Gaming A Stage With A Texas Star

[eric nielsen]

Shannon:

What club was that? Hope you don't say Frostproof or Orlando...

eric

[RAZZ]

Just to throw out an example...A stage at the 2003 Area 6 match had 2 Texas stars in it. If I remember correctly, they were about 16-17 yards down range. We had a new shooter in our squad that was asking this same question--should I shoot it until all the plates are down? We all remember at some point (either yesterday, or when we first started shooting) when we simply couldn't knock down a popper or a plate. It gets frustrating, the fun factor (reason we are supposed to be shooting) drops off, and the rest of the day can suffer for it. This guy was a D production shooter, and was well aware of his abilities. He understood from the minute he saw the stage that, at his skill level, he might not be able to finish the stage if he refused to let any of the star plates remain standing. The decision he came to was to throw the rounds at the plates as fast as he (safely) could, and proceed on to the targets he knew he could engage successfully. Results: I think he somehow managed to hit 1 or 2 of the possible 10 plates, but came away with a pretty respectable time. He himself admitted that, had he stood there blasting away at the plates, he probably would have ran out of mags and ammo before he knocked down the plates. In his specific case, bypassing the stars was a good idea, and gave him a higher hit factor, and may have made the rest of the match more fun (or at least he didn't dwell on dumping 5 mags on the stars). He came away from the stage with a clear understanding of what he needed to practice when he got home.

[j1b]

I can think of only once - maybe twice that I seriously considered skipping targets. Not because of ethics, but because most generally there is a way to figure the stage out such that skipping targets becomes extremely penalizing.

I am certain that it could be rationalized that if I missed X number of shots on the shooting star, then it would be more beneficial to skip it due to time. The issue there is not the star, or skipping targets, the issue is figuring out a way to insure you don't miss. In that manner you get the best of both worlds, points and a hot time.

If you see what you need to see, then skipping targets isn't necessary for the most part.

Just my $.02

JB

[Skywalker]

Ok, time to do the basic math.

First of all, if you are going to shoot a stage with a 6 plates texas star, and you don't want to waste the time to take down all plates, just shoot 6 quick shots and fly away, the stage has to be more than 90 points maximum, otherwise with 6 mikes you'll end up with 0 points.

Now to some more difficult math:

let's say you have to shoot a stage where you could score 75 points (15 rounds), and it would take you about 12 seconds (HF = 6.25).

If you miss a target, you can score 60 points (maximum) in the same time (HF = 5), thus you'll score only 80% of your planned score.

According to the above figures, a mike on that hypotetical stage will cost you the same as scoring all A in 15 seconds (HF = 5), hence a mike is roughly equivalent to 3 seconds.

This may vary from stage to stage (a bit less than 3 secs for longer stages - i.e. more points, longer time - a bit more than 3 secs on shorter stages), but it is a good approximation for rough estimations.

Now, given the above assumptions, if you think you can shoot all the make-up shots (I mean ending up with no mikes) in a time that is still lower than 3 seconds per each mike, the make-up shots are worth, otherwise you are just getting a lower HF.