"bipsc" Clarifications

[diehli]

Where I come from this is called talking out of both sides of one's mouth.

[Bigbadaboom]

Where I come from this is called talking out of both sides of one's mouth.

+1

[Singlestack]

Hopefully, HOPEFULLY, the wheels will start turning and people will think "How can I design a stage within USPSA guidelines that's going to reward 'tactical' engagement?

I hope I never figure out what "tactical engagement" is.

[Cameron]

I did not care for the FS article. To me ( a newbie) it was a slap in the face of USPSA. Mr. Wilson made a new sandbox to play in, for the same reasons that Mr. Avery stated, to get back to the "shooting". It seems that maybe IDPA is the sport that Mr. Avery should move too.

However, I am all for 50 yard standards, and designing 3 short, 2 med and and one long course type matches. Never did I tihink USPSA was equated to real world shooting. Never did I think IDPA should be discussed as real world either. They are both games.

How to make a test of "real world" shooting skills? How about Eric and Max shoot at each other with paintball guns? Now how to make classifiers.

[geezer-lock]

I read through this and had a real “déjà vu all over again” feeling. A semi-accurate time line of what I have heard over the years would look like this:

1970 “That automatic is going to get you killed”

1976 “That’s not real combat”

1977 “That’s not practical”

1978 “That’s track and field with a pistol”

1979 “That’s not a real target”

1980 “That’s not the way we did it in (insert the conflict of your choice)

1981 “That revolver is going to get you killed”

1982 “That automatic is going to get you killed”

1983 “That’s not real combat”

1984 “That’s not practical”

1985 “That’s track and field with a pistol”

1986 “That’s not a real target”

1987 “That’s not the way we did it in (insert the conflict of your choice)

1988 “That revolver is going to get you killed”

1990 “That automatic is going to get you killed”

1996 “That’s not real combat”

1997 “That’s not practical”

1998 “That’s track and field with a pistol”

1999 “That’s not a real target”

2000 “That’s not the way we did it in (insert the conflict of your choice)

2001 “That revolver is going to get you killed”

2002 “That automatic is going to get you killed”

2003 “That’s not real combat”

2004 “That’s not practical”

2005 “That’s track and field with a pistol”

2006 “That’s not a real target”

Every few years the same arguments come from a different group of new/old shooters. How about you just drive the gun of your choice through the COF or go play checkers.

David C

[BritinUSA]

I still have the match booklet for the World Shoot X in Englad from 1993... Looking at the stages there and comparing to what we shoot today there is definately a move to the close, fast targets (and lots of them).

To me a good match should be the 1 long course, 2 medium and four speed shoots ratio.

But there seems to be an emphasis on round count in this country. If you put on a match with 6 stages and only 120 rounds then people get ticked off. A short speed shoot is a more accurate test of shooting ability then running around shooting at full size targets that are arms length away.

We also need more 'weird starts', I remember one World Shoot (I think it was Brazil) where most starts had the gun outside the holster. They like to mess with your head at a WS so they throw weird stuff at you to see how you handle it. If you don't practice the weird stuff then you will get beaten.

USA used to totally dominate IPSC, not any more.

TGO is right, if you want to be the best you have to practice the tough stuff, every match we shoot should be set up and treated as if it were a World Shoot stage. Then when we go to the WS it will be like shooting a practice match.

[Chuck D]

" USA used to totally dominate IPSC, not any more."

All except one guy (TGO) who came from the "old school" and worked hard on the fundamentals and the "hard stuff" like distance, partial targets, stong and weak hand shooting.

I wonder just how many GM's, Multiple National and World Champions, and Professional firearms instructors have to say the same thing before people at the very least admit that their advice has merit.

Or we can all just go play high round count, gadget prop, up close and dirty games of "checkers"

[tightloop]

Well, it would go a long way toward getting things "adjusted" if USPSA/IPSC would disallow all magazines which protrude from the bottom of the pistol....this Big Stick mentality is crazy...if you cannot get it done with 15 then by God you ought to have to reload.. I think the round count is way out of hand...

[EricW]

Hopefully, HOPEFULLY, the wheels will start turning and people will think "How can I design a stage within USPSA guidelines that's going to reward 'tactical' engagement?

I hope I never figure out what "tactical engagement" is.

Here's what I know: USPSA is actively courting the IDPA crowd. Personally, I'm less than thrilled about it. Profoundly irritated to tell the truth. If I showed up at a USPSA match and was informed that I had to engage a COF using an IDPA script, I would utter a few choice words loudly at the MD, get in my truck and drive home.

