unsporting behaviour spoiling our 10m open events.

[terencefw]

Post removed- due to new information

[MikeLewis]

This year the Welsh Open was scored using decimal scoring. If you look at the saved live results and look at the score sheet in old money the match score was 557. On average your top class shooters are gaining 25-30 pts using decimals whereas developing shooters between 15-25 pts. You may feel that this may still be a little excessive for a C class shooter.

However the individual that shot it is a developing shooter, so it may be a case of a couple of things. The entry may have been made 3 or 4 months ago a lot of work can be done in that time, it may just be development in technique. Or in the last week he may have just had a eureka moment and clicked on the point. This is also the first Air competition I've known him shoot. How does training performance hold up under competition stress? You don't know until you actually try it.

I agree with you that our sport needs the lower classifications, they are the ones that keep the sport going. But in the same vein should you complain about someone maybe having a good day, possibly shooting a new pb and performing well? Sadly he never shot a second match. So can't tell if it was everything clicking or true performance level.

Mike

[kindwarf]

These people are only cheating themselves in the long run, they are dishonorable and should be mixing with decent people.

[terencefw]

I did not know about the decimal scoring thing - I would accept that 550 ish would be achivable from a person doing 530 in practice...shame you did not explain this on the WAA fb page it would educate others as well as myself at the same time. others who are also not knowing about modern perhaps complicated scoring.
I Was not personaly affected in the competition, but there were others who might feel agrieved by being beaten by such a high score with in the class and might now feel happy with this knowlege i have gained today - thank you.

I also agree, that a well subscribed "C" class underpins the competition both in terms of finance and future support. but it remains to me dissapointing that on this occasion the people who should have won it didn't. - in fact by not pushing the two formentioned shooters to a higher class you did them a dis-service in that it builds their confidence in knowing they were competing at higher level than the base C class.

Am I. dissapointed in my treatment on the waa fp page - Yes! i thought I was amongst mature people who were able to discuss a query intelligently. Perhaps it explains why there are so few posts on the page. in line with your reply i have amended this post.

thanks.

[MikeLewis]

I think you misunderstand my position. I'm a fellow shooter and a member of the WAA. Other than sometimes being involved with construction and disassembly of the range, I am not involved in the running or organisation of the competition. I tried to post a reply to your post on fb, but was unable to. Realising that there had been a misunderstanding of the scoring I felt it only fair to explain this.

As to re classification, I'm unsure which side of the fence I sit with your viewpoint. There is certainly validity in them being pushed up a class due to a good score, they would have respectably finished 2nd and 4th in b class. However I would also say it depends on the circumstances on how it was shot. If they were two pb's that came out of the blue, then would you be punishing them for shooting well? The competitor that shot the 571 shot a 560 in the second, so how do you view the 571?

I have no idea why your posts were removed on the fb page, it was nothing to do with me, presumably it was admin. I am surprised as all WAA officials are friendly helpful people. Yours was a genuine query and a full explaination in public would have been a greater resolution. In no official capacity please accept my apologies on behalf of the WAA.

Mike

[terencefw]

thanks for your reply Mike- I have left the fb group as even before my recent postings, it was becoming baren of any interesting posts.. Its a shame you are not representing the WAA as your take on this issue is very good, illucid and a clear one, even enlightening me on how the new decimal scoring is lifting shooters scores way out of their class c average.

With reference to a person scoring 571 - its a grey area. I'm not saying this situation is clear cut but I think it is one that needs debating where the one person who raises the issue does not get penalised or victimised for raising an issue affecting a number of people who they themselves feel they aught not to raise for obvious reasons.

I am going to let things lie now, only to say this, that competitions albeit by WAA or the NSRA are going to have problems now getting class "C" newbies to compete with scores of 580 ex 600. in essence it will be to turn up and shoot for the fun and experience (as I do! ) and not to compete with a chance of winning. the class. I may even message Maz, for her insight...

thanks for your reply - Appreciated and look forward to meeting you at a future open.

[Hemmers]

Rather late to the discussion, one assumes that C Class was won by an unusual margin. Whilst there is always a risk of pot hunters in any system which does not enforce promotion/demotion between classes (as is the case in the UK - although we have national classifications people are often able to promote/demote themselves based on average), one should always be careful before calling for reclassification. I was once shooting in a 50m comp with two classes - Open/A and B.

