Steel Challenge shooter statistics

[jakemaul]

I also filled in peak values for RFRO and RFRI. Out of thin air, I decided those peak times would be 1 second less than the respective RFP* times. I'll adjust them whenever the USPSA/SCSA sets a real number.

[GunBugBit]

I appreciate your work, jakemaul!

[ZackJones]

jake - pm the list to me and I'll take a stab at it.

[Mtbboyz]

nice work Jake. I've been working with the new classification system a little bit for our club points race. I also chose some arbitrary numbers for Rimfire rifle. With 2 shooters from the top 5 in RFRO and the world champ from RFPI at our club I have a bunch of data as to what top numbers look like for rimfire rifle. I picked our peak times based on the average of the top 5 times for our three GMs. Does this seem like a sound method or is the peak time meant to be more like a world record, i.e. nearly unachievable for even a top GM?

Here's the peak times I'm using, I have been combining RFRO and RFRI at our club since our only iron sights shooter is the World Champ and always beats the optics guys anyway.

Smoke and hope-6.75

5 to Go-9

Roundabout-6.75

Speed Option-9

Outer Limits-11.75

Pendulum-8.5

Accelerator-8.25

Showdown-6.75

What I've consistently seen in our scores is that the rifle has its greatest advantage in the narrow transition stages whileon the wide transitions and movement stages it is less advantageous. If you want to have a look at our scores check out idahosteelchallenge.com

[GunBugBit]

Still liking your web page a lot, Jake. Nice job the other Thursday night on the Stage 5 reshoot! You tore it up.

[photoracer]

The only thing about those peak times is it is not allowing for the pros. Very few pros are capable of shooting RFRO (lack of equipment and practice) except for those who routinely shoot NSSF like BJ (and he kicks the a** of guys like John Nagel, Wayne Seale, and Ron Oliver). Your 1 seconds differential does not account for the pros shooting RFPO, as KC routinely shoots S&H in RFPO in the 5.80's range (at least twice that I know of). If RFRO/I ever get serious as a requirement for the nationals or the World steel then those par times will drop quickly.

Edited August 17, 2015 by photoracer

[photoracer]

It would be nice if we could get the pros to shoot and establish par times for all divisions. Using the records for them is fine but they just don't shoot all of them, especially the rimfires and especially the rifles. So any records used for times now will drop as soon as it gets popular (if it does) for them. Then all the classifications will shift.

[jakemaul]

nice work Jake. I've been working with the new classification system a little bit for our club points race. I also chose some arbitrary numbers for Rimfire rifle. With 2 shooters from the top 5 in RFRO and the world champ from RFPI at our club I have a bunch of data as to what top numbers look like for rimfire rifle. I picked our peak times based on the average of the top 5 times for our three GMs. Does this seem like a sound method or is the peak time meant to be more like a world record, i.e. nearly unachievable for even a top GM?

Here's the peak times I'm using, I have been combining RFRO and RFRI at our club since our only iron sights shooter is the World Champ and always beats the optics guys anyway.

Smoke and hope-6.75

5 to Go-9

Roundabout-6.75

Speed Option-9

Outer Limits-11.75

Pendulum-8.5

Accelerator-8.25

Showdown-6.75

What I've consistently seen in our scores is that the rifle has its greatest advantage in the narrow transition stages whileon the wide transitions and movement stages it is less advantageous. If you want to have a look at our scores check out idahosteelchallenge.com

Awesome, thanks!

Those are generally pretty close to the values I chose based on RFPO. Outer Limits is the only one that I have different from yours by more than 1 second. My values are slightly higher than yours for everything except Outer Limits and Accelerator.

+--------------+----------+-----------+

| stage_name | division | peak_time |

+--------------+----------+-----------+

| 5 To Go | RFRO | 9.5 |

| Showdown | RFRO | 7 |

| Smoke & Hope | RFRO | 6.5 |

| Outer Limits | RFRO | 10 |

| Accelerator | RFRO | 8 |

| The Pendulum | RFRO | 9 |

| Speed Option | RFRO | 10 |

| Roundabout | RFRO | 7 |

+--------------+----------+-----------+

And here's my RFRI values. I'm suspecting these are going to be too high and will need lowered... rifle irons isn't much (if any) slower than rifle optics, at least at the distance that Steel Challenge stages are shot. Like I said whenever USPSA gets around to setting real values I'll just switch to those.

