Why five minutes?

[shred]

3 minute with 17 shooters in one squard. That what I've heard in Word-Shoot in Bali.

In Bali we usually got 3-5 minutes per stage if we were lucky. The RO's usually said '3' and gave us 4.

BUT... walkthrough discipline is much more rigidly enforced there-- only the squad was allowed past the 'tape' onto the bay and only when they were up (no pre-walking the stages at any time); the squad lined up with the first shooter in front at the start position and walked through one at a time with space between them, and then got in the back of the line to go around again. You got 3 or 4 times to look through the stage without people all over the place trying to figure out where to go. Once the squad started shooting, everybody had to go back behind the line except the on deck and in the hole shooters. Only the on-deck shooter was allowed on the stage while scoring and resetting was going on. If you started walking the stage when it wasn't your turn or started taking too long looking at everything you'd get yelled at.

Walkthrough etiquette is often sorely missing many times in the US.

Of course the WS stages were pretty much all about shooting, not memory courses or gimmicks and such like. There were a few places where timing movers was key, and one when you had to sort out how to see all the targets with the fewest setups, but even that wasn't difficult to suss out.

[ironb]

And I'll add something else to all this. Do not allow members from another squad to do walk throughs. At the 2007 Nationals there were several stages that we had members from another squad doing a walkthrough with us. No, they were not shoot throughs. On one stage I was to be the 1st shooter and some guy that wasn't on our squad kept getting in front of me.

Other shooters who havent gone yet shouldnt be able to watch the person shoot the stage either. It gives them the advantage of seeing what works and what doesnt work. I've seen that happen quite a few times where several people shot the stage one way, and then someone did something different; where the shooters after saw the change, and all did the change as well because it worked. How do they pick the order you shoot at a major event?

[ima45dv8]

And I'll add something else to all this. Do not allow members from another squad to do walk throughs. At the 2007 Nationals there were several stages that we had members from another squad doing a walkthrough with us. No, they were not shoot throughs. On one stage I was to be the 1st shooter and some guy that wasn't on our squad kept getting in front of me.

I agree completely.

At the recent A6 match, one of my RO's politely, but loudly, made an announcement that "...only the current squad should be on the stage during the walk-through". From the tone of his voice I got the hint. As I came walking back uprange I saw the guy carrying the shooters' welcome pack and stepped in front of him. "You're not part of this squad and need to leave the range." He agreed, at least verbally. "Yeah, yeah, I'm leaving in just a second", but he said it while trying to push past me. Right answer, wrong move. I spun him around and escorted him straight to the mouth of the bay while telling him, "No, you're leaving right now."

That stage was a shoot house and after each time I read the WSB I asked each squad to be considerate of their litter mates by exiting the back and circling around for their next trip. Trying to swim upstream in such close confines creates too many traffic jams.

[ima45dv8]

How do they pick the order you shoot at a major event?

Most matches I've been to, the stage staff ask if your squad has a preferred order. If so, they'll gladly let you shoot in that order so long as you arrange the scoresheets in that order. If no preferred order, it's usually done by the order of the names in the squad list.

[kimel]

At the majors I have worked 99% of the squads have a specific order already and 99% of those are using the order from the squad list and just rolling "who's on first" down the list as they move through stages. The exceptions to this tend to be parent/child pairs where the parent wants to be up or down a few so they can video the kid.

As CRO/RO I really don't care what the order is just don't be constantly changing it as we work down through the list.

I will add that with Palm Scoring it goes a goes a lot easier/better if the squad uses the squad list order in some fashion.

As for walk-thru time: I'll always give the 5 minutes but I give squads the option to waive it if they want to do that. I won't make 'em stand around. At Tulsa last year I had a pretty straight forward stage and folks were backing up bad enough in the L10/O match due to mud and other conditions (and we were trying to shoot every squad we possibly could the next-to-last day) that a lot of the squads would take one or two passes through and then want to shoot. As long as my staff was done visiting the port-a-potty, spreading wood chips, shoveling mud out of the way, etc. we'd get going immediately. Same thing at Area 1 2008 in the awful heat. A lot of squads just didn't want to take a lot of time walking the stage; they just wanted to shoot and go find some shade.

[CWT USMA]

We just ran our Houghton Memorial 2 gun match this past weekend. Our Squad size was 11 to 8 and our stages design were straight forward. With only one stage that you could not plan for you transition. Maximum target array was 22 targets. And we only allowed 3 minutes for the walk thru. During the two day I never heard one comment for or against 3 minute walk thru.

Keep in mind only the first shooter is under pressure to get there plan set. The rest of the crew has the time while others shoot to finalize there plan.

[Dan Sierpina]

We just ran our Houghton Memorial 2 gun match this past weekend. Our Squad size was 11 to 8 and our stages design were straight forward. With only one stage that you could not plan for you transition. Maximum target array was 22 targets. And we only allowed 3 minutes for the walk thru. During the two day I never heard one comment for or against 3 minute walk thru.

Keep in mind only the first shooter is under pressure to get there plan set. The rest of the crew has the time while others shoot to finalize there plan.

Craig, your match was no problem with 3 minutes. There were no moving targets that had to be timed, not really any targets that could be best engaged from one or two spots. It was a straight forward match. I did enjoy it!