How much time is a miss worth?

[Exodus]

Recently we had a rifle stage that had all the targets between 20 and 50 yards except for two which where close to 350 with a really twisted difficult shooting position. Everyone I saw attemped to shoot the far targets. Most waisted a lot of time before finally hitting them or giving up on them and taking misses. For most it would have been better to just shoot 2 really quick shots at them, take the misses and have a faster time.

Lets say I'm one of the last shooters and I see everyone is waisting a lot of time on one or two more difficult targets. Given different sizes of courses, is there a rule of thumb (or thumbs) as to how much time a miss is worth? How to quickly figure whether to miss fast on purpose or to try and make the shots?

Thanks X

[Joe4d]

It depends on the number of shots on the stage. a stage with 2 targets a miss will kill you a stage with 30 targets not so bad. On a 150 point stage a second slower with an "A" and a miss should work out about the same. So 2 seconds to get a hit and you are loosing points. Despite statements to the contrary in USPSA you can miss fast enough to win at least at the lower classes. The A and M shooters go really fast but dont miss. I did the same math at an IDPA match which scores more heavily on hits than time. But I did see one stage where it was possible to miss fast enough to win. stage was two bowling pins at 25 yards awkward position gun loaded with six rounds, must shoot at least 6 rounds, I did the same as you saw alot of shooters taking a long time to do it and sometimes still not getting both of them in around 8 seconds and some people reloaded. I figured I could draw and dump six rounds in about 2 seconds take the down 5 down 5 for a score of 7 and hey might get lucky and hit one of them. Course the club has since changed the stage they call it the Joe rule. 6 in gun but two mags of 6 on belt, must shoot at least 18 rounds.

[uscbigdawg]

First, we're talking about a rifle stage (i.e. time is a much bigger factor) not a pistol stage (points are the primary factor in most cases).

Yes, in SOME rifle stages, you can shoot fast enough to (Taran Butler's TGO voice) "absorb" the misses over the course of the match. Best example is the '06 US3GN. Taran engaged, but did not hit 3 long range rifle steel and was done with the stage in much faster time. Wasn't close to winning the stage being down 45 points, but with the time on the stage yielding a decent HF, and his performance for the rest of the match, it allowed him to absorb the misses.

At the '04 Nationals we had a similar problem. Medium range rifle/pistol course. Flash targets out at about 150, clear the rifle, grab your pistol. For the time benefit, engage and move on. This is a standard problem in comstock scoring and thus far the best way to address it is double value on those targets (i.e making a single miss worth 20 instead of 15).

Remember that in most long rifle stages and especially rifle only stages, the majority are shooting minor. On long range stages in particular, with targets beyond 100m, in the US in particular, the targets are all steel (hit or miss => 5 points or 0 points). So, again, time becomes the predominent factor in the HF math. In Europe though, where they put paper targets out at distance, you actually have to aim more and it's why major PF rifles have a place in IPSC competition (308, 6.5 Grendel, et. al.).

It's basically a math problem.

Rich

[Jake Di Vita]

In pistol competition I would go as far as to say you should always make up a miss if you know it is there...note: that doesn't mean get done shooting wait 5 seconds and shoot again.

[shred]

The time-value of a miss depends on your hit-factor for the stage

At 15 points for a miss:

On a 10 HF stage, it's 'worth' a second and a half. Unless you're winning matches, it'll be pretty darn rare to have a 10 HF and a miss on a stage

On a 5-factor stage, 3 seconds.

On a 1-factor stage (long range rifle), 15 seconds..

[Jim Norman]

Essentially, the longer a stage is taking to shoot the more important it will be to make up the miss. And the more likely it will be that you will have time to realize the miss and make the shot.

Example, a 10hf stage shot in 6 seconds is 12 shots fired, all A hits. You achieve exactly the same thing, EXCEPT you have one Mike. Leaving the Mike you now have a HF of 6.66. Make up the shot in 1.5 seconds and your HF is now an 8.0 in other words imaking up the miss is better unless it takes you 9.0 seconds at which point the cost of the make up shot has equaled the gain of making it up. In this example you have 3 seconds to gain HF points, any longer and you are losing.

Now, the opposite is also true. Your 6 second run if you have all A hits is exactly the same as a run in 4.5 seconds with one miss that is not made up.

It is confusing.

In the end, Shoot all A's very fast and win. Misses, NS hits and Proceedurals will generally cost you and if tere is anyone in class or divisoin that is on an equal footing with you, your slips will put him ahead of you. This is true from GM all the way down to D. ALmost no one can miss fast enough to win within their level. Ture enough JJ can miss fast enough to still beat me, as can quite a few others. He can't miss fast enough to beat others on his own level.

Jim