I didn't do anything very special but a friend won B-Class. For about 10 minutes. The organisers decided that no one in B-Class could possibly shoot better than someone in A-Class and promptly reclassified anyone in B who had shot better than the bottom A-Class shooter.

That, obviously, was a dick move. There is always overlap between classes - that's why we have such a thing as promotion and demotion. This friend had not shot far above his average, nor above the boundary given for B-Class. Some people have a good day and others bad. To expect no overlap whatsoever is laughable. He went from winning to about 8th off the bottom, as did the other two medallists. He hasn't bothered that event with his patronage or entry fees again.

I also expect there to be some furtling around this year and next as competitions move to decimal scoring. I've not shot a 60 shot match on decimals yet so have no idea how I'll do on decimals compared to integer scores. People with electronics are still updating their software and transitioning to the 2013 ISSF rules, whilst comps on paper targets (whether 3-card or boxes) are having to make the decision whether to spend the extra time and effort on decimal depending on the event, number of scorers and number of competitors!

[RobinC]

A nice sensible reply from Hemmers, its a very dangerous game to talk cheating, its an emotive subject and is best kept to ones self and not raised until it is very definitive, to do so is not good practice.
Many new shooters just click and make massive steps, we see the same in postals, they should be congratulated, the next time and the following events is the time to see what class they are in and no organiser should reclassify a competitor at and after an event based on that one result only, perhaps just make a note for next time.
Now the decimal issue is another subject thrown in by the fiasco called the 2013 ISSF rules, except at world cups and international championships most other sensible countries have refused to use these stupid revisions to equipment and procedures in their own national events, Germany and the USA included which is the home nations of the men who are responsible for the damn things! But good old Britain, the country with the worst range standards in Europe, very little electronic ranges, ageing shooters, but of course more ISSF judges and officials than any of the others, we do love a jobsworth! The fact that it could wreck our sport is irrelavent, new rules, yippee, we must rush in and enforce them even if they stop people from shooting, people who can not afford new compliant kit!
Decimal scoring? Firstly its only a trial by the ISSF in air rifle and smallbore rifle, and we are using it, with our crap facilities? The next thing the jobsworths will be suggesting we use the hand scoring guages to score paper cards this way! That should really encourage scorers at meetings! When most British shooters, even the best struggle to make the top twenty in world cups?
Is it fair? When its technical possible for an air rifle 365 ex 400 to beat a 400 ex 400, NO!
35 X 9.9 = 346.5, + 5 X 10.8 = 54, total 400.5!!!!! Thats a good club score beats what up until this year was 40 X 10.0, a 400 and an equal world record! The plot has been lost, the ISSF are complicating the technical rules so old kit is non compliant helping to drive the sport back wards, the scoring is moving to a mystery game, and the UK merrily supports it, good move guys, we don't need anti gun lobbies, the sport is intent on killing itself.
I'm 66, I've seen the struggle we've had to encourage British shooting to follow international standards and have worked for it for 40 years, now the international body has changed, it has no interest in grass roots, hence the revolt against it in many countries, I'd like to know shooting as a decent sport will continue long after I'm gone, but the way the ISSF is going I doubt it.
I love this sport and I hate the stupidity of the elitist, although there is nothing wrong with eletism except as now when its at the exclusion of its grass roots, which with a little intelect now sadly lacking they fail to see is where the elite come from, and the blind following this group gets from the UK.
Whoops! A bit of a thead drift, rant over!

[P30man]

Robin, very well put. The Fareham open will never go down the route of decimal scoring, any profit we make is measured in pounds rather than tens of pounds, but even if we could afford to buy the new equipment, the whole essence of this shoot is to bring on the newbies.

[terencefw]

The reason i started this thread was because i was incenced that at a recent comp i attended, Class c ( av 524 or less ) was won by 571 and 582. now no matter how the organisers wrap up this decimal scoring thing - there is no way a class c shooter will want to spend good hard earned money to participate at a shoot when he has little chance of reaching that score.... listen if I was that good shooting inner tens- i quite simply would not be class c....but the organisers have explained the way it works with decimal scoring and i accept their decision. but hey! this is a can of worms for organisers who go down the decimal scoring route.

