Hits Vs. Time

[jgilmore16]

Another newbie question....Shot my second match this afternoon....

I'm shooting production (Beretta 92)which is "minor", and my friend and I are trying to figure out what's more important when running through the stages, more hits or a quicker time?? or is it dependant on where your hits are falling???

[Cjblackmon]

Another newbie question....Shot my second match this afternoon....

I'm shooting production (Beretta 92)which is "minor", and my friend and I are trying to figure out what's more important when running through the stages, more hits or a quicker time?? or is it dependant on where your hits are falling???

I know that this might seem a little over expanded but it'll give you a good idea of what your hits in relation to speed are especially when compared to shooting a low point stage as compared to a big stage with a lot of targets.

This explanation was taken from Matt Burkett on Comstock Factoring from the USPSA Site.

You walk up to a stage and you hear someone say, "Oh, that's a ten-factor stage."

Do you know what they mean and how the figure it out?

Comstock factoring is the average points per second. A one-hundred point course shot in ten seconds is a ten factor. So is a fifty-point stage shot in five seconds. Divide the factor by the time, and that's the factor -- the amount of time earning a point on that stage should take.

You're probably saying, "That's nice and all, but how does it help me?"

Knowing the base factor can assist you in making the right decisions on how to shoot a stage. Say you shoot a "C" on a ten-factor stage at a Major, which is worth four points instead of five. Shooting the "C" cost you one of the available points on that shot. On the other hand, if you had taken an extra 0.10 and shot an "A", you would have exactly the same score. The extra point would have been "eaten" by the Comstock factor.

A five-factor stage is worth five points per second, so each point is worth 1/5th -- or 0.20 -- second. If you shoot a miss on a five factor stage and make it up in exactly three seconds you have the same score. If you make it up in less than three seconds, you're earning some points back. If you take longer than three seconds to make up the shot you're losing more points than the miss cost you in the first place. Something to remember is that a miss on a Comstock stage is fifteen points: Ten penalty points, and the five points that you didn't earn for an "A" hit on the target. What it boils down to is this: The lower the stage factor, the more important it is to shoot all "A's" and vise versa; with higher factors, speed becomes more important. On a ten factor stage, you better make up that shot in a hurry or forget about it! You should always average a minimum of 90-95% of points available on a stage. These days, at the upper levels of competition, you need to earn 97% or more of the available points to win the match.

Edited May 15, 2006 by Cjblackmon

[George]

It depends on what the stage factor is. If a GM can run it in 10 seconds and there are 100 points available, then you need to get 10 points a second to meet his score. (10 pts a second is 2 A hits fired every second on average throughout the stage).

This means you have to get a feel for estimating the run time of a stage per class of shooter. Say you are a B shooter. You should be able to do the 10 second run in 60-80 percent of the GM. So call it 13-15 seconds for an average B class shooter. Now divide the stage points by the runtime (100/13.5=7.40). This means that you need to get 7.4 points a second to be competitive in B class.

It also means that 1 second of time is equal to 7.4 points (if you are the B shooter). You do the math on the time/veresus points tradeoff from there ;-)

[Ron Ankeny]

As a rule of thimb, a long course shot freestyle can simply be shot by letting your vision dictate the shooting with the intent to shoot A's quickly. A speed shoot (like an El Pres. or close hoser stuff) can give a person the latitude of turning their vision down and accepting a bit less. But, remember minor scoring sucks so you better get the hits. Have you thought about just shooting A zones as quickly as possible but accept the occasional C hits as part of the program? Trying to calculate hit factors, then trying to go faster, or slowing down to get the hits (especially a beginner), can put a shooter on the fast track to a train wreck.

[shred]

If you are a new shooter, and shooting Minor PF, go for points all the way.

At the end of the match, check out your HF on the stages, it's printed on the stage results.

That number is the number of points-per-second you shot, or, inversely, how much time each point is worth. So, if you had a 4 HF, each point was 'worth' 1/4 of a second (and each point you dropped 'cost' 1/4 of a second). At 6 HF, 1/6th of a second... and so on..

