Hard? Yes. But Was It Absurdly Hard?

[shred]

Hmm.. only one clean shooter, four with 2 penalties and everybody else with more. Given the random scattering of classifications in the results, I'd say the shooting was significantly harder than "usual".. even classifier-usual. Too hard, period? that's somebody elses' call.

[Vlad]

Interesting results! The only guy who had no penalties was a C L-10 shooter! (Oh please tell me he was shooting a .45 SS!!) There is your answer! A shooter with a good grasp of the skills needed for this sport can come through penalty free. Definetly not "Absurdly Hard".

He was shooting a stainless Springfield Loaded single stack. I think he shoots factory ammo as well.

[Jim Norman]

More to the point, it appears that hte stage had fewer Zeros than a lot of classifiers I have seen. about 21% zeroed. Not so bad as everyone was thinking.

Now if I could have eliminated that 4 second hesitation in Free style where I "paused" before going for the last target....

Jim Norman (always good for a laugh)

[Ron Ankeny]

I was going to post early on, but I didn't because I kind of figured this thread might take a nasty turn.

Vlad, here's what I do as far as course design. If I want to test weak hand, strong hand, reloads, etc. I'll generally use a classifier for that purpose for a couple of reasons. Using a classifer eliminates the criticsms about difficulty levels, legality of the stage, etc. It also lets folks compare themselves nationally, shows them the importance of developing those skills, and they can tank the stage and blame it on classifieritis, lol. If I don't use a classifier, I'll adapt/adopt a standard exercise from a major shoot. Seat of the Pants Standards is a good example. Then if folks complain I just tell them the origin of the COF and why it was chosen.

As far as introducing a tight or difficult shot, sometimes I do that in a field course in a spot that doesn't trash the flow of the course or diminish the fun factor. I generally use steel (small popper, 8 inch plate, 6 inch square) so the shooter knows if they hit it and they can make the decision to move on without having to have a high degree of shot calling skills. I'll also use hardcover targets and/or some no-shoot targets, but I put them at a distance where our mainstream shooter can make the shot if they just pay attention.

[raz-0]

Shooting the old birdge match regularly, and seeing the actual scores, I'd have to say it was hard, but not too hard.

Frankly if the people who round dumped just shot the course rather than gaming themselves to death, a number of folks on the zeroed it list would have decent scores to boot.

What the course DID do was deliberately target some of the less practiced skills of our regular crowd, and mess with their heads by doing so.

The order of finish was a bit of a mixed bag, but the breakdown of percentages isn't much worse than a number of the classifiers requiring accuracy.

However, there is also the question of would it have been too hard if presented as a legal stage that forced the hard head shot for each string? Although a number of people took one or more penalties on targets other than the headshot, it represented the majority of misses. Decrease the point value of the stage by not requiring a reload and only having six rounds per string, and those errors would be magnified.

I don't think the shot was too hard, but it might have been too hard to include in that stage if presented legally. However, if you weighted the target less, it would make it morre and more attractive to game the stage by dumping rounds for that target and going faster.

But is it unfair because it is too hard a shot, or is it unfair because it is too hard a shot for a game where DVC increaseingly stands for speed, speed, and speed and we have let accuracy become an afterthought?

I don't know if I have an answer, but it definitely gave me a different perspective on some of the point made in discussions about Ron Avery's article. It also makes me want to drag that particular shot out in front of a bunch of bullseye shooters and see how many of them can perform on that target in under 5 seconds for two shots.

[Flexmoney]

I like looking at the post match results and reading how it went.

Ok...what do we see by looking at the stage results here?

- Only 20 shooter...out of 54...managed to get a hit factor of 1.0 or greater.

- Only 6 shooters out of the 54 managed a hit factor of 2.0 or better.

On the hardness scale, this would probably rank right up there with giving 8th grade math students a pop quiz on calculus...the first day of class.

[38superman]

Vlad,

I think you started a really useful discussion, and even though it had the potential to turn ugly it really hasn't.