[Hemmers]

The reason i started this thread was because i was incenced that at a recent comp i attended, Class c ( av 524 or less ) was won by 571 and 582. now no matter how the organisers wrap up this decimal scoring thing - there is no way a class c shooter will want to spend good hard earned money to participate at a shoot when he has little chance of reaching that score.... listen if I was that good shooting inner tens- i quite simply would not be class c....but the organisers have explained the way it works with decimal scoring and i accept their decision. but hey! this is a can of worms for organisers who go down the decimal scoring route.

That's not a fair comparison though is it - surely it's 524 ex600, compared to 571 ex654 (my understanding. Or was the class boundary 524 ex654, they've taken the entry forms down along with the class boundaries).

524/600 = 87%
87% of 654 is 571.2
So 571 is spot on the top average for the class.

People in C-Class do have a chance of reaching those scores because they have an extra 54 points available to shoot for. They are presumably asking for scores ex600 because people actually have an ex600 average from last season, but it's to be expected that scores under the new regime will be completely different.
In cartridge it's like asking for best 10-of-12 indoor cards on the Bisley Week entry forms for those without an outdoor average or National Classification. Your ability indoor at short range has next to no bearing on your outdoor long range scores. You're not going to go to Century and put in 95s just because your indoor average is 95 - it's just a system to group reasonably comparable people, even though their scores will look very different.


Interestingly, I suspect the decimal scoring favours worse shooters (though I've no statistical analysis to back it up). Someone shooting mostly tens is unlikely to be shooting a lot of 10.9s. Even indoors, batch tested ammo won't shoot 654 - just natural variation. Those top shots will be mostly picking up 10.0-10.5, though they'll get the odd 10.8/10.9. They'll only be using the bottom end of the decimals.

By contrast someone who shoots reasonably well but spanners out the odd 8 will be using the whole spectrum - from x.1 to x.9. Where you used to drop a point for 9.9, now you're only loosing a couple of tenths on your marginal shots.
If you've got a top shoot putting in 10-10.5 and then a slightly less good shooter putting out a few more 9s - but 9.5-9.9, then they're behind by a few tenths, compared to the full point they'd lose with integer scoring.

It'll be interesting to see what happens over the next 12 months, but my expectation would be that on average the scores will bunch up a bit - the tail end of the score sheet will not be trailing as far behind as they did previously.
If you're shooting steady 9.8s you won't beat the guy shooting 10.4s, but you'll be much closer to them at the end than if you were getting 9s and them 10s.

Is it arbitrary? Yes. But that's the nature of target shooting - years ago someone arbitrarily decided the 10 ring was x-minutes of arc wide, and each subsequent ring was y-minutes. In 1989 we arbitrarily shrunk our domestic targets in the UK because too many people were shooting clean.
We could halve the rings and have each shot out of 20 (or shrunk the whole target), or have 109 small, integer rings. They've gone for decimals. It is arbitrary? Yes. But no less so than using shoot-offs, count-back or inner-tens for tie breaking. They had too many people shooting 600s (especially in Prone and AR, less for AP), so they've picked a new system to run with.

[RobinC]

They had too many people shooting 600s (especially in Prone and AR, less for AP), so they've picked a new system to run with.

That is simply not so, even in world cups, world championhips, and olympics, 600's and 400's were rare, and the decimals were always there at that level to split ties. Just a new system? Ok if every range and club had the facility but we have one antique range with electronics, and the ocasional club that has the odd one here in the UK, and it does favour the lower shooters, as I said a 365 club shooter can beat a world record 400. But how we score is irrelavent to me, after all, the shot is in the same hole regardless, but it does mean that a club shooter can not shoot on a comparable system in their club so has no camparison, where with 9's and tens they did.
To me the crime of the ISSF is changing the equipment rules to make pre 2013 kit illegal or involving expensive mods or replacement, our club kit accumalated over years to allow young shooters to compete nationaly is now non compliant so they will not shoot in open shoots, this will happen all over the UK.

[Powderfinger]

RobinC is spot on about the ISSF and about decimal scoring.

I am convinced that the ISSF has no interest in helping grass roots shooting.

Decimal scoring, like equipment changes, rules about air-cylinder age and the "strimmer line" safety flags just causes unnecessary expense making life hard for the average club or participant.