[HSMITH]

I don't know alot, and haven't been shooting for long. That said, I will offer my version of what you should do.

Shoot as many A's as possible. Keep track of them, KNOW how many were available and how many you had. When you shoot a couple matches with 90%+ of the points offered to you on each stage kick up the speed in small increments until you see the points fall. THAT is as fast as you can shoot the points you need to compete. Work on speed, shoot matches for accuracy. Then shoot a match for speed and see where the accuracy is.

As you get better the point in speed at which you can't make the hits will move, you need to press once in a while to see where that point is. If the match matters, you just shoot one click down from where the points fall apart. If the match doesn't matter (club shoot used for practice/experience) then work on something without putting too much emphasis on final results.

I have been doing just that, started kicking up the speed from 95%+ points a little at a time, took about 4 matches going faster and faster each time to crash. Initially crashing hurt my ego quite a bit, but a little introspection and all was well. I backed down enough that I knew I could shoot the points, shot my first important match and turned in a solid performance for my classification. I shot the first club match since then today and shot decently, but at a speed much higher than in the important match, I had backed it down too far in the big match. You won't know where YOUR personal bar is until you go out and find it. Once you have the points push, push till you crash, if you don't you won't know where that point is. When you crash, learn from it, and start the cycle again.

[Chris Keen]

You won't know where YOUR personal bar is until you go out and find it. Once you have the points push, push till you crash, if you don't you won't know where that point is. When you crash, learn from it, and start the cycle again.

WOW! Words of wisdom from a 'new' shooter. Great post Howard!

[Loves2Shoot]

Get as many points as you can as fast as you can. If you don't have any points you have a low HF. If you take too long to get the points you have a low HF.

Shooting fast is a by product of doing things correctly and under control. The best shooters are accurate, incredibly fast. The order IS important. Speed just to be fast isn't very useful.

[Chris Keen]

Shooting fast is a by product of doing things correctly and under control. The best shooters are accurate, incredibly fast. The order IS important. Speed just to be fast isn't very useful.

Here's another great way to word it all .......

Shooting fast is also a by-product of knowing you're doing things correctly. Calling your shots is a big part of it too. Shoot straight and smooth, and you will be fast!

[Flexmoney]

Speed comes from technique.

Points come from desire.

[superdude]

HSMITH has nailed it down for new shooters. It’s an intelligent, articulate description of how to approach this sport. First and foremost, learn to shoot accurately. Speed without accuracy is pointless. Second, test the limits of your skills by increasing your speed. You learn from doing. You learn even more from failing, or as HSMITH puts it, crashing. You don’t know how fast is too fast until you exceed that limit. Or, as one of my friends used to say, you don’t know what kind of luck you have until you push it. Scientists call it hypothesis testing. Good job HSMITH!!

[Ron Ankeny]

Mattt Burkett talks about pushing the envelope in his training manual. I used to go faster and faster until I would crash and burn, then back it off a notch. I saw value in that approach until I broke into Master class.

Now I just let my vision dictate my shooting without regard for speed. I let myself see what I need to see to make the shot, then break the shot as soon as the visual inputs are complete. Learning what is required visually and trusting yourself to make and call the shot with certainty is so much more valuable than trying to go faster. As a result, my time on the trigger is faster than ever without any thought or concern given to the concept of speed.

I still consiously go for speed when performing non-shooting tasks, like coming into a shooting area. Even then, to quote TGO, "It's not who gets there first, it's who gets there first ready to shoot." I can make up more time in a long course of fire by just leaning or picking up a foot, having the gun in front of my face on the set up, etc., than I could possibly make up on the trigger.

[vluc]

Not sure how many matches you are able to shoot per month, but I take one match per month - and call it my "fun" match where I allow myself to let it go, usually crash and burn, just to see how far I can push that envelope and what the feeling of out of control is.

Just shot it yesterday, as a matter of fact, and decided to go for speed only and the heck with points. I also shoot production, and I find it a useful learning experience and tool. Always, always come out of any shooting with something that you have learned - positive or negative.