However, *if* USPSA is going to court the "tactical" crowd, and that seems to be a foregone conclusion if I'm understanding correctly, then I would hope and pray that any tacticality done to stage design gets done intelligently and WITHIN EXISTING USPSA RULES. i.e. The use of cover is automatic as part of the COF. Retreating to cover is the defacto way to most efficiently engage targets in the COF. I can put my personal prejudices against "tacticality" aside for *one* stage in match and shoot a COF designed in that fashion. If that's what it takes to keep USPSA marketable, well...OK.

If someone wants to start a thread and ask some pointed questions of the USPSA BOD, ask them, "Why does USPSA need to go Tactical? What marketing data lays before you that says this is needed?"

I think the answer is going to be: "We want to appeal more to Law Enforcement & tactical types. We think that's a market we're not fully tapping into."

Personally, I'm not sure it will work on a COF basis or a marketing basis. It might bring in more LEO's, but I'm highly skeptical that courting the IDPA crowd will work. I think there are two subsets of folks shooting IDPA. One that's there because that's where the shooting is. They'll come over to USPSA automatically if that's where the shooting is. The other subset is there for entirely different reasons and IMO, courting them is a waste of air and magazine space. I'm not going to go into detail, but I'm 99.8% certain bringing that second subset into USPSA would initiate a total meltdown...again.

Can't we all just get along?

[Dan Sierpina]

I too would like to see standards at most matches. It gave the shooters that weren't super fast an opportunity to make up some ground in the overall standings. Standards seemed to be disappearing around the late 80's, at least at local matches. The younger "hosers" didn't seem to be willing to shoot anything beyond 10 yards, 5 yards made them even happier. Going into the 90's the only match I remember shooting that had standards, and what was a good mix of stages, was the Miller/ Smith & Wesson Invitational. That seemed to be one of the matches that a lot were judged against. Some of the top shooters in the country would come up to upstate New York to shoot there. Robbie, Burner, Jerry Miculek. It was pretty much a warm up for the nationals, back then.

[EricW]

Where I come from this is called talking out of both sides of one's mouth.

Or confusing one issue with another. Ron confused his presentation. He mixed two issues into one article:

1. how the "carnival" appearance of stages is turning off the "tactical" crowd.

3b. how the difficultly and breadth of challenges USPSA stages has diminished over time and been replaced by the above "carnival" features. He really didn't do a good job on this.

He unfortunately branded both those issues with "bubblegum." I'm not defending the article, because it's not how I would have approached the issue. I do think the guy *meant* to bring up at least one major issue we should be talking about.

Personally, if Texas Stars drive away guys that blabber in your ear about "stopping power" and "kill kill kill" for 6 hours straight, I think we should have one on every stage, but that's just me.

[Barlin]

I don't know Ron but I interpreted the article as EricW explained. I thought the pot shot at IDPA was cheap and set an aggressive tone for the rest of the article.

TGO has been and always will be an anomaly. He is like no-other. With that in mind the goal should always be, that stages are designed to allow shooting skill to compensate for arthritic knees and watery eyes. I am not old but I can damn sure see it from here.

[moverfive]

This sport, which for 99.99% of its participants, is only a hobby. And the organizations, suppliers, and anyone else that makes their living by supporting this hobby has to cater to needs and wants of the hobby's participants - because the customer is spending their discretionary money.

And this is where the conflicts begin - not many folks are going to spend $3,000+ on equipment and then travel miles and miles to shoot a bunch of stand-and-shoots. I think making comparisons of yesterday and today aren't very good. Mainly because the sport today has gotten used to 'run and gun' stages.....you don't miss what you never had, well, we now have 'had.'

So how do you combine better testing of shooter's skill and fun stages? In my opinion you don't have to go back very far. The biggest difference between stages today and say 12 ago is the distance you find most targets. It was not uncommon back then to find a few 35-yard targets, 25-yard poppers scattered throughout field courses (granted this specific examples were from the '93 nationals when open guns ruled the day). So while we were still running around shooting 30+ round stages, you had to stop once in a while and actually aim at something. The stages were fun, high round count, and you had to aim...sounds like a winner to me. Over the course of a bunch of stages, I would say you tested many shooting skills and the ability to consistently perform those skills. But more importantly, they were fun.

