a .3 reaction time and the movers weren't that fast that they would be gone in .3 There is a degree of luck there but match experience plays a larger role, IMO.

The wind mills were tricky but not as challenging if you activated them from an earlier position. The ones on mirror mirror could have been double tapped. Even the distant swinger on 16 is manageable. One of our lady D class shooters simply took it one shot on each pass.

As for the drop turner, I had both hits but I also shot it first and I didn't rip open the door at warp nine speed. I knew I'd wait .3 to .5 for the DT but I also knew I could walk backwards out of the door way engaging the static on the left regaining the .3 to .5 in movement. One turn and a step and I was right where I needed to be for the next array. I think a good COF challenges the usual concepts, like taking a static before a DT. Every good stage has a "Gotcha" on it, the good shooters (M and GM) just know how to minimize the risks on those "Gotchas" more quickly. We mere mortals just watch the clock go tick-tock.

[TDean]

Kyle, I try to look at it this way. It's an equal challenge (as hard as it may be) to ALL competitors within their divisions. Luck sure may have its place (for some) on a stage or two, but the skilled shooters will always come out ahead in the end (especially over 20+ stages).

[shred]

FWIW, somebody told me that EricG was the only shooter to successfully get 2 A's on one of the top-swingers in one pass. Most of the rest of the SS shot it once per pass.

I thought the movers were OK. They did bias a bit towards good shooters, especially the speedy drop-turners, but they also were disappearing targets. There weren't any evil things like hardcovered swingers that I remember.

The flopper on stage 2 was probably the worst-- it didn't disappear and had a very fast flopping action which caused a lot of shooters to drop NS hits.

[Patrick Sweeney]

Hmm, something is amiss here. An A shooter, with a DA wheelgun is getting his hits but the top GMs are taking insurance shots? Perhaps it is in the approach. If you're shooting at warp speed, but don't think all the hits are there, an insurance shot is less penalty than a miss. If you know you aren't going to get two hits a pass, and take it one shot per, then there is no point in shooting sloppy hits.

If I can drill a drop turner with two As (often just an inch or two apart) then it just isn't that fast, despite appearances. I agree that the propeller on Stage 16 was the worst of the lot, but I still had three hits in four shots, DA. The swinger on Stage 19 is an example of "tough if you make it so." I hit it: stationary, activator, other popper, then had time to swing over and wait for the swinger, and get two hits on it in one swing. Were I shooting with the SuperSquad with a pistol, I'd have been tempted to do it: activator, other, stationary, then swinger. And would probably have to do an insurance shot then or at the end.

The Nationals should be hard, but the stage design doesn't have to make it too hard. The shooters will do that themselves. Perhaps that's what we're seeing here: shooters pushing the swingers too fast, and having to make up shots.

[Patrick Sweeney]

I guess what I'm saying is, If I found the movers quick enough to be interesting while shooting them with a wheelgun, then the only reason the top shooters found them hard was because they made them harder than they were. And if I can get two clean A hits with a revolver at 194 PF, then anyone C class or better with a pistol should not have a problem getting two hits of some kind.

Let's put it another way: you as an aspiring IPSC shooter have a case of "slow split-itis." Your splits are a glacial .25 sec. A fast drop turner is exposed for a half a second, a slow one for a full second. What's the problem, here?

If your splits are faster than that, then the only problem is perception.

[reneet]

I did not think they were all that difficult. Just unfamiliar for the most part.

I had a miss on both the spinners. (Stage 16 and Stage 4) Shot singles 4 times ~ missed one due to lack of attention I'm sure.

1 miss on the easy (right) bobber on stage 5 once again due to lack of attention and / or visual impatience.

1 miss on top axis swinger on Stage 3. I had never seen a target like this and asked someone that was shooting production what they were going to do. Did not take into consideration that their solution wouldn't work for me (start squeeze when target disappears). 1 REALLY SLOW miss out of 5 @#$% shots. Again, my fault. Nailed the next top axis swinger 1 shot / pass.

Only one hit on the drop turner on stage 19 even though I was waiting for it to turn. Can't explain this one.