2024 Rules Changes

[JodiH]

10 hours ago, Don_B said:

Movement after the start button is pushed is definitely not creeping!

It is quite normal for reaction time around .20-.18 seconds. You can test it yourself with a timer. 
So if a competitor reacts at .18 after the button is pushed. He did not creep he reacted to the start sound. How can that be penalized??

That wouldn't be penalized.  It's only creeping if they are moving at the same time the button is pressed.  And the beep is actually 0.3 seconds long (we know that for one of the scoring systems in USPSA).  So if at the exact moment the RO is pressing the button, the competitor is moving, then it's creeping.  Like I have said before, extremely rare and not often called.  

 

FWIW, creeping versus false start will be covered extensively in the new SCSA RO class that will be rolled out in the next few months.  And I did inquire about the "consistent cadence" rule and was told that before USPSA acquired SCSA, that a consistent cadence was common practice for some clubs and not others since it was not spelled out in the rules.   So it was decided to formalize it in the rules.  Every year we do a rules audit and a majority of the changes are based on member feedback.  If this is something that folks want changed, I would reach out to Zack Jones and let him know so he can talk it over with the Steel Challenge committee.

[shred]

18 hours ago, Joe4d said:

my old timer actually worked by the button being released,,, then it counted down a 1-3 second variable time before beeping,,, worked good for training by your self... made it really bad when I RO'd with the club timer and would freak a competitor out by beeping at standby

 

Best practice for an RO with a beep-on-release timer (PACT?) is to learn to tap the go button on any timer when ROing somebody else.

 

[Darqusoull13]

It's all funny until you realize guys like Grant can react faster than the 0.3 s that the beep is going off. 

[shred]

8 hours ago, Darqusoull13 said:

It's all funny until you realize guys like Grant can react faster than the 0.3 s that the beep is going off. 

Hell, I can react faster than .3 and I'm an old geezer.  Most people are in the .20s or high teens for RT.

 

[euxx]

On 3/17/2024 at 2:42 PM, euxx said:

BTW, that article is somewhat backward. It is discussing how the PractiScore app handles DNF for SC. Though the app simply does nothing for DNFs because SC rules don't specify anything about it.

I've heard several verbal versions what it should be... Logically the stage DNF should just give competitor 30 seconds for each incomplete string, including strings on the stages competitor hasn't been present at all. The end result will be that all competitors will have some overall match times (even ridiculously high ones) even if they haven't completed all stages.

 

The ICORE does that. Though instead of +30 sec per string they have a DNF time that is set for a given stage based on number of targets, etc. Without that, in a time-based match we have to give competitors no time for the match and no overall standing.

Arguably, maybe even all incomplete strings (even if they aren't marked as DNFs) should be implicit DNF/+30 seconds.

So, seems like the DNF doesn't seem to be an issue or it's just no one cares about them as they care about false starts?

[shred]

3 hours ago, euxx said:

So, seems like the DNF doesn't seem to be an issue or it's just no one cares about them as they care about false starts?

Because everyone just gives DNFs 30 seconds per string and drives on.

 

You didn't hit the stop plate, you get 30 seconds for that string. 

 

 

[euxx]

2 hours ago, shred said:

Because everyone just gives DNFs 30 seconds per string and drives on.

 

You didn't hit the stop plate, you get 30 seconds for that string. 

 

Technically that does not exactly provide a complete record of what happens at the stage and quite painful to do when you have to do that on multiple strings and multiple stages. But the point is that the rule book does not say how to handle dnfs or incomplete strings.

 

And also does not address noscore issue when there are incomplete stages...

[Hoops]

@JodiH and others.  At recent matches handling of PCC and RFR's have come up.  I will set up a few points as consice as possible:

 

1.1 Cold Range.  Interpreted to be what to expect when a shooter arrives at a match. 

 

Par 1. states that PCC and RFR's must have chamber flags and be cased or secured in a cart.

 

2.4 Safety Areas.  Essentially host must have safety areas (tables) for the match and identified with signs.  Tier II adds the words "bounderies clearly shown".

 

8.1.7 The on-deck competitor MAY unbag or remove firearm from cart into a side berm or staging area PROVIDED the bay being used as sufficient side-berm space to permit this practice.  Once removed; muzzle reasonably vertical up/down.

