Is this number useless?

[Nimitz]

Since it is still very early in my practical shooting career (15 months) I don't pay attention to where I finish in a match. What I look for instead in the match results are "% points shot", % of Alphas shot & number of Ds and/or Ms. Since I shoot Production these numbers are an important indicator of how my skills are developing under match conditions & are completely within my control. The other number I look at is my match percentage score when a GM wins the Production division. The theory being that if I'm shooting 60% of what the GM shot in the match this roughly translates into that I'm shooting at about a low B level.

If that's true, I assume that if a non GM wins the match then it is much harder to determine what that same 60% match score represents and is probably a meaningless number to determine if I'm getting better. Is that a reasonable interpretation?

[motosapiens]

You can keep track of your percentage no matter who wins production division. There are 8 or 10 local shooters (none of them GM's, and none shooting production) that are all better than me, and at least half of them show up to any particular match. I compare my percentage to theirs. I notice that my percentage is gradually climbing in relation to all of those folks. It doesn't matter than some of them are shooting limited or open. They are the same people, shooting the same equipment, and they are good enough to be fairly consistent.

[Nimitz]

while I agree that if the same shooter consistently wins the division you shoot & is a consistent performer than on a relative basis you can tell if you are getting better if your match percentage is always increasing comapred to them but I don't see how this would be accurate if the person where in another division where they shoot major & you shoot minor where the scoring is different. Also, unless the person is a GM, which by definition means they are at the 95% or higher as compared to all other shooters, I don't know how to tell what it means to score 60% of an A shooter one match & 60% of a B shooter the mext match, both who are consistent & both who win ...

[motosapiens]

I don't see how this would be accurate if the person where in another division where they shoot major & you shoot minor where the scoring is different. Also, unless the person is a GM, which by definition means they are at the 95% or higher as compared to all other shooters, I don't know how to tell what it means to score 60% of an A shooter one match & 60% of a B shooter the mext match, both who are consistent & both who win ...

i'm comparing to the same exact shooters over time. If carrie shoots open, and I got 60% of her score in matches last year, but I'm getting 70% of her score this year, then I conclude I'm shooting better, especially if I see the same improvement relative to Evans, Craig and Jason. The major/minor scoring is irrelevant because it's the same last year as this year. Unless carrie got worse or had a bad day, the only variable that is changing is my ability.

Of course if she finishes 9th out of 50 shooters that day, and zero'd one stage for some reason, then obviously that's not a very good indication, but it's easy to look for stuff like that. You could have the same issue with a GM that just had a bad day, but was still better than everyone else in that division. It also throws a wrench in the works that some of the shooters I keep track of are also improving over time.

At any rate, it's just a number, don't stress over it.

[Nimitz]

I don't really disagree with what you are saying unless you are trying to compare yourself against a shooter in another division. Open guys can trade accuracy for speed to some degree due to major scoring where us minor guys cannot. It's trying to compare apples and oranges. This is one reason there is no such thing as an official overall winner at a match, there are only division winners. This is somewhat less true with limited vs open but certainly trying to compare production to open will give you somewhat false information ( god or bad).

This is also why a lot of local Production '" top guns" get their clocks cleaned when they go to a major because they finally shoot against shooters who are just as fast as them but WAY more accurate ... When I see someone win the production div with 82% points shoot I don't use them to compare myself against ...

It's all good BTW and I'm not too concerned about it ... It's just that lately at our monthly matches we've not been having the usual shooters win and I was trying to decide if comparing myself to them really meant anything ...

[motosapiens]

I don't really disagree with what you are saying unless you are trying to compare yourself against a shooter in another division. Open guys can trade accuracy for speed to some degree due to major scoring where us minor guys cannot. It's trying to compare apples and oranges. This is one reason there is no such thing as an official overall winner at a match, there are only division winners.

It doesn't bother me if you believe that, but as a life-long competitor at various sports, and with a degree in applied math and statistics, I'm perfectly comfortable comparing myself against shooters in other divisions, and also perfectly comfortable with the idea of an overall winner at a local match. Perhaps the key is I'm not really comparing myself against against these shooters directly, i'm just tracking my improvement relative to their scores. I don't really care how good (or bad) I am now, I only care about improving.

[Poppa Bear]

This is why so many people like combined results. Joe, John and Jerry might shoot different divisions, but tracking your % against theirs lets you know how you and they are doing.

[Nimitz]

Sorry but I just don't see how you can use the scores of shooters to compare against eachother if some shoot major power factor & others shoot minor ....

2 guys shoot the same CoF and they both shoot the same number of A's & C's in the same time but the major PF shooter wins the stage and the minor PF guy finishes 2nd at some percentage less than the 100% which the stage winner gets. So which one is the better shooter? According to their scores the major PF is better since he finished first but is he? Hard to say as their shooting was identical ... in fact, you could argue that the minor PF guy was a better shooter since he was in Production and probably had to do several reloads and still shot it in the same time ...

