Perfect Double

[Clay1]

I just finished reading Saul Kirsch's book: Thinking Practical Shooting. In his book he makes a point of bring up a nice discussion on the perfect double. The book is a great read so read it yourself, but a taste of what he says is that in all of the time he has shot, he has seen maybe 3 or 4 true perfect doubles. He goes on to say that score keepers need to really call them like they see them and quit this gift giving just because they like the person or that person is a well known shooter etc.

Tonight at a match with 3 shots to the target I find one hole. I call it down 10. The guy pasting next to me says "looks like a perfect double to me", with a big smile. The shooter then says, "I think it's a double, but I am not going to argue the point" I scored it down 10. The single hit was in the down 0 area so FTN was not a concern on this target.

I know in IDPA we never use templates and give the shooter the benefit of the doubt. Should I have called it like I actually saw it and become unpopular or would you have given in and said sure it could be a perfect double? Again, I called it like I saw it and I looked at it hard, I saw no evidence of a double. It would have had to be a perfect double.

Rick

[dajarrel]

If he's that good, he should space them out a little bit so the hole would at least be oblong.

IMHO a "perfect" double will always be scored as one hit and one miss.

FWIW

dj

Edited November 6, 2005 by dajarrel

[Round_Gun_Shooter]

If he's that good, he should space them out a little bit so the hole would at least be oblong.

IMHO a "perfect" double will always be scored as one hit and one miss.

FWIW

dj

At at a mojor match one of my targets was being scored. Person scoring says "Nice double" , I said, "Looks like a miss" He scored the down 5.

Doubles have turned into a joke. But it isn't funny anymore.

regards,

[Joe D]

I am seeing too many shooters calling doubles. When I am SOing I just tell the shooter "Perfect double, minus 5" and keep walking.

[revchuck]

The shooter then says, "I think it's a double, but I am not going to argue the point"

IME, this is how most shooters respond. I don't remember anyone going ballistic over this kind of call; most take in stride and with good grace.

[Liota]

Back in 2001, I shot classifier that required you to pull your firearm out of a little cubby under the side of a table and engage targets. When I finished shooting, the RO looked at me and said, "Liota, if I hadn't seen it go through the same hole, I would have called it a miss."

Couple of years later, I was RO'ing. Found one hole in a target. Looked really close and there was the barest hint of another hit. Called in favor of the hit.

Nearly immaculate doubles do happen, but they are rare.

Liota

[Clay1]

Thinking about this overnight, I think next time I will call the match director over if they say that they think it is a perfect double and let them make the final call after I tell them how I ruled.

Rick

[Liota]

Rick,

Make your call. If the competitor doesn't agree, then call the Range Master or Match Director.

If you have a set of USPSA overlays, use them. They have settled more than one call even outside USPSA. Their biggest bonus is that they are an objective measurement tool.

Liota

[Round_Gun_Shooter]

Rick,

Make your call. If the competitor doesn't agree, then call the Range Master or Match Director.

If you have a set of USPSA overlays, use them. They have settled more than one call even outside USPSA. Their biggest bonus is that they are an objective measurement tool.

Liota

Unfortunately, no over lays in IDPA Tie goes to the shooter.

[Liota]

I am aware there are no overlays in IDPA. They are a good tool that the sport could and should look at implementing.

Just a thought.

I like giving credit and points where they are due. If there is a hit on the paper, by all means give points. On the flip side, if the evidence for a hit is not on the paper, then the competitor shouldn't get credit for it.

Liota

[Ted Murphy]

Rick,

If you have any doubts, there is no doubt. It's a double.

If not, then it isn't.

Depends on distance, too. If someone swears they shot the perfect double at 20 yards I'd be less inclined to believe him than if it was at 2 yards.

Re. Overlays, the folks that wrote the IDPA rulebook were well aware of overlays, when they wrote the rule book it was overt decision not to impliment them.

Ted

[Mark Perez]

If it was really a perfect double , how would you know without any witnesses ?

"Perfect double" means there is no trace of a secondary round passing through the same hole , at least to me anyway and if you could see a discrepancy with the use of an overlay (which are not permitted in IDPA btw) then it wasn't a "perfect double."

M

Edited November 6, 2005 by Mark Perez

[Wakal]

Overlays, the folks that wrote the IDPA rulebook were well aware of overlays, when they wrote the rule book it was overt decision not to impliment them.

Easy answer: Because IDPA is a SUBJECTIVE sport, not an objective one. SO's are free to assign or not assign penalties based on their opinion; why should scoring be any different than the rest of the IDPA "rules?"

"Perfect double" means there is no trace of a secondary round passing through the same hole

Preach on, Bruthah Mark

"...down five."

