Scoring headshots with new metric targets

[Smithcity]

Since we no longer have a "B" zone and no longer have the perforation clearly separating the head from the rest of a metric target. What is the proper way to score a head shot? I.e. if there is hard cover over a target (black tape / black spray paint) only exposing the head of our new A, C, D metric targets, there is no perforation. I can't use an overlay on a potentially scoring hit and see whether the overlay "touches a perf" to determine a Mike vs a Charlie, rather if it "touches the black tape" and since that black tape gets shot up and re-pasted, there is no objective scoring line as that line moves. 

 

Maybe the best way to do it is cover the scoring target with an upside black painted metric target or no shoot and use the perf on that target to make the delineation? 

[NickBlasta]

The tape is your new perf. If it isn't being maintained then the target should be swapped with a fresh one.

[jcc7x7]

3 hours ago, NickBlasta said:

The tape is your new perf. If it isn't being maintained then the target should be swapped with a fresh one.

Agree

[ChuckS]

There are no Metric Targets anymore!

[Smithcity]

I cant seem to find the scoring rule that talks about tape rather than a perf...

[Smithcity]

23 minutes ago, ChuckS said:

There are no Metric Targets anymore!

I suppose I should have said USPSA vs IPSC tsrget.

Edited April 4, 2019 by Smithcity

[DKorn]

9 minutes ago, Smithcity said:

I cant seem to find the scoring rule that talks about tape rather than a perf...

 

Take a look at 4.2.4.3. Essentially, everything covered by the tape or paint is “hard cover” and doesn’t exist for scoring purposes. Since in the case of tape/paint you don’t have an actual non-scoring border, your only option is to treat the edge  between the taped/painted area and the unpainted/taped area as the perf on the edge of the scoring area. 

 

If you were to decide to cut the target exactly along the line you could’ve taped, then per 4.2.4.2 you would have to mark a non-scoring border. The reason they make you do this is probably so that you can see and score an edge hit that barely touches the outside perf on the target. Without a non-scoring border this would be almost impossible to distinguish from an imperfection in the edge of the cardboard. When you have an area of painted/taped hard cover, you can still see an “edge” hit even without a non-scoring border, so you can leave it out for simplicity’s sake and ease of scoring. 

 

As for the scoring rule itself, I would say it’s 9.1.6.3, since a bullet that hits the edge between hard cover and a target has hit partially within the hard cover and also hit the target. 

[ATLDave]

Hard cover routinely doesn't line up with scoring perfs.  Scoring hardcover has nothing to do with perfs... it has to do with the painted or taped line.  

 

Perhaps I misunderstood the question.

[MikeBurgess]

9 hours ago, Smithcity said:

Since we no longer have a "B" zone and no longer have the perforation clearly separating the head from the rest of a metric target. What is the proper way to score a head shot? I.e. if there is hard cover over a target (black tape / black spray paint) only exposing the head of our new A, C, D metric targets, there is no perforation. I can't use an overlay on a potentially scoring hit and see whether the overlay "touches a perf" to determine a Mike vs a Charlie, rather if it "touches the black tape" and since that black tape gets shot up and re-pasted, there is no objective scoring line as that line moves. 

 

Maybe the best way to do it is cover the scoring target with an upside black painted metric target or no shoot and use the perf on that target to make the delineation? 

like said above the tape line is your scoring boarder. 

while you are thinking about it take a quick look at the most common hard cover targets you see in our sport and you will see there are very few that the hardcover is all along a perf line.

literally the only one I see regularly that does is a head shot only target.

(the ones that go down one or both sides of the A zone do not follow perfs through the C and D zones, diagonal ones do not follow any perfs, etc)

[NickBlasta]

4 hours ago, Smithcity said:

I cant seem to find the scoring rule that talks about tape rather than a perf...

 

4.2.2          Cardboard targets must have scoring lines and non-scoring borders clearly marked on the face of the target.  The scoring zones reward power in USPSA matches.
 

Tape creates a non scoring border.

[rishii]

Don’t get hung up one the non scoring border, it’s there to call edge hits on targets.  back in the day the targets didn’t have one and when scoring you had to examine the entire outside edge of a target for grease mark before calling a miss

now if the pref is ripped, you examine the target, if not it’s a mike

[Thomas H]

1 hour ago, rishii said:

Don’t get hung up one the non scoring border, it’s there to call edge hits on targets.  back in the day the targets didn’t have one and when scoring you had to examine the entire outside edge of a target for grease mark before calling a miss

now if the pref is TOUCHED, the hit counts for score, if not it’s a mike

 

Fixed it for ya. 

[bret]

3 hours ago, rishii said:

Don’t get hung up one the non scoring border, it’s there to call edge hits on targets.  back in the day the targets didn’t have one and when scoring you had to examine the entire outside edge of a target for grease mark before calling a miss

now if the pref is ripped, you examine the target, if not it’s a mike

Perf does not have to be ripped or even touched,  if an overlay touches the perf you get the higher value hit or penalty, depending on what target it hit.

 

Radial tears do not count.

[rishii]

Ok let me reword that

if the non scoring border is ripped, you check the pref

if it’s not it a mike

[bret]

1 hour ago, rishii said:

Ok let me reword that

if the non scoring border is ripped, you check the pref

if it’s not it a mike

If in the case of a target that has hard cover painted on it or a piece of tape and it is close to the scoring portion of the target, the R.O. should use an overlay to see if it scores.

 

May not have a perf on it and that is fine, most targets with painted hard cover don't line up with perfs anyway. 

 

Radial tears into the scoring portion still would not count for score.

