Arms-length Targets

[Flexmoney]

And believe it or not, stages that encourage or tempt a little gaming, like this one:

And here is how it would be gamed...off the top of my head:

String 1: From A, draw, 4 shots on T1, 4 shots on T2, 2 shots on T3, reload as I take one step out of Box A, 2 shots on T3, "engage" T1 and T2 with a round each while moving out at high speed...with little regard for getting the hits, enter B and again...loosely "engage T1-T3 SHO with little regard for getting the hits.

String 2: Same, except I'd step back into Box A for the WHO, instead of going over to the "other" box.

That stage design could be improved pretty easily.

[toowide]

Not a great stage for a match, too much direction, not really "freestyle". You are told exactly where to shoot what and how.

I always thought freestyle only referred to how many hands you had on the gun ie. strong hand or weak hand or both... your choice.

[scorch]

I have found in the past that what a shooter likes in a stage depends largerly on thier class and what they are shooting. Most stage designers design stages around their skill level and round count. I have seen 3 yard targets be very challenging to some shooters

[Flexmoney]

Not a great stage for a match, too much direction, not really "freestyle". You are told exactly where to shoot what and how.

I always thought freestyle only referred to how many hands you had on the gun ie. strong hand or weak hand or both... your choice.

It means more than that.

1.1.5 Freestyle – IPSC matches are freestyle. Competitors must be permitted

to solve the challenge presented in a freestyle manner, and

to shoot targets on an “as and when visible” basis. Courses of fire

must not require mandatory reloads nor dictate a shooting position

or stance, except as specified below. However, conditions

may be created, and barriers or other physical limitations may be

constructed, to compel a competitor into shooting positions or

stances.

As I have said before, the first section of the rulebook is devoted to how to design stages. Most of the stuff that gets brought up in the forum is already covered in Section 1 of the rulebook:

1.1 General Principles

1.1.1 Safety

1.1.2 Quality

1.1.3 Balance

1.1.4 Diversity

1.1.5 Freestyle

1.1.6 Difficulty

1.1.7 Challenge

[toowide]

Not a great stage for a match, too much direction, not really "freestyle". You are told exactly where to shoot what and how.

I always thought freestyle only referred to how many hands you had on the gun ie. strong hand or weak hand or both... your choice.

It means more than that.

1.1.5 Freestyle – IPSC matches are freestyle. Competitors must be permitted

to solve the challenge presented in a freestyle manner, and

to shoot targets on an “as and when visible” basis. Courses of fire

must not require mandatory reloads nor dictate a shooting position

or stance, except as specified below. However, conditions

may be created, and barriers or other physical limitations may be

constructed, to compel a competitor into shooting positions or

stances.

Thanks. Good to know. Guess i better reread my book huh?

[tpcdvc]

Well, I thought the sport was about practical shooting. Is there never a cenerio when a threat is close? I think so. With that said, 3, 5, 7 yard targets are all very valid. I think many if not all well designed stages are designed to make you crash and burn. Making people shift gears is a great way to do that.

2cents added

[EricW]

FWIW...

I never requested all targets resting at 50 yards.

I don't shoot IPSC to be Tacticool. I shoot IPSC because I wish to pursue mastery.

Finally, the guidelines in the rulebook about course design are about as conducive to good course design, as would instructions for how to illuminate a kitchen being listed as:

1) Build nuclear (new-cu-lar?) reactor

2) Run wire from reactor to house

3) Screw in light bulb

4) Actuate light switch to the up position

Yeah, those instructions get you from point A to point B, but the devil's in the details.

Edited August 10, 2006 by EricW

[Jim Norman]

Well, I thought the sport was about practical shooting. Is there never a cenerio when a threat is close? I think so. With that said, 3, 5, 7 yard targets are all very valid. I think many if not all well designed stages are designed to make you crash and burn. Making people shift gears is a great way to do that.

2cents added

I don't think that designing stages where the criteria is to cause a shooter to crash and burn is what we are about. Yes, we need to test skills, we need to put people into situations where they may be outside of their comfort zone. A designer has to keep in mind that most of the people that are going to shoot your stage are C or D class, with a large contingent od Unclassifed, a fair number of B;s and few A, M or GM. If you design to cause a G to crash, 98% of the people at your match will not be having fun. Remember this is a sport, we are not training the next generation of Delta Force Operators here.

So by all means throw in a long shot, put in so tight shots, but keep the stage achieveable for Joe Average.

You can make 3-7 yard targets very challenging, and throwing in a 25 yarder into the mix causes a change of pace. What really causes a lot of people trouble is targets that are neither close nor far. You know the type, close enough to suck you in to shoot fast, when you really need to slow up 25% to get your hits.

Jim

[rishii]

jim +1

make the shots or stages extremely hard, nobody has any fun, and scare the newbie off. but if you make it too easy, you may be having fun, but your also ensureing your shooting will never improve. it amazes me how shooters can smoke a target at 5-10 yard, but can't hit a full one at 50.