I just think if you put too many low round count stages, stand-and-shoots, and other "boring" type of stages in a match, participation and new membership will suffer. Do not read that to mean I foretell doom and gloom for USPSA. I am just saying that I don't think those type of stages encourage someone to spend their discretionary money.

So at the end of the day the questions really boil down to - does USPSA want to "sell-out" in order to speak and cater to the masses? Or would they prefer to cater to a very specific type (lower number) of shooters?

I think you can have some of both. Granted I don't think my idea of "both" would pass full muster with Robby or Ron. But that is why Hopalong has his signature.

[eric nielsen]

The mailman finally released my Front Sight from his library last week. Seems like Ron Avery could've sat on that article, passed it around, asked for editing suggestions, etc. That would've helped the content & the clarity of his article, sure.

I took Ron's course in the early 90's. Ron had pointed guns at several bad guys over the years. He did a great job of researching what works well under stress and what doesn't, and he thought [like all his paying students] that a USPSA match was a great way to create that sort of stress and test yourself that way. He made self-defense, police work, and match shooting seem all of the same cloth. He never came off as anti-Open, in fact his Open guns and his stage strategies were as trick as it got, then or now. The guy wouldn't hesitate to bring 3 types of shoes just to have the best traction on every stage.

As stated, in USPSA we shot some standards then. Draw, shoot at some targets for EXACTLT six seconds, walk up and shoot them SHO for six seconds, and so on. Whoever gets the most points on the targets wins the stage. I think that's good, it gave you the idea you might want to bring some marksmanship with you to an Area or Nationals match. Also, we had some fun, high-round-count, have-to-aim-once-in-a-while stages, they were great too. When the scores are posted on a stage like that you could tell the great shooters apart from the average shooters.

If anyone hasn't seen how field courses are set up in Europe [you can see thru the props but not shoot thru the props] I'd encourage you to have a look. EG's videos show a lot of those, there are websites too with short mpg's from Europe. MHO, it's better for spectators and less discouraging to new shooters than the hole-in-the-plywood extravaganzas we see a lot of today. The 5-minute walkthru wouldn't be as much of a panic/unfair deal either.

I think if you look for it you can hear and see some frustration from several of the great shooters of the 1990s regarding the divisions now and the courses of fire now. TJ, TGO have said it in interviews, the Burner very likely stays away in part because a match now might fail to let him prove he's one of the best.

If everyone who shares that frustration would fire off an email to their Area director then it would likely show up as a point of discussion at the next Board meeting. That might be a good thing. Instead of shooting the messenger we could discuss the message.

[L9X25]

Another potential problem is the idea of being "new shooter un-friendly". Many folks believe that having 50 yard targets or 35 yard steel discourages or frustrates new shooters (the life-blood of our sport) and makes them disappear.

When I started shooting USPSA, in 1990, it was a given that you would have the obligatory 50 yard paper shots, 35 yard steel, and a prone position thrown into every match. Accuracy was just a skill that you had to learn to compete in the match. I am not saying that we need to have lots of hard/long shots but we need a few to distinguish those that are capable of making those shots.

The question is: How can we return to our roots of having each match be a comprehensive shooting skills test while being fun and new shooter friendly at the same time?

[tightloop]

9X25

I can stillremember being a New shooter, albeit, 30 yrs ago...and we had those things, head shots at 25 yds etc..it neither discouraged me nor intimidated me...but it did make me learn how to do that stuff, along with the oblagatory basics of SHO, WHO, shoot and move, steel, and a few more....I don;'t remember it as being fun, but I came back each time till I was winning them....

[Ron Ankeny]

There are several issues being discussed simutaneously in this thread. I would like to address the issue of shot difficulty. I am still a relative newcomer to USPSA, having participated for only 5 years. I have no experience with the International scene and I have never been to a World Shoot. However, I have heard time and again that the level of shot difficulty in this country pales in comparison to what is encountered at a World Shoot or at a large international match. I believe guys like Rob Leatham know what they are talking about and I'll take his word at face value over Internet chatter any day (no offense intended to any one).

In my very limited experience, I have noticed the accuracy requirements in this sport are really not very difficult at all. In fact, it seems like some of the most difficult shots I encounter are in classifier stages. Even the toughest shot in a classifier doesn't require much in the way of precision handgun shooting skills, yet the classifier is usually the most often tanked stage because many people hose 10 yard classifier targets with the same recklessness that they hose a typical "in your face" field course array.