[rishii]

Like I said about the NON SCORING border

i didn’t mention anything about hard cover 

it’s there to make scoring faster

on the old targets without a non scoring border if there was a target with only 1 hit

we had to examine the outside edge for a grease mark before calling a Mike 

now we look at the non scoring border

if it is disturbed ripped torn etc you now examine that portion of the target instead of the entire outside edge

[Brooke]

Good Lord this is scary. We have people scoring targets who don't understand hard cover and the edge of same?

[Sarge]

5 hours ago, Brooke said:

Good Lord this is scary. We have people scoring targets who don't understand hard cover and the edge of same?

In general many people don’t know the rules of the game all that well. A few weeks ago I was running a very accomplished shooter who foot faulted a few shots and then stepped in and kept shooting. When I started scoring I announced the foot faults and he said, “no, I made those up”.

[bret]

15 hours ago, rishii said:

Like I said about the NON SCORING border

i didn’t mention anything about hard cover 

it’s there to make scoring faster

on the old targets without a non scoring border if there was a target with only 1 hit

we had to examine the outside edge for a grease mark before calling a Mike 

now we look at the non scoring border

if it is disturbed ripped torn etc you now examine that portion of the target instead of the entire outside edge

You still score the target the same way, you look for any hits on the target,  doesn't matter if it had been painted or taped for hard cover. 

 

Painting or taping a target for hard cover does not remove the non scoring border on the target, it covers part of the scoring portion of the target. 

 

The OP asked about head shots with hard cover since there is no bottom perf like the old targets. 

 

It doesn't matter if it's in the C Zone it's a Charley, if it's in the A Zone it's an Alpha, if in the hard cover or non scoring border and it doesn't score using an overlay, it is a Mike. 

[Brooke]

18 hours ago, Sarge said:

In general many people don’t know the rules of the game all that well. A few weeks ago I was running a very accomplished shooter who foot faulted a few shots and then stepped in and kept shooting. When I started scoring I announced the foot faults and he said, “no, I made those up”.

 

Well.....I played a lot of golf with guys who didn't know the rules either. Some of them wanted make up shots too. It's just totally frustrating that someone sees a relationship between a perf and the edge of hard cover.They are two different things and the perf being discussed no longer exists for very good reasons.

[Smithcity]

Thanks for all the good discussion, 4.2.4.3 and 4.2.2 seem to naturally answer the question. I was in the regular mindset of "overlay touches or doesn't touch a perf and that dictates the scoring zone". I still like the idea of keeping it to perfs when possible. I.e. align the perf on a no-shoot over the perf on a scoring target, paint a target black for hard cover and then align perfs over a scoring target. Also makes it easier to replace an overly shot target and keep relatively accurate alignment of the repaired scoring zones with straight lines from perfs rather than tape which often isn't applied exactly straight.

 

 

[Poppa Bear]

The problem is that perfs never line up perfectly.  For hard cover lines I like either using a wide Sharpie to create the edge, or some form of black duct tape.  Rubber electrical tape tends to stretch when hit and is in my opinion much harder to create a consistent clean edge during the course of a match.

 

That said the only non scoring boarder that matters is the edge of the target and that is a C zone whether it is down by the shoulders or around the edge of the head.  Again this is just my opinion but if you use hard cover or a no shoot to create a head shot, then place it just above the shoulders so that no portion of the shoulder is available if they should nick that area of the non scoring border.  

[ATLDave]

12 hours ago, Smithcity said:

Thanks for all the good discussion, 4.2.4.3 and 4.2.2 seem to naturally answer the question. I was in the regular mindset of "overlay touches or doesn't touch a perf and that dictates the scoring zone". I still like the idea of keeping it to perfs when possible. I.e. align the perf on a no-shoot over the perf on a scoring target, paint a target black for hard cover and then align perfs over a scoring target. Also makes it easier to replace an overly shot target and keep relatively accurate alignment of the repaired scoring zones with straight lines from perfs rather than tape which often isn't applied exactly straight.

 

 

 

Go look at the classifier diagrams.  You will see many, many classifiers where the hardcover line does not coincide with any perf.  There are many interesting hardcover targets where the hardcover line runs at a diagonal, or bisects the A-zone or C-zone horizontally.   For example: https://uspsa.org/viewer//18-08.pdf

 

Your preference for only having hardcover coincide with perfs is just that - a preference.  Not a rule, nor even a typical practice among more sophisticated MD's.  

Edited April 8, 2019 by ATLDave

[Smithcity]

1 hour ago, ATLDave said:

 

Go look at the classifier diagrams.  You will see many, many classifiers where the hardcover line does not coincide with any perf.  There are many interesting hardcover targets where the hardcover line runs at a diagonal, or bisects the A-zone or C-zone horizontally.   For example: https://uspsa.org/viewer//18-08.pdf

 

Your preference for only having hardcover coincide with perfs is just that - a preference.  Not a rule, nor even a typical practice among more sophisticated MD's.  

Completely agree. I just think personally it is a better practice. I.e. if there is hardcover over a diagonal on a target, I personally think it is better practice to staple a black painted target over the scoring target and score based on the perf of the hard cover target. I also think this method of setup might make setting up those classifiers more consistent from club to club.

 

Back to my original question, you are correct that those classifiers don't coincide with a perf and score off the taped line delineateing hard cover. I was to focused on the perf / overlay combination for scoring. And with the older targets, delineating a head shot was easier with the perfd B zone.

 

Im now convinced of the overlay / tape barrier a proper way to score.

[ATLDave]

2 minutes ago, Smithcity said:

Completely agree. I just think personally it is a better practice. I.e. if there is hardcover over a diagonal on a target, I personally think it is better practice to staple a black painted target over the scoring target and score based on the perf of the hard cover target.

 

I'm not sure that's even permissible. Perfs are for scoring areas and no-shoots.  There's no such thing as hard-cover perf.  If it's painted black (or whatever color is designated), it's hard-cover.