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Skipping a shot ?


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I shot my 2nd USPSA match last weekend had a great time, and look forward to doing more.

That said, I was thinking about how I shot the stages and what I could of done different and got to wondering if I should have skipped a target, or a shot anyway.

I'm shooting a revolver so keep that in mind. If everything went according to my plan about midway through the stage I was going to have 1 round left in my gun and 4 targets to engage. 3 at one position and one at another. The one target was two steps to my right the other 3 I needed to move forward 5 yards to see.

So would it of made sense to step to my right and engage that target with one shot, then reload moving forward to engage the last 3? And just take the miss on the one target.

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I shoot a little revolver myself. I would have dropped the one round, reloaded, shot the one target, dropped four rounds, reloaded, and engaged the final array. Skipping that one target costs two alphas, two mikes and one fte.

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I shoot a little revolver myself. I would have dropped the one round, reloaded, shot the one target, dropped four rounds, reloaded, and engaged the final array. Skipping that one target costs two alphas, two mikes and one fte.

And that's exactly what I did.

I was thinking more like shoot the 1 shot then reload and move up for the final set. This would only cost one Mike and no FTE.

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This is when knowing what your average reload times are comes in handy. Depending on the size of the COF and the length of time that it took you to throw that extra reload, the choices given could have been a wash.

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And that's exactly what I did.

I was thinking more like shoot the 1 shot then reload and move up for the final set. This would only cost one Mike and no FTE.

You would also be down the 5 points for the possible Alpha. So, you would be down 15 points for that strategy. (5 points for the possible Alpha left behind and 10 points for the miss)

It's a good question, and one you should explore.

The way to do so is to look back at your actual hit factor. The hit factor is points-per-second. You can take the inverse of that (divide 1 by your hit factor) and get seconds-per-point. Once you get the seconds per point you shot on that stage, you can multiple that by the points down (in this case 15) and see how many seconds those 15 points were worth.

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And that's exactly what I did.

I was thinking more like shoot the 1 shot then reload and move up for the final set. This would only cost one Mike and no FTE.

You would also be down the 5 points for the possible Alpha. So, you would be down 15 points for that strategy. (5 points for the possible Alpha left behind and 10 points for the miss)

It's a good question, and one you should explore.

The way to do so is to look back at your actual hit factor. The hit factor is points-per-second. You can take the inverse of that (divide 1 by your hit factor) and get seconds-per-point. Once you get the seconds per point you shot on that stage, you can multiple that by the points down (in this case 15) and see how many seconds those 15 points were worth.

Thanks, once the scores are posted I'll take a look at that.

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I have seen one stage stage where it could have been an advantage to take a miss with the penalties. It was a 10 round point blank stage where hit factors were doable at 14-15 or more and you Were basically in the trigger the whole time with a single stack gun you could shoot 9 of the 10 rounds without a reload where you wouldn't really have a time for a reload at all with that hit factor unless you were doing 1 second reloads you were better off taking the miss

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YaYaYa. You come to shoot and it probably don't matter how well you shot, you still have to go to work the next day. The only way I know how to get better is to shoot.

I do shoot revolver ( you do have to think alot more how to shoot a stage with a revo.) and I know you are not going to wil by leaving targets.

See U at Revo Nats. :sight:

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  • 4 weeks later...

As one of the previous posters stated the only time I’ve seen it beneficial to intentionally bypass a target or take a Miss if if they are disappearing targets and therefore no penalty “Mikes”. A good example was at the NC sectional Match two years ago. There was an array of three targets that you had to pull a long wire attached to a board to pull the targets up and hold them up. Once you let it go they fell. That left you the option to engage them strong hand or take the extra time to pin the board between you body and the table to engage them freestyle. In the end it is all about the HF. Assuming a HF of 5 for a field course and assuming you would have shot 6 Alphas you would need to engage those targets in 6 seconds which sounds like a lot until you realize the activator is akward, the targets are at a substantial distance for strong hand, if you are shooting prod, rev, L10 it cost you an extra reload and in the case of this stage a lot of extra ground traveled as well. Most chose to bypass it. One important caveat is you MUST activate the target. To do this you simply bypass it shoot the stage then before unloading and after your last shot, casually walk over and pull the activator. You could take all the time in the world to do this since the timer stops on your last shot fired.

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I shoot a little revolver myself. I would have dropped the one round, reloaded, shot the one target, dropped four rounds, reloaded, and engaged the final array. Skipping that one target costs two alphas, two mikes and one fte.

This is the answer. I know there is math, calculating, gaming the stage, etc. But I want to shoot the stage and that means all the dadgum targets. I might legitimately miss, but don't want any fte's, except the ones I get by brain farts. I can see the case posted above were it is big match, real prizes are one the line, and everybody with any sense is running the stage that way. In a club level match where no money is on the line and the stage layout just maybe screws the Revo guys, so be it. I'm dropping partially loaded clips and banging away!

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  • 11 months later...

BUMP!

I didn't do it, but I think I will next time! We had five barrels ( all shots must pass through barrels ) and I could engage all targets but one from two positions that where close together. The third position was 25 yards ,and a thirty five yard shot all the way back to in front of the first of the two positions.

All I had to do was shoot two shots into the target ( not through a barrel -10,-10 ) and it would save 5-8 seconds.

The math works out...but it felt like cheating.

The problem is after doing the math it looks like it's worth doing more often than I would have thought. I crunched the numbers ,and it works on at least one other stage in just this weeks match.

http://zzpzz.com/uspsa/uspsa.htm (spreadsheet / calculator)

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