07 OPEN / L10 Nationals after-match reviews

[davecutts]

Montana rocked.

Brett stage 16 was by far my best stage of the match, great meeting and shooting with you; you still owe me a Sierra Nevada.

USSA is nice, very nice, but Tulsa ... is not Missoula.

Iron Horse rocked.

Moose drool isn't fit to water my grass.

The waitress at the Iron Horse, well it's a college town. Nuff said.

The VFW was a cool little watering hole.

The Missoula Club, burgers and beer = heaven (I asked for a menu and the dude says, "We got burgers!")

Red's was there.

Sunday I stopped at a little Pub with great friendly service, vast selection on tap, and excellent food. Can't for the life of me remember the name, but I'll stumble on it next time around the corner from the Iron horse.

I'd spend my summers in Missoula, and will go back for a match any time.

[kimel]

Probably the Oxford...better known as "the Ox".

[XRe]

Frankly, I'm kind of partial to PASA Site of my first Nationals... kind of a historical site for us. No, there's not a lot of night life, and the scenery certainly isn't what we had in Missoula... But I still like it... PASA is definitely an awesome facility. And, I can find things to do in Quincy and Hannibal.. but, then, I'm not in need of massive beverage consumption, or jiggly mammary observation, so...

Tulsa definitely does not have the scenery, or the extra-curricular activities that Missoula had, that's for sure. Who can argue that USSA isn't the current premier facility for our kind of shooting, though??

I'd go back to Missoula any time. The things I've seen mentioned in this thread that could use improvement from this match are all easily dealt with, and (in my mind) would not begin to even make me think twice about going again.

Those are the three Nationals sites I've visited, so I can't comment on the others where we've hosted the match

[shred]

Bend was a cool town, a lot like Missoula. The range was a lot dustier and the squad schedule blew major chunks though.

[geezer-lock]

I dug out a batch of match handbooks and looked at start positions used over several years. It is clear that we see fewer of the “draw to a target” starts than we did in earlier years. More often than not there is movement required before you can get to the shooting. As long as that movement allows the shooter to draw on the way I wouldn’t categorize it as unusual.

Some variation of “open the door and engage the targets as you see them” is a common and acceptable way of activating moving targets. I think the turnstiles alone would have been sufficient (and acceptable) on “Ticket to Ride”. Just holding the prop and letting it drop (the way they started “Home Run”) would have worked nicely and been in line with what Pete started with.

Some of the things I noted were big dolls, laundry, kicking sticks and throwing all sorts of things into barrels, bins or boxes. I agree with Smitty and Pete that gigging folks with procedurals for failing to do that stuff “correctly” doesn’t add anything to the shooting challenge.

If you want to penalize me make it a time penalty because I couldn’t draw and hit a mini-popper at 35 yards (something I know Smitty can do).

I really liked Missoula and the surrounding area. I have already plotted a route that avoids NM and Colorado for my return trip.

David C

[pjb]

I have been to a few Nationals. Missoula was a great place for the match. It should host another one. The stages were great, they did not seem to favor the dot guns that much, in fact, if anything, some of the no-shoots on the clam shells would crush the dot gunner if he did not know his zero.

BTW: I was called for coaching. I did not argue with the CRO about it. After he read the rule, I asked about "at the RO descretion." This means to me the RO does not have to make the call or ignore the call. He decides. There was no criteria stated in the rule as to how, when or why the RO makes the call. This is acceptable to me. The RO made the call and I accepted it without complaining, whinning etc.

I did disagree with with the penality for the shooter. It was silly. The shooter gained no advantage by shooting, he actually lost more points because of it. He might not of even heard me. Who knows but Gary. Gary was a stand up guy about it. I felt bad he go penalized.

In the long run, it did make for interesting conversations with a great number of people.

I do not know about Tulsa but hope to find out this year. PASA is just fine, not great, just fine.

Unlike Chuck, who I respect very much, I would prefer there be matches held around the country. I do not like the idea of a home range. I do like the way the three nationals are arrange on the calendar; Spring, Summer, sort of Fall. I would like this to continue.

Edited July 6, 2007 by pjb

[driver8M3]

BTW: I was called for coaching.

why???

[AlamoShooter]

BTW: I was called for coaching.

why???

was it at least ? ....good advice?.... my wife coached the Spurs for most of the season, but I don't think they could hear her.

[XRe]

On that stage? If I had to guess, he yelled out to someone to push the button or something like that...

