Clubs First Uspsa Match

[PHolsted]

Our club will be holding it's first USPSA match on March 31st and I need a little help to make sure I have everything ready to go. Also looking for any tips to running these matches. I have been running IDPA matches for the last few years and our club has decided we also want to shoot USPSA.

I know I have the basics coverd. tagerts pasters, more steel, and props, fault lines, timers.

I loaded the scoring program last night and played around with it.

Is there any thing else ya'll can think of or have any ideals?

Thanks

for any help

Patrick

[ihatepickles]

Do you have some buckets to carry the miscellaneous range equipment around in? We use the orange 5 gallon Home Depot buckets and it holds pasters, staple gun, spray paint, a clipboard, timer, etc...

You didn't mention staple guns.

A bunch of clipboards and a lot of pens helps too, no one seems to have their own pens.

Twine for tying the pens to the clipboards among other uses.

Army tent stakes for tacking stuff to the ground.

Some of this stuff is probably already in stock since you shoot IDPA at that range, just throwing out ideas.

[bgary]

Rulebooks, and membership applications

Bruce

[Catfish]

Patrick, you'll have to change your stage design philosophy, like we did at our club.

In IDPA, you can pretty much tell someone where they can shoot from or engage targets. That's not going to work for USPSA.

It takes some getting used to, from a design standpoint, but not too hard once you get it figured out.

[PHolsted]

Pickles,

clip borads and pens easy to over look and we need more. Thanks

Bruce

Good call on the rule books and membership forms I know a lot of our members will need/want to join.

Derrik

Hows the BIG D? I hope to get back down ya'lls way some time soon. I always enjoy shooting with you guys and gals.

The stage design has been hard to get around. Take a look at the first 6 of 8 CoF and let me know what you think.

Patrick

[L9X25]

On the sign-up side, remember to record the shooter's name, uspsa number, classification, major/minor and what division they are shooting in. It can be very difficult to determine these items after the fact. Also, it is very helpful to number all of the score sheets with the competitior number to speed data entry. It can be very difficult to decipher people's names, nicknames and handwriting once the sheets arrive at the stats shed.

[ihatepickles]

The stage design has been hard to get around. Take a look at the first 6 of 8 CoF and let me know what you think.

On "Swing and Drop", be sure you leave a box on the score sheet for the drop-turner since it's a disappearing target and misses aren't penalized and the stat folks need to know this. On the same stage you probably need something to block the swinger since USPSA rules don't require a shooter to activate targets before engaging them. Also, since you didn't specify that targets must be engaged from Box A, shooters will probably move around to find an angle to hit the movers before activating them. Moving could also be a safety issue since the shooter might shoot the steel from closer than 7 yard, which would be a DQ but it would be best to try and prevent the safety issue with better stage design.

On "Left of Right" you have a hard cover target in front of steel, this will probably result in some reshoots. If bullets pass through the hard cover and hits steel, it's a range equipment failure and this requires a reshoot. You could specify that cover as soft cover and then hits on the steel behind cover wouldn't require a reshoot. The start position will be interpreted in the most advantageous way for each shooter - which is fine but be aware of the potential. Add fault lines to prevent shooters from getting too close to the steel.

On "Surprise!!!" make sure that the steel can't be engaged too close.

On "Clean House", there's a lot of 180 traps in T13 through T18. Also, make sure there's plenty of room for the RO to move with the shooter through the house. Also, be very careful with making sure the range is clear of target pasters, since there's a lot of targets you'll have 5-6 people downrange and the RO can't see all parts of the range easily.

[ChuckS]

Just a little tip: make sure you describe the start condition of the pistol for all the stages. Also, identifying fault lines / shooting areas on the WSB is a good thing also!

Later,

Chuck

[PHolsted]

Great stuff.

Thanks for the pointers on the CoF's Pickles and Chuck.

I have made the changes.