[LPatterson]

/soapbox

I don't consider a target at 50 yd a threat unless it has an RPG. That far out I am trying the AR first & when spray & pray doesn't work & it gets to handgrenade range & I have melted down the AR then I will worry if a mag of M9's will do the job.

/soapbox off

People this is a game of points versus speed with the key point being GAME. The major gunhandling skill tested should be safety after that it is all gravy. I shoot for fun not trophys or money. If I have a mike or hit a no shoot, it's darn I'll have to try harder next time.

When a sport ceases to be fun then it is time to consider a new sport.

[Jim Norman]

People this is a game of points versus speed with the key point being GAME.

When a sport ceases to be fun then it is time to consider a new sport.

Challenging stages are or should be fun. The challenge has to be realistic, at least to some well strectched out point. Stages should push your envelope. Admittedly Bullseye can actually do that. The envelope in that case being extreme accuracy. Our sport is physical, it demands that you shoot from uncomfortable positions, in most types of weather, when you might be tired from spending an entire day on the range.

Close targets are fun, far targets present a challenge. I would not want an entire match consisting of open 3 yard targets, nor would I want one with nothing closer than 25 yards. I can leave only the head of a target at 10 yards visible between two no shoots. Take your pick there, which is worse? The wide open 50 yarder? or the tightly bocked in 10 yard?

Fun is very subjective. I like a challenge. Sometimes it bites me.

As to shooting a 50 yard target with a handgun being practical...

At our 3-gun last year, I exited a van with my trusty AR, I immediately had a death jam. Cleared it, and had a second one. (By the way, the problem has been fixed), there were at least 6 MGM mini rifle poppers, the auto set kind that had to be engaged. At 40 yards. I did, with my more trusty Para. Got my hits, altough my time sort of sucked. It amazed quite a few of the younger members on my squad in that they have been brought up on pistol good at arms length and maybe out to 25 yards if you are looking to scare your targets, but if you have anything past that get a rifle thought process.

Given a choice.... OF course I'd use a rifle. But it is nice to have the skill set should the need arise. yes the stage would have been more fun as my time would have moved me up in the standings had my rifle not failed, but there was still a fun factor in that I had a chance to use some skills and reinforce the fact that I have them.

Jim

[toowide]

When a sport ceases to be fun then it is time to consider a new sport.

AMEN.

As a friend of mine says if you keep score... it's a game.

[Nik Habicht]

At our 3-gun last year, I exited a van with my trusty AR, I immediately had a death jam. Cleared it, and had a second one. (By the way, the problem has been fixed), there were at least 6 MGM mini rifle poppers, the auto set kind that had to be engaged. At 40 yards. I did, with my more trusty Para. Got my hits, altough my time sort of sucked. It amazed quite a few of the younger members on my squad in that they have been brought up on pistol good at arms length and maybe out to 25 yards if you are looking to scare your targets, but if you have anything past that get a rifle thought process.

Jim

Yeah, the West Point Cadets reaction was pretty amusing.....

[gino_aki]

A little late getting back to this thread (was sorting brass yesterday) and I wanted to comment on the feedback to my stage hopefully without drifting the thread too much.

TL: Actually, the reload is mandatory out here in EveryDivision-10 Maui . I should've pointed out in my original post that MD's out here design around that 10 round limit, which also reinforces the "regional differences" comments that have been posted.

Jim: Your suggestions to turn it into a classifier would get me ostracized at our club... . Making it Virginia Count and mandating a reload would be necessary. I'm not sure if playing around with the boxes would be needed to make it legal/repeatable as one of the keys to the stage (and gaming it under Comstock) is the distance between the boxes and the distance to the target array.

Flex: Part of the fun in gaming this stage involved where you were going to reload, how fast you could run 12 yards, and can you really shoot 15 rounds faster than you can shoot 12? One of our up and coming shooters actually out-gamed himself by trying to shoot all eight hits on the targets from his first start box and then just whizzing the rest of the first string and all of the second. Took 28 seconds on his first string (three reloads) and no way could he make it up on the second. Distance to the array is about 17 yds from Box A, which made it worth it to move to Box B for SHO and WHO shooting it straight up. I also have to confess to "designing for my audience" where those 17 yd shots look real far away for the bulk of our current crop of newer shooters.

Edited August 11, 2006 by gino_aki

[Vlad]

Something which I though of today and which may be relevant to this tread ... Over the time "practical shooting" sports have been around how much have shooters improved and how much as gear improved. I recall reading somewhere that when the good Colonel came up with the El Prez, anything under 10 seconds was considered damn fine. I'm a B class shooter, and I don't think all that much of my shooting skills, but most of my El Prez runs are under 7 nowdays, and sometimes under 6, with a production setup.

So .. how much better overall are shooters today vs "back then"?