 

10.3.1 Automatic DQ for Unsafe gun handling specifically OUTSIDE the bounderies of a STAGING area or SAFETY area.

 

10.1.13 The last paragraph has caused some discussion.  The berm/backstop is NOT required while removing/returning a properly flagged long gun from/to a vehicle provided all other safety rules are followed.

 

My comments and viewpoints for discussion:

 

10.1.13 first.  This does not allow for long guns to be transported from/to a vehicle flagged and vertical up/down.  Must be in a flagged and in a case.  Transferring a long gun from a case to a cart must be down at a safe table.

 

8.1.7 regarding the on-deck handling of a long gun.  Unless the bay has specifically defined staging area against a berm or a specific safe table, long guns are not to be handled until the shooter is called to the line and given make ready command.

 

The glossary defines Staging Area as " A designated portion of a range where only long guns may be cased and uncased prior to or after completing a course of fire."

 

So shooters can't assume they can face any berm and uncase and walk over the line vertical up or down.  At our range, we have ONE Safety Table and thats it.  No other bounderies marked.  A shooter can't determine there is sufficient space against a berm.

 

Comments?

 

 

 

[Joe4d]

I dunno, I think it would be much more simple to just say flagged and vertical equals a holstered hand gun.. nothing else needs to be said or range lawyered... Exact same rules and procedures used for handguns apply.. Sounds like these rule writers go out of the way to make things grossly over complicated

[Hoops]

It should be simple:

 

1. Keep long guns flagged and cased.

 

2. or take case to safe table and transfer to cart.

 

3. don’t touch the gun until called to the line to shoot or at safe table.

 

4. end of match, re-case from carts at safe table.

 

5. go home.  

[Joe4d]

1 minute ago, Hoops said:

It should be simple:

 

1. Keep long guns flagged and cased.

 

2. or take case to safe table and transfer to cart.

 

3. don’t touch the gun until called to the line to shoot or at safe table.

 

4. end of match, re-case from carts at safe table.

 

5. go home.  

really dont even need that much...
1. For carbines, flagged and vertical equals holstered hand gun... all rules are the same.. Dune...
I mean the results would be just like you said.. If gun is bagged in car you walk over to safe area, and flag it.. Keep it verticle at that point OR put it in a bag.. Exactly the same thing you would do with a handgun... Called to line ? you gun is either still bagged, or vertical and flagged,, Same thing a handgun is..
Zero need for any specific carbine rules.

 

[shred]

5 hours ago, euxx said:

 

Technically that does not exactly provide a complete record of what happens at the stage and quite painful to do when you have to do that on multiple strings and multiple stages. But the point is that the rule book does not say how to handle dnfs or incomplete strings.

 

And also does not address noscore issue when there are incomplete stages...

It's what everybody does (even RMs at L3s ).  Somebody leaves halfway through the match, they get 30s for every string they didn't shoot.

 

The rulebook says in Section 9 that any strings where the shooter didn't hit the stop plate are 30 seconds.  It does not say in that section that the shooter must actually shoot that string.  ergo, 30 seconds for every string not shot.

 

 

 

[euxx]

37 minutes ago, shred said:

It's what everybody does (even RMs at L3s )...  

 

No record of what actually happened and it doesn't mean it is the right thing to do either. And that is only an interpretation, unless it is stated in the rule book...

 

And they do that only because that is what they have in PractiScore app. And the PractiScore app does not provide them anything else, because there isn't anything in the rule book...

 

[shred]

We did that exact thing for decades before Practiscore was ever a twinkle in Ken's eye.   I've been shooting, RO-ing, MD-ing and Scorekeeping Steel Challenge matches since the early 1990s.

 

At some point I think you have to make an executive decision, tell USPSA what it is and if they object they can propose something else..

 

[JodiH]

6 hours ago, Hoops said:

My comments and viewpoints for discussion:

 

10.1.13 first.  This does not allow for long guns to be transported from/to a vehicle flagged and vertical up/down.  Must be in a flagged and in a case.  Transferring a long gun from a case to a cart must be down at a safe table.

 

8.1.7 regarding the on-deck handling of a long gun.  Unless the bay has specifically defined staging area against a berm or a specific safe table, long guns are not to be handled until the shooter is called to the line and given make ready command.

 

The glossary defines Staging Area as " A designated portion of a range where only long guns may be cased and uncased prior to or after completing a course of fire."