[DarthMuffin]

I got a tidbit I just remembered - Henning told me he didn't go prone on stage 12, he knelt !!

He's taller than I am by 2", and apparently qualified as a Barnum & Bailey contortionist. I think my back would slip a disc if I tried that.

One of the guys on the Open super squad did cheerleader type splits I don't know 'em well enough to say who it was by name. Another went left leg forward kneeling on right, so did the young lady on our squad.

I had a fun time. I agree that Roundhouse Redoubt can die a burning painful death.

I had a major senior moment on stage 18 (the classifier). I stopped and reholstered after the reload, thinking it was two strings.

I did better than I thought I would, placing about in the middle of the L10 C pack. Since I'm a D shooter that just got classified as a C (by 0.25%) due to one freakishly lucky classifier.

[DarthMuffin]

14 shooters out of 390 works out to about 3.6% ... A little high, but not terribly unexpected

Yup. And no real pattern to them, unless you count the 180's on stage 7, where the stage design tempted right-handed shooters to reload while moving to the left.

I noticed that there were 3 or 4 "oh crap!" DQs in the mix, too. 3 people got the sequence wrong on "turn, then draw...", and one person apparently didn't drop the mag before showing clear, resulting in a "bang" on "if clear, hammer down..."

ymmv

B

The RO on stage 10 mentioned that he had one DQ because the shooter did his LAMR facing uprange (start position). I had a good bit of downtime to talk to him after one of the poppers broke clean off at the base for me.

I saw one DQ the first day where he thought he unloaded and showed clear and it wasn't---bang.

I almost DQ'd on the roundhouse by breaking the 180 reloading, and I intentionally went left to right to avoid that. Stupid diagonal 180 line... Much later another RO wanted to DQ me because of finger in the trigger while reloading, until the assistant RO assured him that yes, an HK mag release is really on the trigger guard and since I was releasing it with my trigger finger it was impossible for my finger to be on the trigger.

[AlamoShooter]

I saw more than a few procedural penalties on stage 10 How could a shooter do that? what am i missing?

[XRe]

Miss-print on the score sheet. There's no "No Shoot" penalty box - so all No Shoots were scored as Procedural penalties on the score sheet....

[Nate]

Just thinking, wouldn't Missoula be a great place for three gun nats? Two 300 yard bays and three 100 yard bays. Just a thought.

[JayWord]

I have been to a few Nationals. Missoula was a great place for the match. It should host another one. The stages were great, they did not seem to favor the dot guns that much, in fact, if anything, some of the no-shoots on the clam shells would crush the dot gunner if he did not know his zero.

BTW: I was called for coaching. I did not argue with the CRO about it. After he read the rule, I asked about "at the RO descretion." This means to me the RO does not have to make the call or ignore the call. He decides. There was no criteria stated in the rule as to how, when or why the RO makes the call. This is acceptable to me. The RO made the call and I accepted it without complaining, whinning etc.

I did disagree with with the penality for the shooter. It was silly. The shooter gained no advantage by shooting, he actually lost more points because of it. He might not of even heard me. Who knows but Gary. Gary was a stand up guy about it. I felt bad he go penalized.

In the long run, it did make for interesting conversations with a great number of people.

I do not know about Tulsa but hope to find out this year. PASA is just fine, not great, just fine.

Unlike Chuck, who I respect very much, I would prefer there be matches held around the country. I do not like the idea of a home range. I do like the way the three nationals are arrange on the calendar; Spring, Summer, sort of Fall. I would like this to continue.

This occurred on Stage 17. The shooter had a Miss-No Shoot on one of the targets down -25. The coach yelled for the shooter to make it up. He did, now only down -10 for No-shoot hit. While there was a time difference involved, it seemed clear the shooter would not have made the shot up otherwise. He chose to make the shot. The potential point difference on a 40 point stage is pretty large.

I have run more than a couple of shooter in my time, 25+ Nationals. This was the first time I felt it was truely appropriate to apply this penalty under 8.6.2. The only question was whether the shooter should be penalized. I did not even think about the "coach", it was so blatant it had to be done. I made my call, I will stand by it. I feel it was fair to all the competitors on the stage and the match. It will make a good teaching point for RO classes.

Nuff said.

BTW: I had no problems hearing the buzzer on my stage. I'm old and have hearing loss from my job as the firefighter.

Jay Worden, NROI RM-I.

[smokshwn]

It would be awesome for 3 Gun Nationals !