That being said, newbie or not, in production, get the points.

Edited May 15, 2006 by vluc

[Chriss Grube]

I just spent the last 2 days with Matt. Push yourself in practice and back it off in the match to about 90%. Matt believes in making your practice much harder than anything you'll see in a match, Just ask the guys that were in his class! Speed comes from eliminating all wasted movement. Shoot the A's and cut time on draws, reloads, movement, and position entry and exit. In production points are everything.

[scorch]

I asked this Question to everyone when i first got started for THREE YEARS before I got ananswer that made sense to me. I read Matts thing and could figure how to apply it because i did not know how fast i could run the stages. (In production you have to go for 'A's" you lose too much points in minor scoring to hose),

anyway finally a GM told me this.

if you are shooting more than 95% of the avaiable points on a stage you are shooting to slow, If you are shooting less than 85% of the Points on a stage you are shooting to fast. So that is my rule of thumb and it made sense to me. also i know another GM that just divides the number of rounds on a stage by 2 and that what he thinks he can shoot it in if there is not a lot of long movement and he is usally pretty close cause a lot of bigger stages average around a 5 or 6 hit factor.

[TDean]

The heck with all the calculations and formulas. Shoot A's as fast as you possibly can. Let the image of the front sight, nested adequately in the rear notch, dictate your speed.

[jgilmore16]

Ok, now another newbie question to throw in the mix...how do you find out the factor of the stages??

[George]

points divided by the runtime on a stage is the hit factor.

100 available pts / 10 seconds guesstimated runtime = 10 HF guesstimate for the stage

96 pts actual score / 7.53 seconds actual runtime= 12.749 actual scored HF for that run on that stage

[shred]

Your factor per stage is unique to you (barring ties or other oddities). Points divided by time. Since you don't know either before you shoot, all you can do is guess. The better you are, the better the guess. But, as a lot of people said, it doesn't matter if you shoot good points as fast as you can shoot good points.

After the match is over, it's the number with a lot of decimal places called "HF" on the scoresheet, and that's where you can look and decide if maybe you were too wild or too conservative.

The HHF is the high-hit-factor for the person at the top of the stage. That's less important, relatively, than yours, but it's what everything is divided by to get a percentage and thus stage points.

[jgilmore16]

Thanks...I think i've got it somewhat figured out now!

[Catfish]

A little late to this topic, but I had an interesting lesson on hits vs time at the Arkansas sectional a coupla weeks ago. Shot L10 one day and Limited the next. Shot the same stages both days. Classifier both days was barrel of fun I believe. Shoot 8, mandatory reload, shoot 8. Same thing both days, and same gun both days.

Saturday, I shot it in 7.10 with good hits. Classifier came out to 94.x% in L10

Sunday, I shot it in 6.7x with 2 D's. I initially thought the faster time would negate the 2 D's, but I was wrong - it came back at 83.x%. Granted, considering that the scores are for 2 separate divisions, I wouldn't expect the % to be the same, all things being equal. But I also don't expect the difference to be 10%.

So, even though I shot the stage almost .5 a second faster the second day, the poorer points negated the time saved.

[jgilmore16]

That helps...making a little more sense now....

[Kevin Kline]

Manny always told us that points are the most important thing. You have to take time into consideration was well, but primarily, points are more important.

[DaBlaster]

If you shoot less then 93-94% A's you won't win at the national level.

I normally shoot 93-96% A's, To be at to the top, you have to have the right blend.

don't get me wrong, in practice I practice both individually speed and accuracy, and

try to blend them together in a match.

[kevin c]

Another simple way to look at it, ane in line with BE's recommendations in Beyond Fundamentals:

Shoot for at least ninety percent of the points available. In the major power factor divisions, that's half A's and half C's. In production with minor PF, that's three A's for every C. The time doesn't mean much if you don't get the hits.

As you get better (see what you need to see to get the hits, but in less time) you'll get the same hits in less time, or better hits in the same time. Either way, your hit factor will rise. As you get really good, you'll get better hits in less time.