[born-in-45]

Probably the biggest adjustment you will have moving from IDPA to USPSA is the stage design philosophy. Good USPSA stages give you multiple ways to shoot the stage. Higher round counts are normal but not required to develop a fun USPSA stage. If you haven't already, check out the "Stage Comments or Questions" subforum under "Shooting Discussions" as there is a lot of good information in there including a post titled "Stage Exchange" where you can get ideas for stages.

We have several Word/Excel forms, from a Waiver to Sign-In to Squading to.... that I would be willing to email copies to you. If interested just drop me a PM.

Edited February 16, 2007 by born-in-45

[open17]

We use a half sheet sign-up form that really helps with stats. Name/division/age etc

on the top, bottom half is address, phone #, e-mail etc.. Gets the info on paper, so the

stats person can get it entered in the master data-base file in EzWinScore and have

something to check the entries against.

It's a 2 per sheet editable WinWord doc file. PM me with an Email address if you want it.

Bill

[Flexmoney]

I was going to suggest posting the stages..then say you had a link...then found the link was dead for me.

[PHolsted]

I was going to suggest posting the stages..then say you had a link...then found the link was dead for me.

Not sure what happend there but they are back now. March COF's

[Flexmoney]

Swing and Drop

String 1: On signal, within box A engage T1 – T7 with two

rounds each and all steel until down.

On signal, engage all targets from within Box A only.

Note: T3 is a disappearing target (if it so happens to be)

BTW, it is common, but certainly not required, to number the targets from left to right... (just a bit of uniformity).

In a Comstock stage, you probably don't want to put into the procedure to engage with 2 rounds each...as you are really looking for the best 2 rounds per target. And, you don't want to stipulate shooting the steel "until down"...as the shooter may be better served by taking the misses.

The info on the what hits score comes from the scoring side of you stage diagram. And, you should include it in the written stage briefing...as per the guidelines in the rule book. You want to keep the "stage procedure" part of your diagram is clutter free as possible when writing these up.

Left or Right?

(Same as before on the text in the stage procedure.)

I might put a rear fault line in there, or extend the side fault lines back...maybe angling them in to the center as they go back. That will keep shooters from drifting back to get a better angle.

I'm confused. You list 6 steel. There are 5 steel on a Texas Star. You have an arrow pointing to T10 as if that is a steel shoot target? As painted, it looks like it is a hardcover target...used to block part of the star ? Is the 6th steel target an extra plate on the left shoulder of that hardcover steel ?

CM 06-11 Where’s The Ammo

Good example to copy for your stage procedures.

Surprise!!!

The question you will get here is if Box A is part of the shooting area or not. Might as well clear that up with a note in the Procedure.

You have a potential for some shoot-throughs on this stage...be mindful of this in setup...might need some tweaking.

You almost have a 180 trap with T1-T3. You could shift them down range and out and decrease that possibility quite a bit.

CM 03-02 Six Chickens

Two classifiers in one match ?

That will cost you extra...kinda hard on the pocket-book. I think that puts your match into "special classifier" status...requiring approval from your Section Coordinator. And, if you are paying for a "special classifier", you ought to be running 4-6 classifier stages. Running two doesn't do much for you.

Clean House

On signal, pass through door, then engage targets from within the fault lines only.

You might add a note for your RO's that they will be in that hallway with the shooter and the shooter will be coming back towards them. They will need to stay out of the way completely...likely best to stay in the door until the shooter gets past them again.

6 & 6

I'm not sure I understand this one from the diagram ?

[PHolsted]

Thanks for the input Flex.

I have made more changes to the COF

[LJE]

Thanks for the input Flex.

I have made more changes to the COF

CM06-11 Where's The Ammo ---- You will need to change the stage briefing.

The word "FLAT" was omitted in the briefing, leaving the shooters free to support their gun by laying a magazine under it. This is the correct wording: "Handgun is in empty condition with no round in the chamber or magazine in the gun, and lying flat on table."

Use the copy and paste option when you are writing classifier descriptions to make sure they are exactly the same as posted by USPSA.

Larry