I would like to go back to your original question. "Was it too hard"?

The problem is that difficulty is highly subjective.

How hard is too hard?

How do you measure the difficulty and where do you draw the line?

I do not advocate dumping shots or gaming a stage other that looking for the most efficient way to run it.

However, when the difficulty rises to a level that it's a better strategy not to take the shot, I think that is a good place to draw the line.

I don't think your stage crossed that line but it may have come real close.

Now that you've piqued my curiosity, I think I will go down to the range and set this shot up.

I will be interested to see how much time I need to get two good hits.

Tls

[Vlad]

Ok, if I had to do this again, I would either skip the weak hand shots, or make multiple start positions such that the STO was closer and the WHO closer still. The rest of the stage would have had to be redone too to allow for that kind of setup to work, nevermind the round count.

I think I'm going to redesign this stage and put it up again sometime. Not any time soon guys, so dont try to burn down my house. But I think testing accuracy with strong and weak hands is important. When I get the chance I'll try to come up with the stage and ask you all about it BEFORE I make 54 people put up with it.

In conclusion I think the shot was a bit too hard. I personally liked it, but clearly lots of people didnt. I like the nearby NS, and instead of making the stage easier by removing it I would rather make it easier by getting the shooter closer to the target.

Thank you all for your input. It really made me think about a number of issues and it also means that from now on I will add the "does this target make round dumping attractive" check to my stage designs.

[DaG]

Vlad,

I like the stage. It makes you SHOOT. I am going to set this up at our next club match but will take out the head shot with a no shoot and use hard cover with the a zone only. What about a mandatory reload on the free style string? Illegal? Well.............It's still a good stage IMO.

DaG

[SA Friday]

Bad_Guys_in_the_Crowd.DOCVlad, regardless if your stage was too hard or not, you are/were willing to do the work to make your club function. That's more to me (and many other shooters) than complaining about stages. So, with this in mind, here's a stage to use everyone will hate, and the guy who made it isn't in the local area to "be hatin".

I didn't number the targets.... easily fixed.

[Flexmoney]

Neat stage. The NS's down by the poppers, are they close enough to the standing steel to negate the possibility of shoot-throughs? Completely?

Are they so close that they might gt chewed up by splatter from the steel?

Have you shot this one yet?

[tightloop]

As long as you did not make a practice of doing it and you don;t have a lots more during the rest of the match...I think it is fine...

[SA Friday]

Haven't shot it yet. Planning on it an about 2 1/2 weeks. I'm planning on making the no shoots by the poppers out enough to not get chewed up, and hopefully not have too many problems with shoot-throughs. I'll adjust the port size to alleviate this. It will be something I've not seen in the 6+months of shooting USPSA, so, not sure how hard it will be to set-up correctly. I have hope .

The goal was to push a choice: move up and back, or shoot long and pray (with a lot of white targets to make the choice real painful). I've already been called an evil bastard for this stage, and it hasn't even been shot yet.

Hmmmm... Set the poppers out to 30-40 feet from the fault line?

[Flexmoney]

Lose those lower NS's around the poppers and you can get rid of most of the shoot-thru issues.

We often just park a NS behind the popper to get similar result.

[Anthony Lombardo]

I don't understand why everyone wants to be a stage "designer"?

There are thousands of good, proven stages available for use that no one in your club has ever seen. You can make minor mods to them, but the stages are proven and readily available.

Why must we continually recreate the wheel? I see this at my local IDPA club. Match directors aren't satisfied with all the extra work, they create more work for themselves with hombrewed stages that are tested on match day. It has disgruntled a lot of the local shooters because many of the stages are not legal, or downright silly or impractical. These things get hashed out on ad nauseum on match day to everyones detriment. Frankly, I just don't get it. Stage design is much harder than it looks. If you are a novice stage designer, set the stag up a few times and run through it live before you foist your folly on a bunch of shooters.

I am sure your club is grateful for your hard work. Clubs would not run without volunteers.

Good Luck.

