Anyone ever tried the "Mad Minute" as a 3-gun stage?

[Langenator]

Was reading about the Enfield rifle and thought it might be an interesting idea for a stage, but can't quite figure the scoring.

Setup: 12" circular target at 300 yards. Rifle starts with 10 round mag loaded, all reloads must be 5 round mags. (This simulates the Enfield's 10 round max capacity, and 5-round stripper clips.)

Shooter has 60 seconds to hit the target as many times as possible. (IIRC, the record, with an Enfield rifle, is something like 36. That's shooting right there.)

But how do you score it? Obviously, the more hits, the better, and everyone will have the same elapsed time.

Ideas?

[co-exprs]

I tried the mad minute once in practice with my 308 and irons. It was quite the ego crusher. Whomever set that record with an enfield was a gifted rifleman.

[lee blackman]

60 seconds is a long time... like it might not seem, but it really is. If you have 30 shooters at your match, you just added a HALF HOUR of shooting time to the stage, don't forget the time it takes going between shooters, etc. A stage like that can literally cause a backup at a match.

Think about your regular USPSA 32 round long course... most of your shooters will have it done in around 20 seconds, but you'll have that one new shooter who it might take 45 seconds for. And things runs smooth.... So 20 seconds is a good time for a stage in general.

Alternatively, and I know it wouldn't technically be a "mad minute," but cut the time to about 10, 12, 15, or at most 20 seconds per shooter. Allow the shooter to be setup already in position, gun loaded on safe.

If you use time plus penalty scoring, simply allow a 5 second deduction of time per hit. You've got 20 seconds, you get 4 hits then you've neutralized your time on that stage to no time added, any additional hits deducts from you total match score. For a skilled rifle shooter, its a bonus round. For a not so skilled shooter, it gives him the challenge of a no-time added stage.

If you really want to make a full 60 second minute out of it, this is my recommendation... make it a multiple shooter stage. However many steels you have down range, is how many shooters on the line. Let the non-shooting shooters act as spotter to record the hits. Airhorn starts, air horn stops. Scores are handed to the RO. Next group on line...

[Stlhead]

60 seconds is too short for a stage, and one target is too few. How about this, 3 minute fixed time, all guns loaded to division capacity, pistol holstered, one long gun in your hands, the other in a barrel to start. Two skinnies at 100, two rifle plate racks at 150, 3 flashers at 250, 3 BC targets at 300. Twenty 5" pistol knock overs at 20 yards. A bird thrower with the button taped to a post so the shooter can activate it at will (preferably a fast thrower). -2 seconds for every target hit.

[CJW]

Use paper targets and replace them for each relay. Dean DeTurk did a standards style stage at the Topton rifle match last fall, and it did not slow the match down. It was done in three strings, so there was considerably more than 60 seconds from start to finish for a relay. This is doable.

So, if you have 12 man squads, split each squad into two relays of 6 (if your bay has room) or three relays of 4. (I think Dean's match was three relays of 5 for 15 man squads.) Everybody gets a target—3GN pizza box would work well for this, or USPSA with the head and Delta cut off/hard covered. (You probably only need one target per position per squad, meaning you can just paste between relays.) Line up, make ready, standby, and go. At 60 seconds yell "STOP". Count the number of hits on target for each shooter. Paste and reset, next relay. You could use full size USPSA targets and only count Deltas as "half" a hit.

At the end of the match, best score gets 100 points (stage max), and everybody else gets a percentage. You are using 100 point stages, right? If you are using time-plus for the whole match, assume a start time of 100 seconds and subtract 5 sec per hit. Twenty hits will max the stage, which means there is just enough incentive for the best shooters to choose between a go-fast strategy and a slow-and-steady strategy. Overall, I think stage points and percentages works better, but that's just me.

Go for it! I think it will be a great stage.

Edited March 5, 2014 by CJW

[Langenator]

Great feedback guys! I don't actually build stages for my local matches (I live too far away), just an idea that popped into my head. I love the variety of ideas that different people come up with, too.

I did go and look it up, and the record is actual 38 hits , set in 1914 by Sergeant Instructor Alfred Snoxall. That's with iron sights of the non-aperture variety (the proper term for which escapes me.)