It's pretty obvious the majority of USPSA shooters (in my area) are not interested in having an abundance of shots that require a lot of visual inputs in combination with decent trigger control, lol. They shoot IPSC for fun, and for them fun is high round counts with shots that are easy enough for beginning and/or D class shooters to make without fear of embarassment. The idea is to make the shots simple, then let the timer sort the shooters out based on time.

When I design stages I sneak in a few tight shots, but for the most part I cater to the masses because they pay the freight. If people want to keep the shots easy, I'll accomodate their wishes. But please, let's not hear any complaining about not advancing in classification, complaining about an open shooter tossing in a couple of USP poppers at 25 yards, or our shooters no longer dominating the sport when they leave our shores.

PS - I was typing when the previous 2 posts were made. Sorry to be redundant.

Edited March 15, 2006 by Ron Ankeny

[Chuck D]

"The idea is to make the shots simple, then let the timer sort the shooters out based on time. "

and therein lies the problem. If you can run like a scaled cat and hose away at wide open targets...your "all set."

What Ron (and others) advocate is at least a "semi" return to a more equitable balance in DVC.

Time was not...and should not be the overwhelming deciding factor regarding SHOOTING ability. Running ability yes, shooting ability, no.

[Jake Di Vita]

I think the best course of action is to work more difficult shots into matches slowly. Have at least 1 stage at local and state level matches that are standards. Require at least two stages to have 40 yard shots at area matches.

Drop a frog into a pot of boiling water and it will jump out. Put the frog into cool water then heat it and the frog will cook itself to death.

[Flexmoney]

Who would have thought it...

We are back to talking about good stage design.

I believe BALANCE is covered in the first section of the rule book...the section on stage design.

(btw, real men shoot hardcover standards off a "Shaky bridge" )

[mda]

For those stating an interest in seeing past USPSA National stages from 1985 to 1990 see link below.

http://home.columbus.rr.com/jmaass/documents/sbnatls1.PDF

[ong45]

Myth # 1 : "Hoser stages with targets at arms length are the norm.

I don't know about you, i have not seen much of this at any of the big matches i have shot .Even the gully stage at area 2 was not that bad.

Myth # 2 : World shoots test your accuracy more.

I've been to only 1 WS but i did nto see anything that was more difficult that what you'll run into at a typical area match.

Myth #3 : No more standards.

I could be mistaken but there's been standards at every nationals i've been to. Maybe not 50 yards but 35 or so. So you want 50 yard standards? guess what, you can have 100 yard standards and i think the final placings will not change at all.

Myth #4 : The U.S. does not dominate ipsc anymore in large part because of course design.

Is it so hard to believe that the rest of the world is catching up?

Edited March 16, 2006 by ong45

[Fireant]

Someone help out a fairly new guy. What exactly qualifies as standards? I mean I shot the 40 yard standards stage at last years GA match and we set-up the long range standards classifier twice. What else would make up standards? How do you work them into a range that has very short bays? Like 20 yards deep.

[TBF]

Personally, if Texas Stars drive away guys that blabber in your ear about "stopping power" and "kill kill kill" for 6 hours straight, I think we should have one on every stage, but that's just me.

AMEN !

Bring on the Texas stars, and any other contraptions you can devise to make a challenging COF.

When I have to start shooting targets while pretending they are shooting back, I'm outa here.

Just my .02

And, yeah , It's a game to me , and I enjoy it that way.

Note to course designers :

Please feel free to challenge shooters with long range targets, they need that.

Travis F.

Personally, if Texas Stars drive away guys that blabber in your ear about "stopping power" and "kill kill kill" for 6 hours straight, I think we should have one on every stage, but that's just me.

AMEN !

Bring on the Texas stars, and any other contraptions you can devise to make a challenging COF.

When I have to start shooting targets while pretending they are shooting back, I'm outa here.

Just my .02

And, yeah , It's a game to me , and I enjoy it that way.

Note to course designers :

Please feel free to challenge shooters with long range targets, they need that.

Travis F.

[ima45dv8]

Fireant:

"1.1.5.2 Standard Exercises and Classifiers may include mandatory reloads and may dictate a shooting position or stance, however, mandatory reloads must never be required in other Long Courses.

1.1.5.3 Standard Exercises and Classifiers may specify shooting with the strong hand or weak hand unsupported. The specified hand must be used exclusively from the point stipulated for the remainder of the string or stage."