First stage - your comments needed

[pmacb]

After shooting this sport for several years, and lurking on this board for some time I decided to take a double plunge and make my first post a request for comments about my first ever stage. The narrative is obviously "zombies" and Colonie is the town where the home club (Watervliet Practical Shooters) shoots.

I'm torn about the no-shoots near the box c barricade. My thought was to have the shooter go through the barricade's port, but in hindsight that's not very freestyle of me. There's already one slight addition to the course, there's a notation in the set up notes that the diagram's not to scale.

Well, have at it. What could I do better?

shaun_of_colonie.pdf

[Fireant]

Honestly, box to box stages are not very freestyle anyway and a quick way to loose shooters in my area. Take away the boxes and add some walls for vision barriers.

[ChuckS]

Hi there,

The first thing is you should probably describe the ready condition of the pistol.

I can understand the reasons for using boxes as opposed to walls and such but by round count this is a "long course" (>16 rounds) so you have run afoul of 1.1.5.1

"Level I matches may use shooting boxes and specify where or

when specific target arrays may be engaged, and may specify

mandatory reloads in short and medium courses only (not in a

long course)." *

See what you can do with no-shoots and hardcover to make it more interesting. Simply make the area from the left side of box A to the right side of box C the width of the shooting area with a fault line running along the front of the boxes.

Good job,

Chuck

* I do not want to open a debate of "it's a club match", etc. I am of the opinion if you are calling it a USPSA match, follow the rules. If you call it something else, knock your self out.

Edited August 17, 2008 by ChuckS

[pmacb]

ChuckS,

Thanks for the advice. I fixed the "ready condition" problem (D'Oh!), changed box B to a free fire zone and salted the area with some additional no-shoots uprange of the targets. I"m sure there'll be additional changes found after we shoot it locally.

pmacb

Hi there,

The first thing is you should probably describe the ready condition of the pistol.

I can understand the reasons for using boxes as opposed to walls and such but by round count this is a "long course" (>16 rounds) so you have run afoul of 1.1.5.1

"Level I matches may use shooting boxes and specify where or

when specific target arrays may be engaged, and may specify

mandatory reloads in short and medium courses only (not in a

long course)." *

See what you can do with no-shoots and hardcover to make it more interesting. Simply make the area from the left side of box A to the right side of box C the width of the shooting area with a fault line running along the front of the boxes.

Good job,

Chuck

* I do not want to open a debate of "it's a club match", etc. I am of the opinion if you are calling it a USPSA match, follow the rules. If you call it something else, knock your self out.

[gino_aki]

+1 and expanding on Chuck's comments:

Making the shooting boxes into one shooting area will bring the problem of "shoot-throughs" and placing enough no-shoots to cover all possible engagement angles could end up bordering on the ridiculous. If your club doesn't have "walls" or other vision barriers, it's time to make them.

One possible way to deal with this would be to curve the shooting area (if the range or bay permits) so that shots at T1-T2 are angled to the left, T3-T6 straight downrange, and the final array angled to the right. To get people to shoot through the port you would need to place the no-shoots adjacent to the barricade, essentially creating a wall. Shooters will engage T7-T9 on their way in to the port/last position so again shoot-through angles will need to be addressed. If you want to be "mean" you could place additional no-shoot targets covering portions of T10-T12 say with upper scoring zones adjacent or underneath the shoot targets.

The only other major modification I would suggest is retaining Box A and Box C, renaming them A and B and using them as start boxes...as in "Standing facing uprange in Box A or B, gun loaded and holstered as per ready condition in 8.1.1 and 8.1.2...etc." This will endear you to the lefties in your match, and possibly cause other shooters to think about the stage from both ends.

[Franklin D Wolverton]

What I do at our club on stages like this is one continuous shooting area (with starting boxes on either side). For walls, I use two fencepost's and some snow fencing from the shooting area down to the targets. This is cheap, and exceedingly easy to set up.