 

So shooters can't assume they can face any berm and uncase and walk over the line vertical up or down.  At our range, we have ONE Safety Table and thats it.  No other bounderies marked.  A shooter can't determine there is sufficient space against a berm.

 

Comments?

Okay, when referring to 10.1.13 you mean 10.3.13.  Similar language is in the USPSA rules for PCCs.  And it was originally taken from MG where it's very common for folks to have long gun vaults in their vehicles.  Which is why we have this language in 1.1 #1 - Rimfire rifles and PCC must have chamber and magazine well empty and bolt closed on a flag and be cased or secured in a cart.  Between this and the statement in 10.3.13, it is fine to take a flagged long gun from a car and put it directly on a cart.  We don't see much of this in SCSA or even USPSA competition matches, but it is allowed.  

 

8.1.7 - Normally long guns shooters can uncase at the berm or safety area or staging area.  Some have tables for uncasing/casing, other don't.  It isn't required to have a staging area, but is nice.  The berm language was added because there are some ranges that have shallow bays and not a lot of side berm for shooters to uncase/case at.  If that is the case, then the match should designate a staging area (if they have room) and let folks know they can't uncase/case anywhere at the berm. Or if space is really short, tell competitors that they can only uncase/case at the line or safety area if they don't have room for a staging area.

[euxx]

11 hours ago, shred said:

We did that exact thing for decades before Practiscore was ever a twinkle in Ken's eye.   I've been shooting, RO-ing, MD-ing and Scorekeeping Steel Challenge matches since the early 1990s.

 

Not quite. Before PractiScore you've been adding hand written note on the paper scoresheets. There was a trail, even if it wasn't entered into EzSteelScore software.

 

For comparison, check how these DNFs are handled for USPSA and IPSC matches.

[shred]

EzSteel software never was.  We used hand calculators and then Excel once we got fancy with spiffy macros to auto-delete the worst string and put 30s in not-shot strings because sometimes we'd have shooters run low on ammo and only shoot 4 strings per stage. That was not uncommon.

 

At the Steel Challenge in 2005 (way before USPSA bought it), you got DNFs for not shooting at all, 120s for not shooting a stage (Glenn Higdon's gun broke IIRC, but there's no way to tell from this page)  @Koppi might remember why he DNF'ed 19 years ago.

 

[TerryW]

In the March/April 2024 Front Sight, Zack gives his interpretation of the new rule changes. Zack's interpretation of Rule 5.1.5 was that if magazines are stored in separate compartments of your gun bag, you can't open those compartments after the "range is clear" command or before the "make ready" command. I am looking at this from the perspective of a RFPO shooter, The effect of this rule would be you can't use the magazine compartments on your gun bag, even if they are completely separated from the gun enclosure. You would need to have a separate bag for magazines. If you put your gun in a compartment in your range bag, does the RO have to hold back the "range is clear" command until you close every zipper on your gun bag. This seems to effectively make it impossible to use the magazine pouches on your gun bag, even though the magazine storage areas offer no access to the gun. Please say I am reading this wrong. This seems to be a ruling that will not increase safety, but just adds a level of inconvenience.

[Squirrel45]

And takes up more time. 

[Joe4d]

4 hours ago, TerryW said:

In the March/April 2024 Front Sight, Zack gives his interpretation of the new rule changes. Zack's interpretation of Rule 5.1.5 was that if magazines are stored in separate compartments of your gun bag, you can't open those compartments after the "range is clear" command or before the "make ready" command. I am looking at this from the perspective of a RFPO shooter, The effect of this rule would be you can't use the magazine compartments on your gun bag, even if they are completely separated from the gun enclosure. You would need to have a separate bag for magazines. If you put your gun in a compartment in your range bag, does the RO have to hold back the "range is clear" command until you close every zipper on your gun bag. This seems to effectively make it impossible to use the magazine pouches on your gun bag, even though the magazine storage areas offer no access to the gun. Please say I am reading this wrong. This seems to be a ruling that will not increase safety, but just adds a level of inconvenience.

more mismanagement nonsense... I mean for handguns we can pick up loaded mags off the ground blow the dust out, rearange full and barny mags, top off mags,, pretty much anything but put them in the gun, at any time and any place..
Why on earth do we need an entire confusing mess subset of rules for carbines or 22 handguns. 

