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Arms-length Targets


EricW

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(Note: I hope I don't hurt anyone's feelings, because I don't think that they realized what the COF looked like in reality until it was actually set up.)

But...if I see another stage in a match with multiple (or ANY!) arm's length to 3 yard targets that I'm supposed to engage while standing/seated in Box A, I just might take my money back and go home. I'm so f-ing sick of it, I can hardly stand it. From that moment I see that crap, I basically just don't give a rat's ass anymore. Shooting anything 3 to 10 feet away has absolutely ZERO appeal. Once a match devolves to that level, I'm no longer there to shoot a match, I'm there to make my gun go bang NNN times or more. If I wanted to make my gun go bang NNN times, I would have simply gone to the range near my house and saved myself the 150 to 200 mile trip.

I'm particularly sick of seeing this sh*t in the form of classifiers. As far as I'm concerned, the trend to these so-called "speed courses" is the very epitome of "bubblegum" in the sport. How this garbage ever made into the classifier book would be fascinating to find out. It doesn't do my heart good to see the organization responsible for the integrity of the sport playing along with the trend to help bastardize the sport into irrelevance.

Lest I be accused of griping without providing solutions, here is my 3.54 point plan to save USPSA from itself:

1) Move the targets back, dammit!

2) Two, well-designed twelve round field courses are three times better than one of today's twenty-four to thirty-two round, array-laden, goatf***'s.

2.54) One Bill Drill in a match is OK. Four is bullsh*t.

3) MOVE THE TARGETS BACK DAMMIT!

(And no, I'm not going to name classifiers because that would get personal in a hurry.)

Edited by EricW
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+1

I occasionally have to design courses of fire for one of our local clubs. I always try to make good use of the length of the berm. Take a look at some typical stages from an IPSC World Shoot and you'll see targets out to 50 yards.

This stuff is supposed to be hard not easy. At local matches we should be challenging the shooter not handing him easy scores on a plate. If your stages have a hit factor above an 8 then they are too damn easy.

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I agree with you, and I don't mean to contradict you in the hate forum (specially because as I mentioned I agree with you) but you could also voluteer to put up stage or two.

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I agree with you, and I don't mean to contradict you in the hate forum (specially because as I mentioned I agree with you) but you could also voluteer to put up stage or two.

I'm putting on an entire match, thank you very much. You're welcome to come see what I think a match ought to be on an all-steel field course.

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You should have come to Albany and shot our Columbia-Cascade Section Championship yesterday. We shot 8 stages from the Multigun Nationals, and the round count was somewhere near 250. Many, many, many targets at distances up to 30 yards, some with partial hardcover, or no-shoots nearby. I think there might have been half a dozen targets out of the whole match that were up close and personal. One of the hardest matches I've ever shot.

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I agree with you, and I don't mean to contradict you in the hate forum (specially because as I mentioned I agree with you) but you could also voluteer to put up stage or two.

I'm putting on an entire match, thank you very much. You're welcome to come see what I think a match ought to be on an all-steel field course.

hehehe...can't get too close to them...though that would teach folks to set them up out there....

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2) Two, well-designed twelve round field courses are three times better than one of today's twenty-four to thirty-two round, array-laden, goatf***'s.

+Infinity!

I griped at a md about this and he seemed offended and taken aback at the concept of running a match that didn't have a high round count! I'm not talking about running 6 round stages here but when every stage in the match is a either 20+ or 30+ rounds you start feeling like a brass making machine instead of a shooter.

-ld

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You should have come to Albany and shot our Columbia-Cascade Section Championship yesterday.

Crap! I'm so sorry I missed that. Did that get posted in Match Announcements and I just totally blew if off? I need to make a shortcut to the Area1 calendar and start checking that sucker more often.

You have no idea how much I miss shooting down there. :(

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A typical match in UK would be about 8-10 stages and about 120-150 rounds. Small stages are more of a shooting test than big 30+ round stages. That's why there are so many of them at World Shoots.

So many shooters grade a match on the number of rounds but IPSC is not about that. It's about a challenge. It's about pushing the envelope of your ability. A short stage is a more effective test of ability than a field stage, period.

Tight targets, no-shoots, swingers and mid- to long-range targets is what separates us from the plinkers.

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You should have come to Albany and shot our Columbia-Cascade Section Championship yesterday. We shot 8 stages from the Multigun Nationals, and the round count was somewhere near 250. Many, many, many targets at distances up to 30 yards, some with partial hardcover, or no-shoots nearby. I think there might have been half a dozen targets out of the whole match that were up close and personal. One of the hardest matches I've ever shot.

Yea, come down to Oregon, I hear about all these "hoser" stages, but I haven't shot one in a long time...

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EricW,

You don't want to go hang out on some of the tactical forums I've been too. I don't know what they would call bubblegum, but they sure don't think much of pistol shots over spitting distance.

A short stage is a more effective test of ability than a field stage, period.

I couldn't disagree more. There is often not enough being tested in a short stage to seperate the shooters.

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A short stage is a more effective test of ability than a field stage, period.

I couldn't disagree more. There is often not enough being tested in a short stage to seperate the shooters.