[JFD]

Screwing up is part of the learning process. Downloading stages doesn't teach a stage designer much of anything.

[SA Friday]

Well Tony, I'm not a match director, RO, MRO, or anything else. I'm a C class shooter in production division, that appreciated the amount of work it takes to run a match. So, I help out where I can, so the match director can direct, the scorer can score and post, etc. There are three other people in my home club doing stages, they are the three board members and monthly club runners. By doing stages, I take the burden of them having to find or create the stages for the next match. They review and have input into every one of my stage designs, and their word goes. If you are running matches and not allowing others to assist you, you are overworking yourself, and are not training your replacement.

Oh ya, stage design is pretty easy. Quantum Physics is hard, stage design is easy.

Edited June 2, 2006 by SA Friday

[Flexmoney]

I don't understand why everyone wants to be a stage "designer"?

Never know where the next DaVinci will come from.

Match Directors do appreciate it when somebody brings them new ideas.

And, it works better when experienced staff goes over the fresh designs and tweaks them. (Like I just did with SA Friday's stage...pointing out some issues that I know from experience).

BTW, SAF...you have about $17 worth of paper targets on that stage. A can of black spray paint is less than a buck at Wal-mart.

[SA Friday]

We have at least $30 stack of recycled no-shoots on hand. So, I figured I would use them. or, I definately would have broke out the black paint. (I did the putting-away, recycling the last match. Staples are sharp.....)

BTW, is it legal to state in the discription a shoot-through on the steel no-shoots counts as a hit, but the hit on the no-shoot counts also?

Bad_Guys_in_the_Crowd.DOC

Edited June 2, 2006 by SA Friday

[Flexmoney]

No...not legal. Full bullet diameter hits cannot travel on to score.

In fact, the shooter would be required to reshoot the stage if tht happened.

Also...

2.1.8 Target Placement – Care must be taken with the physical placement of a paper target to prevent a “shoot through”.

[SA Friday]

Hmmm, time to rework a little. Thanks.

Edited June 4, 2006 by SA Friday

[gino_aki]

Just a hop back to Vlad's original question...looks a little hard but not absurdly hard, you ever come vacation on Maui, bring your gear you'll feel right at home with some of our stages.

As for zeroing the stage versus "taking all day" as some people put it...I always thought a 2.whatever HF was better than zero.

I'll bet complaints about the stages get much softer and less frequent when the "You wanna run next month's matches?" question is posed.

I can't get my mind around the idea that if a shot poses a real challenge that someone isn't having fun...call us rubes out here or whatever, but as long as the gun is talking we're having fun. Not having fun usually involves the trades kicking up to the point we can't set up and don't get to shoot that day at ALL. THAT is NOT fun.

[Mooney]

When I made the real version, I worried about people not having enough magazines and holding up the squad and I took the reload out. Grr. This will teach me to re-check stages for legality.

Vlad,

I like the stage. It makes you SHOOT. I am going to set this up at our next club match but will take out the head shot with a no shoot and use hard cover with the a zone only. What about a mandatory reload on the free style string? Illegal? Well.............It's still a good stage IMO.

DaG

I just read this for the first time, sorry to bring it back up- BUT-

Special treatment not withstanding (I hate bringing up us Limited-6 (round) guys), please remember revolvers when designing courses with mandated shooting stances (rule 1.1.5 I think covers it). Reloading from a WHO position is/ was illegal for a reason, covered by the "standards exercise" rules.

ASIDE from that, I like it. Challenging, tough, and controversial. Very nice. I am just learning stage design (only an RO) and am glad you had the sack to bring these types of shots out. Sometimes people need to remember to SLOW DOWN and call the shots. You can only shoot as fast as you can aim, and the penalty targets (love 'em or hate 'em) remind you of it.

I commend you on your efforts, and hope you don't let yourselves get burned out down there. I help out up this way when I can, but still see a lot of burned out MDs and staff (not everyone up here is willing to ask for help).

Keep up the good work!

PS- regarding the first quote... What's a magazine?