3gun penalty

[1chota]

What Mike said is right on.

[co-exprs]

I was disappointed in myself for missing that 650. I really wanted it.

[barrysuperhawk]

No, I don't view Professional shooters to be "the problem", at least not directly, but with the prize tables matches have been able to throw togeather, there is a powerful motivation to focus only on the score, which in turn leads to gaming the system. Gaming the stage or finding loopholes that give advantage is entirely legitimate, but gives rise to MD's trying to limit or prevent that gaming.

Lets go back to the analogy of 2 top shooters and one regular Joe. Consider the long range stage at, say, CMMG as an example. IIRC they can get in the neighborhood of 350 in the main area and almost 600 for a couple of targets. That stage is typically fairly long with many shooters in the 2 min range, maybe 10% 180 sec timeouts, and even the super heros struggling to get it all done in just over a minute. Lets say you put 2 targets on the 600 section, and are trying to decide whether to make them bonus targets or penalties, what happens?

The two top shooters are still going to run, say in the 1:30's, because there is a mechanical limit to how fast the stage can be run. Joe takes 2:30 to get the stage done. With the targets being penalties or bonus, the 2 top shooters are going to shoot and hit the targets, because they know the other one did (or will), so their score does not change relative to each other, and the better shooter still wins. What changes is Joe's score. If they are 30 sec penalties, and he misses, now he is at 3:30, drastically reducing his score relative to the top guys and Joe is pissed off. If they are Bonus targets and he misses, he is still a minute slower than the Top guys, but he has fun. If he hits and one of the top guys does not, well, then he is right in the mix and thrilled (and the top guy that thought it was a better idea to skip the bonus realizes the error of his ways.)

Personally I will admit to being annoyed on occasion when I see someone beat me because they found a clever loophole rather than outscored me straight up, even if they would have won anyway. That said, I am 100% in favor of Bonus rather than penalty targets, and it's up to the MD to make sure the bonuses can't zero a competitor's time and screw up the scoring.

I am an Iron sight guy so I always have to be aware that there may be targets that I cannot see with irons. I have shot matches in the rain, where everything ends up the same color, and matches where to dust kicked up from a miss obscures the whole array, and target backers and paint can only do so much...

Edited May 24, 2014 by barrysuperhawk

[MarkCO]

but with the prize tables matches have been able to throw togeather, there is a powerful motivation to focus only on the score, which in turn leads to gaming the system.

There is the crux of the problem. Old time 3Gunners want the rules loose and common sense. People gunning for the prize table want to win the game. So the rules increase, the ingenuity decreases and for some, the fun factor goes away.

It is a game, but a game that used to be played with a level of sportsmanship that is, while still present, not the same. I recall standing at Superstition, looking at a target array and asking an "older than me" top level shooter if he had considered shooting a target through a slot that may have inadvertently been left open. He said "I saw it, but I don't play the game that way." As MD/RM of some major matches, I have had 2 youth, and 5 "older than me" competitors come to me and ask for a worse score because they did not deserve the score they had...their score was worse as a result. OTOH, I have had the displeasure of seeing, listening to, and having to deal with several guys with "Race Car Jerseys" arguing for a better score they did not deserve while trying to justify some loophole or rule interpretation. It is part of the beast that comes with cash, a chance to get on TV and egos not checked by integrity.

Don't get me wrong, some of the top money winners have exceptional integrity and are exemplary sportsmen, but not all.

[alma]

I'm not wanting to sound harsh here but I really believe excessive penalties for not shooting targets are nothing more than a fix for poor course design. If I as a stage designer come up with a stage that is so difficult that not shooting a target can result in a better score than shooting it, the competitors are not the problem.

I think there is also a common issue that many stage designers have in that they feel they must somehow design stages that will 'test' the top shooters. This mindset leads to stages that punish average shooters. The problem is you can't test the top shooters, they can only test themselves. They have the mental discipline to perform at or close to the top of their ability regardless of the stage difficulty. No problem for the best, punishing for the rest. If anything, the thing that will most often give a great shooter trouble is an easy, wide open stage. A stage that is so easy they don't put much mental prep into shooting it, or has some speed traps that 'seduce' them into trying to go faster than they can. A shooter walking away from a stage thinking, "man, I screwed that one up big time" is not a problem, walking away thinking, "I was screwed before I even pulled the trigger" is.

Thanks for sharing. I have had this same observation in the past and it doesn't just show up on the stages with long range targets where they try to force you to shoot them off hand or at extremely awkward position.

The last match I attended required all 3 guns on 5 of the 6 stages. Three of the five multi gun stages also required slugs which in my mind effectively made them 4 Gun stages. The only stage that was quick and painless to shoot or reset was the 3GN Classifier which was rifle only easily under 10 seconds to run.

Most of the stages could be described as the anti 3GN stages where pistol targets averaged 15 plus yards but were usually A-zone sized steel or smaller and no stages (except the Classifier) could be accused of being hosers.

By the time my squad finished shooting it was 6:30 PM and we weren't the last squad to finish. Only about half of my squad even stayed until the end because the match was so drawn out.

When stages mix complex multigun field courses with time consuming and complex long range rifle I feel like performance on the non-long range portion is largely inconsequential. When the best selection stage times are around 90 seconds and more than half of the shooters get stopped at 180 seconds then maybe there is a stage design problem.

Using all guns on every stage also tends to masks problem areas since it's harder to directly compare where your performance on any particular stages with individual guns was better or worse than other shooters performances.

Although preloading and dump barrels have significant sped up the time it takes to prep and reset for each shooter, it still takes a long time to run all three guns for each shooter on every stage. I am all for having a few with all the guns but would prefer most to be two gun stages or perhaps even some more single gun stages. Everyone has been going crazy learning how to reload their shotguns but at the matches have attended this year I think I hate only seen about 12 mandatory shotgun targets on any given stage. I would love to see more SG only stages with higher round counts. Fewer shots and fewer guns won't necessarily make a match less of a challenge or less fun and may even make it much more enjoyable for all.

[shooterrdy]

the Penalty did not increase on the long range stage at 3 gun nation regional mid west this year. it was 10 second per plate not hit

it allowed for gamming I tried to game it but took penalty on the easy Pistol targets up the hill so that was a waste.

I agree that the penalty should increase with distance say beyond 250 or so