+--------------+----------+-----------+

| stage_name | division | peak_time |

+--------------+----------+-----------+

| 5 To Go | RFRI | 11 |

| Showdown | RFRI | 8 |

| Smoke & Hope | RFRI | 8 |

| Outer Limits | RFRI | 12 |

| Accelerator | RFRI | 9 |

| The Pendulum | RFRI | 11 |

| Speed Option | RFRI | 11 |

| Roundabout | RFRI | 8 |

+--------------+----------+-----------+

[jakemaul]

The only thing about those peak times is it is not allowing for the pros. Very few pros are capable of shooting RFRO (lack of equipment and practice) except for those who routinely shoot NSSF like BJ (and he kicks the a** of guys like John Nagel, Wayne Seale, and Ron Oliver). Your 1 seconds differential does not account for the pros shooting RFPO, as KC routinely shoots S&H in RFPO in the 5.80's range (at least twice that I know of). If RFRO/I ever get serious as a requirement for the nationals or the World steel then those par times will drop quickly.

Yeah, I expect my values will be a bit too high in general... if nothing else, 1 second is a long time on S&H, not quite as much on Outer Limits... I haven't taken that into account.

Also, as Mtbboyz indicated a rifle might not always be faster than a pistol... or at least not as much faster as you might expect.

The par times will undoubtedly drop over time- the fact that Rimfire will be treated as a first-class citizen in terms of ranking/classification means it will get more attention... more shooters, more practice, more attempts, etc.

[photoracer]

Just remember that Outer Limits and Speed Option don't count for classification purposes, just for overall position.

[jakemaul]

According to these USPSA BoD meeting minutes: http://www.uspsa.org/bodminutes/20141209.pdf

It appears that under the new classification system, Outer Limits (at least) *is* used for classification. I recall being told this at one point also, that those 2 stages would no longer be "special" and would count just like the other 6. However, you can be classified as soon as you shoot any 4 stages. In the current system, any stages you haven't shot will get the maximum score... so you can get classified, but it'll be terrible. In the new system, only the ones you've shot are counted.

Also relevant from the same PDF:

"Rimfire Rifle Divisions' Peak Times will be determined after the conclusion of the 2015 Steel Challenge"

Presumably this refers to WSSC. The rimfire events for that match are scheduled to take place on November 12, so if they hold to that we won't see any official peak time data for quite a while.

Edited August 17, 2015 by jakemaul

[photoracer]

It actually does not say anything on that subject. It just shows par times for all 8 stages. All 8 stages are for ranking purposes and the 6 for classification purposes in the old setup. Originally Outer limits was left off to eliminate an advantage being in peak physical condition verses those that might be otherwise physically challenged but equally as good a shooter. Speed Option was left off I think because it required a very long bay that many clubs may not have had. Now that I am getting a handle on Outer Limits even with my physical issues I am not as against it as I was before.

[GunBugBit]

I didn't receive my Steel Challenge classification until I shot my second match. This might be because my USPSA/SCSA ID didn't get uploaded by the club for the first match. Anyway, it's all good now as far as that goes. I can see my Steel Challenge data using Jake's web utility.

[Nimitz]

One thing to consider is that if the BoD were to say that any 4 stages will count for classification vice specifying which ones you must have (like they do now) is that classifications will be artificially skewed to the 'easier' stages. As an example, my classification using all 8 stages using this new system would be 90.62% but if you just pick my best 4 it is 93.46%. If you use the current 6 like in centerfire it would be 93.98%.

Not sure I really care how they do it but it would be nice for them to select a method as opposed to just thinking things half way through ....

[Nimitz]

Jake:

If you're still interested in tweaking your calculator ....

I love the graph idea as it shows over time if you are progressing or not at a quick glance; however, it currently doesn't take into consideration the number of stages shot at a match so the data is a little skewed ... for instance, I've shot matches with 6, 7 & 8 stages but if you look at the graph you can't discern this so it just looks like I've recently been getting worse when in fact I've just be shooting more 8-stage matches.

If you could have a drop-down menu (or something) on the graph where you put in how many stages were shot so that only matches with that number of stages would be displayed; now you have a direct comparison. And what would be even cooler is to be able to sort so that only matches where you've shot the same stages (number & type) are displayed which would really give you some good analytic data ....

[jakemaul]

Hmm... when folks shoot less than all 8 stages, is it always only the 2 non-classification stages (Outer Limits and Speed Option)? Or do some clubs sometimes omit other stages instead?

