Looking for suggestion - informal SC handicap system

[RickT]

I'm running a scaled-down (short range) SC/WSC match. We might have at most 12 shooters/16 guns and a real mix of hardware. This is all just for fun, but I'd like to come up with a handicap approach that allows folks to at least shoot for bragging rights. Any suggestions out there?

Our mix can include everything under the sun. We even had one of the cowboy shooters show up with an open gun that he hadn't used for years (but he had obviously been a very good IPSC shooter and was pretty darn fast we that thing). One cowboy showed up with five identical 6-shooters to avoid reloading during a stage.

Thanks,

Rick

[zzt]

There is no such thing as an absolutely fair handicap system. The reason is that some will always try to game the system. So instead of placing everyone on an absolutely even playing field, everyone settles for "close enough".

First you have to establish a baseline. Shoot the first 5 matches as purely fun shoots and don't say a word about any future handicap. If you do, you may have sandbaggers. Then assign handicap times based on 80 or 90% of the time deltas. Adjust as time goes by. You can further tweak this my additionally handicapping the 1st and 2nd place shooters after every shoot.

Here is an example of that for a trap league we ran. For handicap shooting, everyone started on the 20 yard line (20 yards away from where the target was thrown). After each shoot the 1st and 2nd finishers moved back one yard for the next shoot, and so on until the end of the league. At the last shoot we had people standing on the 20 and back to the 25 yards line. Believe it or not, the 5 yard delta is a significant handicap, especially on the hard angle birds.

[RickT]

....First you have to establish a baseline. Shoot the first 5 matches as purely fun shoots and don't say a word about any future handicap. If you do, you may have sandbaggers. Then assign handicap times based on 80 or 90% of the time deltas. Adjust as time goes by. You can further tweak this my additionally handicapping the 1st and 2nd place shooters after every shoot.....

Pretty much what I had been thinking. I capture all the data in Excel so calculating the handicap on a state basis wouldn't be a big deal once I have a meaningful data set.