Also it seems to me that the gear has taken a few giant steps forward. Current off the shelf guns are more accurate then old military rifles, withing the range of their cartridges. I wouldn't be surprised if your average Glock or 1911 was at least as accurate as the guns these sports started with. And open guns ... the optics alone make a huge difference.

Where am I going with this? I guess you can say I'm talking about evolution. Maybe it is practical to have most targets at 7yards because that is the distance that makes most sense "on the street" or in your house. Maybe the tactical/practical roots of the sport, which dictated that the handgun was a weapon of last resort and to be used in close combat, dictate that most courses of fire should be presenting targets in tthe 3 to 7 yard range. But the overall quality of shooters and that of their guns has increased some since the games got started. Evolution in shooting techniques, equipment, and competition should be forcing a evolution in course design.

The modern handgun can perform up to 50 yards, and thats just the personal defence weapon, nevermind some of the hunting handguns. Almost everyone past D class can hose 7 yard targets well enough for most self defence scenarios. Now what? for the stages to continue being challenging we need to push the limits a bit. We can add lots of hard cover, soft cover, no shoots, and wiggly props and keep the targets at 7 yards. That can be fun. We can also move the targets further out, to 20 yards, 30 yards, or further. And then still add all those hard wiggle props.

Both aproaches would work. Either one by itself would be boring after a while, not to mention it wouldn't test all shooting skills equally. So what is my point after all this ranting? Make stages hard. Make them damn hard. Take all shooters out of their comfort zones. Don't tell me about the new shooters and how this would stop them from coming back, because I'll call BS. I was a new shooter. I liked the hard stages then. In fact, every damn time I've seen someone really bitch about a hard stage, it was not a new shooter doing the bitching. The new shooters thought the hard stages rocked. The bitching was done by experienced shooters, A class or above. Why? Because they were forced out of the comfort zone.

Screw the comfort zones. Make stages hard. I have no problem with the hoser stages every now and then. They are fun. They even present their own kind of "hard". But if all we shoot are spit ball hoser stages, then their "hard" stops being so, while other skill sets atrophy or never get developed.

So please, pretty please, make your stages hard. I may bitched that I sucked at them, that I missed, that I had a bad plan. But I won't bitch that it was too hard.

[gino_aki]

Something which I though of today and which may be relevant to this tread ... Over the time "practical shooting" sports have been around how much have shooters improved and how much as gear improved. I recall reading somewhere that when the good Colonel came up with the El Prez, anything under 10 seconds was considered damn fine. I'm a B class shooter, and I don't think all that much of my shooting skills, but most of my El Prez runs are under 7 nowdays, and sometimes under 6, with a production setup.

So .. how much better overall are shooters today vs "back then"?

Also it seems to me that the gear has taken a few giant steps forward. Current off the shelf guns are more accurate then old military rifles, withing the range of their cartridges. I wouldn't be surprised if your average Glock or 1911 was at least as accurate as the guns these sports started with. And open guns ... the optics alone make a huge difference.

Where am I going with this? I guess you can say I'm talking about evolution. Maybe it is practical to have most targets at 7yards because that is the distance that makes most sense "on the street" or in your house. Maybe the tactical/practical roots of the sport, which dictated that the handgun was a weapon of last resort and to be used in close combat, dictate that most courses of fire should be presenting targets in tthe 3 to 7 yard range. But the overall quality of shooters and that of their guns has increased some since the games got started. Evolution in shooting techniques, equipment, and competition should be forcing a evolution in course design.

The modern handgun can perform up to 50 yards, and thats just the personal defence weapon, nevermind some of the hunting handguns. Almost everyone past D class can hose 7 yard targets well enough for most self defence scenarios. Now what? for the stages to continue being challenging we need to push the limits a bit. We can add lots of hard cover, soft cover, no shoots, and wiggly props and keep the targets at 7 yards. That can be fun. We can also move the targets further out, to 20 yards, 30 yards, or further. And then still add all those hard wiggle props.

Both aproaches would work. Either one by itself would be boring after a while, not to mention it wouldn't test all shooting skills equally. So what is my point after all this ranting? Make stages hard. Make them damn hard. Take all shooters out of their comfort zones. Don't tell me about the new shooters and how this would stop them from coming back, because I'll call BS. I was a new shooter. I liked the hard stages then. In fact, every damn time I've seen someone really bitch about a hard stage, it was not a new shooter doing the bitching. The new shooters thought the hard stages rocked. The bitching was done by experienced shooters, A class or above. Why? Because they were forced out of the comfort zone.

Screw the comfort zones. Make stages hard. I have no problem with the hoser stages every now and then. They are fun. They even present their own kind of "hard". But if all we shoot are spit ball hoser stages, then their "hard" stops being so, while other skill sets atrophy or never get developed.

So please, pretty please, make your stages hard. I may bitched that I sucked at them, that I missed, that I had a bad plan. But I won't bitch that it was too hard.

+1, nuff said.