I do find the idea that a 60 second stage is a long (time wise) stage. I think the shortest stage I've ever shot at a local match had a 45 second par time, and I've shot bunches with par times up to 300 seconds at CCC in TX.

[bigbrowndog]

i've shot it and it sux!! and it can be unfair to the person who brought 30 round mags or 45 rounds mags, versus the guy who brought his 100 round drum. BTW I had the beta mag,.......you also bring up the valid point of how do you score it?? too many people think its a great idea and then its not, perhaps with manually operated guns it would be fine but with autoloaders not so much.

trapr

[thermobollocks]

You could make it a fixed time standard exercise stage. It all breaks down to stage points. I think in USPSA MG you can still do a fixed time standard exercise. If you're in an unaffiliated match, then you get whatever the MD wants

If I had to do it, I would probably do a mad half-minute with mandatory reloads every ten rounds. Count hits for each shooter, and that's the points the shooter earns for the stage. The best shooter gets the 100% stage points, and everyone else gets scaled down.

[Langenator]

i've shot it and it sux!! and it can be unfair to the person who brought 30 round mags or 45 rounds mags, versus the guy who brought his 100 round drum. BTW I had the beta mag,.......you also bring up the valid point of how do you score it?? too many people think its a great idea and then its not, perhaps with manually operated guns it would be fine but with autoloaders not so much.

trapr

Actually, my original concept, to make it closer to the original British army drill, was to have the shooter start with 10 rounds loaded, and with 5 rounds in their extra mags. They can stack as many 5-rounders as they want. 5 rounds in the mag is easy enough to to a visual count. Or you could acquire a bunch of the limited capacity hunting type mags.

That takes away any advantage for the guys with the big mags.

[StealthyBlagga]

I like the concept. A par time of 60 seconds should not slow the match down - lots of 3-gun stages take longer than 60 seconds to shoot. I'd run it on a high power range and have the folks working the pits run up a fresh target for each shooter. While one shooter is shooting, the previous shooter's target can be scored. Use a 2-way radio to relay the results to the scorekeeper.

As for scoring, I'd recommend NOT to score each hit as a time-off bonus, because if any shooter shot well enough to get a negative overall time it would be impossible to compute a score and so the whole stage would have to be thrown out. Instead, why not set an unachievable goal (e.g. 100 hits) and apply a +5 second time penalty for each hit below that number (i.e. no hits = 500 seconds stage time, 20 hits = 400 seconds stage time etc.).

One challenge I can see is that more and more shooters these days only bring a few super-capacity mags to matches. If you force them to reload after only 5 or 10 shots, they may simply run out of mags before running out of time. You could eliminate the mag capacity restriction and let them just have at it. In such a case, a shorter time would be wise to ensure the target is scorable rather than just a piece of Swiss cheese.

[Langenator]

My original vision was using a steel target and a spotter, and the RO could just make tic marks to track the number of hits.

Front load the iron sight guys in the squad, and repaint the target after each squad. (The club I shot at in TX used bright orange construction marker paint on the targets. Great for irons, and it comes in bulk packs.)

I like your scoring idea.

[ziebart]

Having stage magazines available for use may help the folks that only bring 2 mags. Or advance warning so they can plan ahead.

[Langenator]

And it'd be a good use for those 10-rounders from gun-unfriendly states. Or 5-rounders made to keep the DFG happy.

[HRider]

We shot fixed time stages at the old Ft Benning matches. From what I remember, there were more targets than anybody could knock down in the amount of time given. On the shotgun stage (2009), static clays/steel were worth 4 points each, while flying clays were worth 8 points each (but the popper used to launch them was worth nothing). They made you shoot from multiple positions. The points that you earned were the points that you received for the stage (ie: you hit 11 4 point targets, your stage points were 44 for that stage).

They had a similar pistol stage in 2008, it worked basically the same way. I don't believe it skewed the match results, I don't recall a lot of people complaining about how unfair it was or anything.

Hurley

[Langenator]

Another random thought...Z mentioned using stage mags. When the British Army did this drill, they did it from the prone. How much would it mess with people to do this as a stage, require firing from the prone (you must shoot from this box, under this barrier), and only provide 20 rounders as stage mags?

*Edit: 20 rounders loaded with 5 rounds

Edited March 7, 2014 by Langenator