 

[Farmer]

13 hours ago, TerryW said:

In the March/April 2024 Front Sight, Zack gives his interpretation of the new rule changes. Zack's interpretation of Rule 5.1.5 was that if magazines are stored in separate compartments of your gun bag, you can't open those compartments after the "range is clear" command or before the "make ready" command. I am looking at this from the perspective of a RFPO shooter, The effect of this rule would be you can't use the magazine compartments on your gun bag, even if they are completely separated from the gun enclosure. You would need to have a separate bag for magazines. If you put your gun in a compartment in your range bag, does the RO have to hold back the "range is clear" command until you close every zipper on your gun bag. This seems to effectively make it impossible to use the magazine pouches on your gun bag, even though the magazine storage areas offer no access to the gun. Please say I am reading this wrong. This seems to be a ruling that will not increase safety, but just adds a level of inconvenience.

Are you saying magazine compartments on the outside of your bag that aren’t enclosed? If you only had a single compartment bag why couldn’t you use a zippered gun sleeve for your mags? They would be separate from your gun technically. But then could someone in the peanut gallery be helping to load mags for a competitor at the same time? Would they have to hurry up and bag everything at the all clear?

[euxx]

On 3/22/2024 at 9:38 AM, shred said:

EzSteel software never was.  We used hand calculators and then Excel once we got fancy with spiffy macros to auto-delete the worst string and put 30s in not-shot strings because sometimes we'd have shooters run low on ammo and only shoot 4 strings per stage. That was not uncommon.

 

That is inline with my point. But isn't it amazing (or insane) that in the last 20 years rule book does NOT cover it?!

 

On 3/22/2024 at 9:38 AM, shred said:

 

At the Steel Challenge in 2005 (way before USPSA bought it), you got DNFs for not shooting at all, 120s for not shooting a stage (Glenn Higdon's gun broke IIRC, but there's no way to tell from this page)  @Koppi might remember why he DNF'ed 19 years ago.

More interesting what happens with Glen Higdon there...

[shred]

Well, until USPSA bought it, there was only one match that counted and that was the WSSC.  That was run by the same stats crew that always did it, so there was no concern.  The problem came in when USPSA bought Steel Challenge and sort-of rewrote the rules to match USPSA.  What was long-established practice remained so, but never got documented.

 

IIRC Glenn's gun broke and he withdrew partway through the match after what looks like shooting 3 stages (he was a good shooter), so he got 120s for the ones he didn't shoot and his score for the ones he did, which is the standard.  The Did Not Fire DNFs I think were no-shows.

 

[Thomas H]

On 3/23/2024 at 8:09 AM, TerryW said:

In the March/April 2024 Front Sight, Zack gives his interpretation of the new rule changes. Zack's interpretation of Rule 5.1.5 was that if magazines are stored in separate compartments of your gun bag, you can't open those compartments after the "range is clear" command or before the "make ready" command. I am looking at this from the perspective of a RFPO shooter, The effect of this rule would be you can't use the magazine compartments on your gun bag, even if they are completely separated from the gun enclosure. You would need to have a separate bag for magazines. If you put your gun in a compartment in your range bag, does the RO have to hold back the "range is clear" command until you close every zipper on your gun bag. This seems to effectively make it impossible to use the magazine pouches on your gun bag, even though the magazine storage areas offer no access to the gun. Please say I am reading this wrong. This seems to be a ruling that will not increase safety, but just adds a level of inconvenience.

 

That's not how I'm reading it.

 

I'm reading it that for people who put their guns in a bag, where the INSIDE of that bag also has compartments for magazines, you shouldn't use those anymore because once the gun is inside a zippered compartment, that zipper doesn't open again for any reason other than in a safe area on on the line under RO supervision.

 

This isn't the same thing as a gun bag that has magazine compartments on the outside.  Once the gun is zipped into the bag, THAT zipper stays untouched, but you can still get to everything else.

 

"Once the case is closed it is to remain closed unless opened in a safe area."

 

That is separate from magazines held in pouches or zippered compartments separate from where the gun is zipped into the bag.

[zzt]

I read it the same way.  There is no mention of it in 5.1.5, so it doesn't exist.  I see many shooters with TK bags or similar with external mag pouches.  Shooters handle it differently.  Some will open the pouches and place them on the table before Make Ready.  After MR they unzip the case and pull out the gun.  Other shooters open the mag pouches after make ready.  They take one mag out, us it, then reinsert it into the pouch.

 

I do exactly that, except I have separate mag cases.