[Poppa Bear]

Production will reward accuracy. That said division has little bearing outside of Open. With optics and comps they can flat out shoot faster than the other divisions. If you compare the top times and class times for all other divisions they are pretty close across the board. So comparing myself to them is a pretty good test of my skills against theirs.

[Nimitz]

well you are making my point for me ... I just don't see how comparing myself against what open shooters do tells me anything which is what was being suggested. For the others divisions it's closer but there are still differences which are important: major vs minor & mag capacity to name two. A SS or limited 10 minor may be a fair comparison against what a production shooter does but that's about as far as I'll go. When local matches produce the "overall winner/ranking list" it means nothing to me & I don't even look at it. I want to know how I'm doing on an even playing field wich means the same division ...

[motosapiens]

Sorry but I just don't see how you can use the scores of shooters to compare against eachother if some shoot major power factor & others shoot minor ....

2 guys shoot the same CoF and they both shoot the same number of A's & C's in the same time but the major PF shooter wins the stage and the minor PF guy finishes 2nd at some percentage less than the 100% which the stage winner gets. So which one is the better shooter?

I don't care which one is the better shooter. As I stated earlier, I don't care how I compare to other shooters right now, I care how much I'm improving. If i look at my score and Carrie's score from matches last fall that we both shot, and I look at our scores from the last couple matches, and I see that I'm getting closer to her scores, then I conclude that I must be improving.

When local matches produce the "overall winner/ranking list" it means nothing to me & I don't even look at it. I want to know how I'm doing on an even playing field wich means the same division ...

I guess I understand that you feel that way. But you should keep in mind that we all suck, except ben and eric, so on an even playing field, we still suck.

The field doesn't have to even for you to be able to use the numbers to track your improvement however. IMHO, since we all suck, and we will almost all continue to suck, it makes sense to strive for improvement, since that is a readily attainable goal, whereas not sucking is just not going to happen for pretty much everyone.

Striving to 'win', or to be better than someone else is not very productive IMHO, because it relies on things that are outside your control, like how other people perform. Striving to improve yourself makes more sense to me, and if you continue to improve, you will win, and you will be better than other shooters.

Edited April 16, 2013 by motosapiens

[motosapiens]

Production will reward accuracy. That said division has little bearing outside of Open. With optics and comps they can flat out shoot faster than the other divisions. If you compare the top times and class times for all other divisions they are pretty close across the board. So comparing myself to them is a pretty good test of my skills against theirs.

Even open shooters can be a good benchmark. If you shoot 60% of an open shooters score last month, and 70% of his score this month, then that is useful and positive information.

[Chris iliff]

Production will reward accuracy. That said division has little bearing outside of Open. With optics and comps they can flat out shoot faster than the other divisions. If you compare the top times and class times for all other divisions they are pretty close across the board. So comparing myself to them is a pretty good test of my skills against theirs.

Even open shooters can be a good benchmark. If you shoot 60% of an open shooters score last month, and 70% of his score this month, then that is useful and positive information.

Even better when you look at the same shooter over many matches and you find that the gap between you and him/her is steadily closing. Doesnt matter what division they shoot. You are looking at the percentage between two shooters. Then you know you are either improving, or the other shooter is getting worse. But, looking closely at more than one other shooter you could rule out the getting worse scenario.

[motosapiens]

Production will reward accuracy. That said division has little bearing outside of Open. With optics and comps they can flat out shoot faster than the other divisions. If you compare the top times and class times for all other divisions they are pretty close across the board. So comparing myself to them is a pretty good test of my skills against theirs.

Even open shooters can be a good benchmark. If you shoot 60% of an open shooters score last month, and 70% of his score this month, then that is useful and positive information.

Even better when you look at the same shooter over many matches and you find that the gap between you and him/her is steadily closing. Doesnt matter what division they shoot. You are looking at the percentage between two shooters. Then you know you are either improving, or the other shooter is getting worse. But, looking closely at more than one other shooter you could rule out the getting worse scenario.

Yes exactly. Of course it's awesome if you attend matches that have dozens of production shooters, but at my local matches there are typically 5-10, so I get a much better idea by comparing my scores to the 2 or 3 open guys and 5-6 limited guys that always seem to show up.

[sroe3]

I like to compare my raw points and points after penalties to the match winners (in production). My accuracy should be comparable even if my time is not. The speed will come with practice and experience. Accuracy must be maintained through-out.

[bikerburgess]

One thing to keep in minded when comparing your percentage to that of a GM's at a match is if the GM is shooting GM level field course scores. There are many GM's that can shoot the occasional blazing classifier but are not at 95% in the rest of the game.

Mike