Alex

[CSEMARTIN]

Call it like you see it. If you have to stare and study the target, give the benefit of the doubt to the shooter.

[kevin c]

I think you call what you see, and if you see one hole, you score one hit, the possible exception being a point blank target where the RO/SO saw the gun on the target for both shots, and the ARO/SO saw the identical location impacts on the berm behind (even that's a bit too subjective, though).

But definitely take the time to study the target. It's polite, it's appropriate, it will most of the time satisfy the shooter that you considered his request seriously (regardless of what you might actually think ), and you might actually see something that looks like a second hit. If you don't, though, well call it for what it is - one hole from one shot.

[Round_Gun_Shooter]

I am aware there are no overlays in IDPA. They are a good tool that the sport could and should look at implementing.

Liota

Couldn't agree with you more. The rule book statement that benefit of the doubt does to the shooter is taken advantage of a little too much. A game that keeps score needs a way to keep accurate score.

Regards,

[h4444]

Shot Bank and Clang a couple years ago and the RO just happened to glace up as I took the two shots on paper.

He said the second shot just happened to open up the hole/clean up the edges just a smidge, if he hadn't looked up (naughty RO), it would have been scored 1 hit one miss.

H4444

[Mark Perez]

Call it like you see it. If you have to stare and study the target, give the benefit of the doubt to the shooter.

If I have to "stare and study the target" and only see one hole where there should be 2 , the shooter "gets the benefit" of one hit and a miss.

Is "benefit goes to the shooter" in the latest rule book ? what page ??

just askin'

Mark

[ampleworks]

Sitting here thinking about the way different bullets put their holes in targets, it should be pretty easy to figure a perfect double or not.

Look at other targets on how the bullet cut them, does it have a perfect wadcutter hole? What about the "115gr FMJ" type of holes where you end up with about a 22 cal hole with frayed edges leading to the outer grease ring? Figure twenty targets with the 22 cal type of hole and then one that has an obviously different cut, like a hole that is wallered out more than the other.

I've once gotten something like I described above shooting on a near target from a bench.

Now if you consider something like a 223 that punches a clean hole thru the paper, it would take a lot for me not to call a mike...or whatever they call it in IDPA.

[standles]

I have only seen one perfect double in my shooting career.

I still don't buy it but SHE SWORE THEY WERE REAL

[Clay1]

Mark, Page 53 under SO responsibilities:

"Safety Officer (SO) Responsibilities.

1. Focus on the shooter’s firing hand and gun.

2. Remember that the shooter is always given the benefit of any doubt."

The above was just cut and pasted from the rule book.

Thanks for the comments everyone.

Rick

[kdmoore]

Call it like you see it. If you have to stare and study the target, give the benefit of the doubt to the shooter.

This works on most calls, but not on doubles. You are staring at the target to GIVE the benefit of the doubt. If there's no evidence it's there, call the miss, and I like the verbiage given above. Perfect double, down 5. As rare as these are, just know that if you are giving a shooter a lower score than he shot, it would be a once in a lifetime event.

If not, then the only misses we can call are where we see the bullet miss .... I don't even want to go there.

As to the original question. I'd say if the pattern of the 3 rounds was targeted (i.e. he didn't call two hits and a miss mentally) then it is more likely to be a triple than two have a perfect double and a third that was all of the way off. Odds of that are astronomical at best.

[Liota]

I have only seen one perfect double in my shooting career.

I still don't buy it but SHE SWORE THEY WERE REAL

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

[Mark Perez]

Mark, Page 53 under SO responsibilities:

"Safety Officer (SO) Responsibilities.

1. Focus on the shooter’s firing hand and gun.

2. Remember that the shooter is always given the benefit of any doubt."

The above was just cut and pasted from the rule book.

Thanks for the comments everyone.

Rick

Thanks!

M

[Matthew_Mink]

Perfect doubles do happen, they just do not happen often. If someone has multiple perfect doubles during the same match, I start to wonder.

We had a local Limited GM here in the state that shot one. He was standing still in a box, blazing thru some targets about 5 yards away (I think) and the berm was even farther back. He was assessed a mike on one of the targets. Afterwards he was reviewing the video with some friends and they all noticed that his hits on the berm were right besides each other and they thought that was cool, then one of them noticed that his mystery miss target had 2 berm hits in the exact same place. They all thought that if the hits on the berm were in the same place 20 yards behind the target, and he was not moving in the box, there is no way that he missed. If he had truly missed the target, then at that distance the 2 berm hits would have been a few feet apart. Perfect double.

Heck just today we had an A class Limited shooter almost shoot 2 perfect doubles on the same course of fire at 35 yard targets. The 2 rings were noticable in each instance, but you had to look hard. Overlays help, I do not know why IDPA does not use them.