The Masters

[Jim Watson]

I went to The Masters yesterday.

No, not the golf tournament in Georgia, the shooting match in Alabama.

Ron H. at Steel City, Birmingham/Hoover, had the idea for a match that would depart from the choreographed aspect of IDPA. Nearly all of the 12 stages could be shot with more than one approach, a tough but fast one and a conservative attack. Stage 5 had a lot of permutations and combinations. A Master pretty well had to take the hard road to meet the pressure on him from the other Masters; the rest of us had to make the decisions:

Do I take the long shot or spend the time to get closer?

Do I take the head shots or go where I can see the body?

Do I shoot through a very narrow gap or travel to the window?

On a one hit per target stage with severely downloaded magazines, do I use one of my few makeup shots on a target that I might have pulled a -3/FTN or do I hope for the best and save the extras for the @#$%^&* steel plates?

CoFs at

http://www.pistolpro.com/ssidpa/Index.shtml

You had to think it through. A lot of us found that, as it has been for a long time, the plan of battle is the first casualty.

Division Champions got, in addition to a handsome trophy, a green cap. Get it?

There was no general program of scrounging for merchandise prizes, but S&W donated a Plastic M&P which was drawn for by the S.O.s.

Joe D's wife won it, he says he will make her trade it for a Glock.

[et45]

Sounds like it was a good match.Was it sanctioned by IDPA?.

[Jim Watson]

I don't know that it was sanctioned, but everything was set up and run by strict IDPA rules and procedures. Just because you had choices of how to approach the stage did not mean that you did not have to follow IDPA policy. And it was strictly enforced; lots of FTNs on the two one-hit stages as people got sloppy on snap shots, and a lot of procedurals as they kind of wandered around looking for the best angle on the many judgement stages.

[Duane Thomas]

Division Champions got, in addition to a handsome trophy, a green cap. Get it?

I have to confess that I don't. Is that a golf thing?

[et45]

The winner of the Masters golf tournament is presented with a green jacket.Since this is an IDPA style match then I think a green jacket(cover garment) would have been appropiate

[Jim Watson]

I figure a green cap was less expensive than a green vest. Maybe if it catches on and grows.

[Kingman]

I am just amazed by permutations and combinations.

Now tell me what the definition is of each and which is the correct term to use in this circumstance for 5 bonus points.

[Jim Taylor]

I am just amazed by permutations and combinations.

Now tell me what the definition is of each and which is the correct term to use in this circumstance for 5 bonus points.

Kingman:

Permutations are unique sequences, and combinations are random, i.e, the ordering of elements is irrelevant. Combinations are also called sets.

IDPA is to permutations as USPSA is to combinations. Or, it it the other way around?

Best regards,

Jim

[Kingman]

Nice, you got the bonus points in my book.

[Joe D]

We were late in putting this match together. Ron and I had many discussions as to how we wanted this match to be. There was a good bit of thought and effort put into these stages. Some are very subtle. The match was designed so than a Marksman could shoot it. Experts and Masters could take advantage of the risk and reward factor in many of the stages.

Next year we will give more advance notice. It is a good tune up for the Nationals.

[Jim Watson]

Stage 5 was shootable in different combinations AND permutations.

There were two targets, two poppers, a plate, and two nonthreats visible from the starting position. One of the poppers was designated "dropping hard cover". You could knock it down to get an open shot at the threat target behind it or you could shoot over it if you thought you could hit the head of the threat faster than you could fire the extra shot and wait for the popper to drop. Then, of course, you could shoot either or both non-threat and bypass any threat target. Not that you wanted to, but you could and some shooters unfortunately did. So there were different combinations of targets that could be and were shot.

Then it was right there in the course description: "You may engage the targets in the order of your choosing." Several different permuations were seen during the match.

Joe, I think most Alabama sanctioned shoots run to greater difficulty than the Nationals. What was it the Glock rep said about the '05 State shoot?

Edited September 10, 2007 by Jim Watson

[SDM]

I really like this idea. Freestyle really, just using a different rule book. You'd have to make sure all of the R.O.'s had read the rulebook.

[Jane]

I LOVE that kind of stage! And to have a whole match follow that approach is great! Let the CoF dictate what the shooter does, rather than trying to remember a set choreography after the buzzer.

We've had some discussions about this type of CoF on idpaforum.com. I'm going to post a link there to this thread.

And yes, the Masters is listed on the IDPA website as a sanctioned match.

[Joe D]

Jim, I have only shot one National Match and think you are correct. None of our stages are impossible to shoot. We try to set the stages where a Marksman can shoot them. Most, but not all, of the stages have a fairly high round count.

I don't care for the short 6-8 round stages nor stages that are so scripted that there is only one way to shoot them.

We do use a lot of movers in our stages. I am glad to see that the Georgia folks are doing the same thing.

[Hot Brass]

We shot a few of the stages with the hat camera on Saturday. Stage 5 was one of them. I'll try to edit the video and get it posted this evening. The first video of stage 5 is funny because the guy who shot it just nicked the drop plate and it rotated 90 degrees, but did not fall off the stand. He continued shooting at it while we all laughed at him trying to hit a 1/2 inch wide target from 10 yards. We were just horsing around when shooting the video since the SO's shot the match the day before.

JoeD, have the scores been posted?

-Capel

[Joe D]

Not yet. Maybe tonight. Hope they got my corrected score in. I knew I did not shoot very well, but did not think I shot that poorly. That's the last time I will work until 2:00 on Friday, jump out of my truck and start shooting. Seems like my correct score was 226.10.

[5906TSW]

The match was a BLAST!!!(no pun intended) As was said before, there was a safe way & a high-risk way to shoot each stage with variations of each in between. A shooter really had to know their limitations & know when to burn & when to throttle back a bit. If you when even a little outside your personnal performance envelope, it was crash & burn time.

Many thanks to those who's blood & sweat made this all possible.

Hopefully, this will become an annual event.

Thanks again,

Nathan

[Hot Brass]

Ok, I finally got the video edited and posted. We only got stages 2-7 on camera. JoeD and his wife star in the Stage 2 video.

http://www.gadpa.com/forums/ShowThread.aspx?PostID=573#573

This was a good match. Ron put a lot of thought into designing stages that could be shot "the hard way" and "the easy way". You can see an example of this in the Stage 4 video. Keep in mind that these videos were shot for the purpose of documenting the stages and not for a score.

[PDW]

Ok, I finally got the video edited and posted. We only got stages 2-7 on camera. JoeD and his wife star in the Stage 2 video.

http://www.gadpa.com/forums/ShowThread.aspx?PostID=573#573

This was a good match. Ron put a lot of thought into designing stages that could be shot "the hard way" and "the easy way". You can see an example of this in the Stage 4 video. Keep in mind that these videos were shot for the purpose of documenting the stages and not for a score.

Looks like it was a great match. Sorry I missed it! Ron and Joe do a fine job of match design and the SCSSA facility is top notch.

[huck377]

When will the scores be posted?

[gunsablazin]

When will the scores be posted?

Welcome to the forum.

Robin