Frank

[Hi-Power Jack]

Looks like fun to me either way.

What Saturday of the Month do

you shoot?

Jack

[Anon]

My responses are just for humor....

A) What are you doing bringing a handgun to a zombie-fight?!

In the last shooting box, those no-shoots are obviously goners, and instead of saving them, you should just run away!

Edited September 8, 2008 by Anon

[JimmyZip]

What about......

Making box A a barricade, placing barrels or no shoots strategically to limit the angles on the middle targets and eliminating that box C. Also stipulating the three center targets in the last array be shot through the port and placing a limit line at the far end, right, adjecent to the barricade prohibiting movement past it.

Just my .02

[GringoPerdido]

What about......

Making box A a barricade, placing barrels or no shoots strategically to limit the angles on the middle targets and eliminating that box C. Also stipulating the three center targets in the last array be shot through the port and placing a limit line at the far end, right, adjecent to the barricade prohibiting movement past it.

Just my .02

Jimmy, I like the way you think. Time to put that creativity to use.

You have just been volunteered to design and set up a stage at this month's IPSC match at your club.

Please contact me for details amigo.

(sorry for the thread drift...)

[pmacb]

Wow, I guess I should've checked back on this topic once in a while!

To gino_aki: Thanks for the idea of curving the stage. I think that'll be a much better way to keep the stage narrative without being too restrictive.

To Hi-Power Jack: Our season just ended with the approach of winter, but the Watervliet Practical Shooters calendar can be found at the Watervliet Fish and Game Protective Association webpage (www.wfgpa.org).

To Anon: Poor planning on my part. I left my M4 in the cabin when I went to the outhouse. As to the goners, c'mon, some of those no-shoots are close personal friends of mine!

I'm working on an updated version incorporating most of your suggestions which I'll post once I'm done tinkering and get it converted to pdf.

Thanks for the help!

pmacb

[pmacb]

Wow, I guess I should've checked back on this topic once in a while!

To gino_aki: Thanks for the idea of curving the stage. I think that'll be a much better way to keep the stage narrative without being too restrictive.

To Hi-Power Jack: Our season just ended with the approach of winter, but the Watervliet Practical Shooters calendar can be found at the Watervliet Fish and Game Protective Association webpage (www.wfgpa.org).

To Anon: Poor planning on my part. I left my M4 in the cabin when I went to the outhouse. As to the goners, c'mon, some of those no-shoots are close personal friends of mine!

I'm working on an updated version incorporating most of your suggestions which I'll post once I'm done tinkering and get it converted to pdf.

Thanks for the help!

pmacb

As threatened promised, here's the updated "Shaun" stage. I've tried to make it more freestyle and "faster" in the first half. How does it look now?

pmacb

shaun_of_colonie_v3.pdf

[wide45]

If you use the port to control the shots on T10-12, there is no need to place a box there.

My club would set up some vision barriers, so that only T10-12 could be seen from the port, and put a side fault bar at the right edge of the wall with the port in it.

Everybody likes freestyle.

Edited November 7, 2008 by wide45

[SA Friday]

I would either stick to shooting from the boxes only or open it up to freestyle only.

An occasional stage of shooting from certain boxes is ok IMO, but I wouldn't do them very often.

One thing the MD will have to account for is changing the headshot targets at least two or three times for the match, maybe even more if a big club. Small acrage, lots of bolets, equals shredded cardboard.

If I was going to rework this, I would balance it out and put very similar set-ups on both the right and left box and put all the headshot targets in the middle. If you want them to have to shoot both left, right and center through the barricade, barrel stacks blocking off the left and right arrays from the center port will force the shooting vs putting it into the written stage brief. When I design a larger stage, the less I tell the shooter where to shoot stuff from, the happier they are. Just be prepared to have your stages shot in some way you didn't think of. IMO, thats the best learing situation for a new stage designer and shooter. Now, my favorite stage designs have one sentence stage briefs, and enough options to fry people's mellons. That's good times.