Revolver match stages- need suggestions

[Guninhand]

Hi folks. I'm running a revolver match, IPSC rules, about 200 rounds, on our little backwoods range. I want to come up with interesting stages; they don't even have to be revolver friendly, but I am willing to bend in that direction. I'm looking for suggestions, gimmicks, nuances or anything else used at other revolver matches that banish the boredom demon. There's not much help or money so things can't be too elaborate.

[glockwerkes]

I've dabbled in stage design and match planning, and am a very active shooter. I don't think matches should be redesigned to accomodate revolver shooters, as we are all shooting what amounts to Limited 6 division anyway. The rule book states no more than 8 shots required from any ONE position. Many stage designers (at least in my area) sometimes turn this into a bunch of 8 round arrays. I think the key is to have a variety of firing solutions for any given stage. In May I was the match director for one of the bigger local club matches. All of the stages were 6 round neutral, by design. When the bottom feeders figured this out, I heard some squawks about putting on REVO match. When it was all said and done, I heard not one complaint about the stages..........other than they were really tough. Bottom line, build the match to be interesting, and limit the gags or props. Make it a test of a shooter's abilities, not their equipment. And most of all, make it fun. They will beat a path to your door in the future.

As to actual stage plans, there are several online stage libraries to give you ideas. If things at work slow down today, I'll dig up some links and post them for you.

[Carmoney]

Most of the time, when you attempt to make a stage 6-round neutral, you leave the shooter only one way to shoot the thing. You see this in ICORE field courses quite a bit, even at the IRC pretty much everybody shoots nearly every stage the same way.

As glockwerkes mentions, one key to good stage design is to have a variety of solutions for any given stage--hence the term "freestyle." But this is much tougher to achieve than it would first appear.

Good luck! We're building up our big Iowa match this weekend, and will be facing the same challenges.

[chirpy]

A Texas Star makes things real interesting but it sounds like you are just starting out and don't have one.

FWIW

Richard

PS: Have my revo ready to go but medical problems and scheduling have screwed things up this year!

PPS: Sorry overlooked the IPSC rules statement.

Edited June 23, 2009 by chirpy

[Bubber]

Hi folks. I'm running a revolver match, IPSC rules, about 200 rounds, on our little backwoods range. I want to come up with interesting stages; they don't even have to be revolver friendly, but I am willing to bend in that direction. I'm looking for suggestions, gimmicks, nuances or anything else used at other revolver matches that banish the boredom demon. There's not much help or money so things can't be too elaborate.

Jes whar in tha back woods ere youa settin up?.... One Item I like is putting up several shoot targets that are visible from a few other shooting areas. As one stage had four IPSC targets visible from a barrel but when moved beyond a barricade four more were available one of them being one of the ones from the barrel and so on down the line. Another one is the disappearing target. So the shooter decides if it is worth the effort and time to engage it or not. Most of that is not visble on the drawn stage but is taken care of during the set up. later rdd

[mwx40x40]

Google up "California Wheel Burners" you will find stage layouts for ICORE and USPSA on their site.

[Guninhand]

Thanks for the input. I don't have a Texas Star, but even if I did, they are banned by IPSC . Some of the things I'm thinking of are clay targets on cheap sacrificial bamboo stakes, so they can be shot closer than if put on steel stakes. Also use of (cheap cause they are already shot up) blackened targets and no-shoots liberally placed on targets as hard cover and penalties, and the dotted lines of the edge eliminate questionable hits. I also got a bunch of spherical one-ball casters on sale and figure I can make a 36ft runway for movers from cheap 1X3s. There are no permanent walls or ports but we got enough stuff to do up one range. Got 5 smaller ranges making up the big range. 6 mini poppers and 3 big ones, and lots of steel plates. I don't intend to purposely make it revolver friendly, though some stages may turn out that way.