While true if the short-course design sucks, that's also the reason they have a lot of them. Skill wins out in the end no matter. Shooting skill is often far more important on the short COFs as opposed to foot speed, movement skills or magazine capacity. Small mistakes suddenly matter more. Don't stick one 8-round COF in a berm, put 2 or 3 in there.

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Practical shooting was never meant to only test shooting skill.

Every aspect must be tested....saying a short course is a better test than a long course is totally false. A long course tests things that can't be tested in a short course.

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I didn't say it was necessarily "better", but Flex's argument that short COFs don't separate shooters is way off base. Round count has nothing to do with quality or separating shooters by ability.

A whole lot of people dropped $250+ to shoot the same ol 8 stages of 5 rounds apiece two weeks from now. If those aren't short courses, I don't know what is. Guess who will win?

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Sorry Jake I totally disagree, you can have a short course with 12 rounds and six shooting positions, including prone if you wanted.

I'd rather shoot two 12 round speed stages than one 24 round hosing stage. On a short stage you have to get everything right in a short space of time. If you make a mistake on a big run and gun field stage you can get away with it if you can run a little bit faster than the next guy.

The original post on this topic was about close targets and this thread has drifted off a little. The problem is that IPSC is supposed to be close range all the way out to 50+ yards. How often have you seen targets past 25-30 yards at a local match ? Hardly ever I'll bet, and yet they crop up at a World Shoot all the time.

We should be pushing our abilities every week not just doing the easy stuff that makes us all look and feel good. At a local match the stages should be tough. Hit factors below 8 should be the goal on every stage setup.

These local matches may be the only practice some of us get, I don't have access to a local range. Today I shot 90 rounds, 5 stages. 4 draws from the holster and one unloaded start. That's the sum total of my weekly practice. I won't shoot again until next Sunday. It is the same for a lot of people. I for one am trying to get our to the clubs a little earlier to put some of my own stages up. I try to make them hard for a reason. The only way to learn is to try new, hard, difficult stages.

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Shred,

Exactly my point.

There are guys that can compete at the SC and at the Handgunner that get completely smoked on field courses.

When the shooting test is mostly a draw and transitions...a lot of stuff is being left untested.

(And, you know I love Steel Challenge. Mostly for the fact that it tests a specific set of skills...to a great degree. Specialization.)

BritinUSA, you are talking a circles a bit there. You won't hear me or Jake disagree that stages shouldn't be hard and challenging. We were saying that longer cofs offer more chances to test a greater variety of shooting skills...many of which don't get tested on shorter cof's (I've seen the World Shoot video that Saul did...you'd have to do some fancy talking to convince me otherwise.)

If I feel that I am better than my competition, then I want more shots in the match. That means more opportunities for me to collect Alphas...while my competition collects Charlies.

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Exactly my point.

There are guys that can compete at the SC and at the Handgunner that get completely smoked on field courses.

Who? Not including the guys that can't own guns in their home countries (none of whom made the top 20 anyway, due to Sakai's DQ). The top of the SC is pretty much a who's-who of IPSC shooters.

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FWIW, I would never argue that the best shooters don't usually prevail on arms-length targets as well as field courses. They are just COF's that I have absolutely zero interest in, and I feel they irrevocably cheapen the sport.

Does IPSC have COF internet repositories like we do for USPSA? I'm thinking I'd like to put on a 5th Sat/Sun IPSC-style 3 stage match / practice where we shoot each stage twice.

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All close targets = lazy stage designer and/or lazy setup crew.

Close targets do serve a good purpose in a good COF though...making folks shift from near to far or far to near is a valid skills test...and suprisingly difficult for some.

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Balance! It's just a matter of balanced stage design, or more properly the lack of it. Kevin nailed it as part of testing gear changing ability. You don't need more than one, maybe two first gear corners in a racetrack to test things like this.

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I agree with you, and I don't mean to contradict you in the hate forum (specially because as I mentioned I agree with you) but you could also voluteer to put up stage or two.

I'm putting on an entire match, thank you very much. You're welcome to come see what I think a match ought to be on an all-steel field course.

Eric, I didn't mean to imply you don't do your fair share, I should have been more clear. What I meant is volunteer to put up a stage at the match you are having problems with as an example or inspiration to the other stage designers.

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Most matches are usually a good mix of speed shoots and field courses.

I see a few targets at point blank range and some really challenging long shots.

I just shot a stage at Targeting Education that had some of both.

You had to shift gears from shooting targets low and close to a small popper with a no shoot behind it all the way at the back of the berm.

If you feel there are too many hose fests, go to a low round count division like L10 or single stack.

The extra reloads will add a little spice to your life.

A point blank array can still trip you up if you take it for granted and loose focus.

It's like a linebacker who drops an interception because he was looking for a place to run and forgot to catch the ball.

Even the bill drills like 06-03 "Can You Count" test specific skills like draws and trigger control.

As ususal the top shooters still win.

Like George said, its all about balance.

If there's a problem here, I'm sorry but I don't see it.

Just for the record, you can make the courses as challenging as you like.

Put a plate rack at 100 yds, I don't care. I'll shoot at it.

Tony

Edited by tlshores
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