I don't know if the rules *require* those 6 specific stages to be shot to count as a match, or if smaller ranges could legally host a 4-stage match, for example. Under the new system, AIUI, that would be allowed, but I don't know if it is now.

One possibility is that instead of graphing raw times for each *match*, I could instead graph each individual stage time. That's loosely similar to what I'm doing on the USPSA Classifier graphing- graphs every classifier run, not match times.

Or instead of times, I could do percentages. This again would be per-stage not per-match, because frequently (at least in my experience) there's not always enough competitors at the low-level matches in the same division to make a percentage very meaningful.

In either case, not shooting one or more stages would no longer be very relevant... there would just be a missing dot.

Another thought: I could do an overall graph of some sort, and then a graph for each stage (probably switched with a dropdown).

Another one, maybe the best one: 2 graphs... both controlled by their own dropdowns (or radio buttons). Both graphs show individual stages, not matches. First one shows all stages, different color per stage, and the dropdown chooses which division to look at. Second one is the other way around- all divisions shown, dropdown chooses which stage.

[Nimitz]

No, every MD runs their matches differently. By the current rules you could have just 1 official steel challenge stage and the rest could be anything at a Tier 1 match. At the matches I run we have been doing 6 stages and I rotate which 6 every month so that you will see all 8 over time. Another match I attend only rotates Speed Option & Outer Limits with Pendulum & Showdown. It's really dependent on the range more than anything else as a lot of places can't setup stages that are 35 yds long (Outer Limits & Speed Option). On the Steel Challenge web page it specifically talks about the rationale for not using these 2 stages for classification, namely that a lot of ranges can't set them up. I know it has been suggested that Outer Limits is not used because it requires you to move and as everyone knows Steel Challenge is just for old, fat, crippled shooters ... but I can find no where where that rationale has ever been used by HQ ....

I agree that showing match results on a graph may not be very useful since a "match" can be any number of stages. However, showing match results for 8-stage matches is relevant since all Tier 2/3/4 matches are always 8 stages. Your current "best times" list for each division is good because that is the exact data used for classification. Also, once HQ decides how many and/or which ones will be used for classification showing what the percentages are for each stage, as well as the total is useful since it would show you which stages are holding you back.

I like the idea of being able to sort by stage sice you can track you match progress on a stage over time and see if you are getting better or not WRT that stage.

Edited September 13, 2015 by Nimitz

[ZackJones]

Charting by stage would be a great addition. It would be nice to see if my times are going up or down or staying about the same, by stage.

[GunBugBit]

My first two Steel Challenge matches had almost exactly the same classification aggregate time -- within 0.02 second. I could hardly believe it was that close.

The third match, though, saw an improvement of 37.09 seconds across all 8 stages over the previous best time. Jake's page summarizes it like this. This improvement moved me up more than 200 places in the rankings.

I haven't been doing anything different, just shooting the same matches and dry firing about the same amount. I imagine the important part is that I continue to do it. In the near future, I'll be shooting Steel Challenge with my own loads and they'll definitely be lighter than the factory .45 ACP I'm shooting now.

Don't worry, Max Michel, your spot is safe from the likes of me!

[jakemaul]

Great gains dude, looks like you made big jumps on Outer Limits and Roundabout.

[GunBugBit]

Thanks Jake, I shot with Hazen, Joe K., Scot T., Theo and Jim M. They gave me some good coaching and were very encouraging. It was a great time!

[ZackJones]

The third match, though, saw an improvement of 37.09 seconds across all 8 stages over the previous best time. Jake's page summarizes it like this. This improvement moved me up more than 200 places in the rankings.

Congrats. I'm just a little ahead of you so I'd better get my act together if I want to stay that way .

[GunBugBit]

We'll see, Zack! Thanks, I enjoy friendly competition.

Edited September 28, 2015 by GunBugBit

[GunBugBit]

Hi Jake,

I don't know if you've noticed this issue yet, but for the Cactus Thursday night matches Practiscore shows shooters placed higher than they did when they did not finish all stages. It assigns scores of 0 for stages not shot, and as you know, zero is a great score for a Cactus Thursday match.

Last night, I placed 1 of 12 in SS, but am shown as 3 of 12 here because the two SS shooters who didn't finish are counted as having better scores than I did.

This one might be tough to fix as it might require a "deep dive" into the data for each stage.

Thanks,

Bob

[photoracer]

That is true on all Practiscore matches I think. I remember one year at least in the Ruger/NSSF all the zeroed shooters showed on top of the scoring list.