I would compare the ISSF with the much-disliked FIFA but at least FIFA has had the sensible approach of insisting that top-level football is played with the same equipment and rules that are available to grass-roots football.

Notably, the ISSF also opposes shooting at animal-shaped targets and opposes practical shooting sports.

Except when ISSF competitors want to shoot the running-boar discipline that ISSF likes.

[Hemmers]

I would compare the ISSF with the much-disliked FIFA but at least FIFA has had the sensible approach of insisting that top-level football is played with the same equipment and rules that are available to grass-roots football.

Except that FIFA have done much the same - but by holding back the use of Video refs and goal line tech on the premise that the World Cup should be the same as Pub League. Which is fine except pub league doesn't have a dozen hi-def cameras capturing every mistake the ref makes, allowing the pundits to tear in without the ref even knowing they've made an error until after the match, leading to a non-trivial number of disallowed goals and poor decisions during critical World Cup matches making them all look like fools.


Obviously the ISSF don't have the grassroots as a priority - their main goal is ensuring they do not get squeezed out of the Olympics or have the number of events reduced, hence the use of electronic targetry to provide instant results.

Although that said they've completely shot themselves in the foot by making the finals massively more complex than before, in the name of making it "easier" for non-shooters to pick up and follow.

I think one thing we do need to recognise is that the UK is unusual in the strength of our domestic disciplines - smallbore clubs in Germany shoot just ISSF - whether outdoor or training on indoor 50m ranges.
10-spots and Dewar cards are a UK thing - it's not the ISSF's fault that we persist with our own domestic disciplines - to the extent that the British Prone Championship (the Roberts) is shot as a Double Dewar at 50m and 100yd.

Now I enjoy shooting 100yd, but if we're going to bitch about the lack of ISSF-compatible ranges in the UK then how about our governing body makes people move over? Maybe then clubs will take the initiative to develop their facilities. Perhaps having shot Stages 1 and 2 of the Roberts on Century, the final should be shot as an English Match on the Cooper Range. One idea would be to shoot the English Match stage of the Grand Agg on the Cooper Range instead of as 3-Card (yes, I know for most classes there isn't capacity, but I'm just toying with the idea of getting people to shoot ISSF style matches as part of their normal meetings, rather than demanding they enter specific ISSF style matches. I would be in the same boat if I hadn't been dragged to them by friends, but many clubs don't have people with the sort of experience that I enjoyed to encourage members to try something different.
Is it any surprise that the British Airgun Championships are far better attended than the British 50m Championships?
Air Rifle and Pistol targets and distances are the same for domestic and ISSF - yes you do 40/60 shots (not 20 as for most postals), but the domestic course vaguely resembles the international course!

In cartridge it's utterly different.

As way of example I was talking to someone a while back about ranges and we were shooting the breeze about if we rebuilt a range we knew. Being a decent sized plot I pointed out that you'd build it as a 50m indoor range, not 25yd.
But why ever would you do that?
Well, to train at 50m through the winter and do positional work away from the wind.
The idea was ridiculed - "noone wants indoor 50m".
This ignores the point that the GB squad actively seeks out indoor 50m ranges like Wigan or the reconfigured Malcolm Cooper Range at Bisley.
"But the cost."
What cost? By the time you've paid for drawings/planning permission, got a digger on site to do the ground works, got concrete on site, and built a 25yd range and clubroom, making that 25yd range 50m is negligible - the cost is getting the site sorted in the first place. Adding a few metres to a building doesn't cost much in the scheme of the project. It's the cheap end - you don't need to heat downrange, or plaster it, or anything else. It's extra bricks and a few extra lights.
Having a sparky wire up 15 lights doesn't cost 50% more than having them do 10. The cost is getting them on site in the first place. They're going to charge you for the day whether they knock off at 4 or 5.

but tragically people don't think ahead - they lay out the range they want right now and build that - they should lay out the range complex of their dreams, and then build the bits they can afford (or need right now), ensuring that everything is orientated and positioned to allow sane future expansion 10 years down the line.

The ISSF have done some bloody stupid stuff of late, but our problems in the UK are not borne of the 2013 rule book, nor even the 2008 one. It's a British problem, clinging onto our legacy courses of fire and I don't pretend to have the answer, though as I say, one has to look at the similarity between NSRA and ISSF air rules and think there's some sense there that needs passing over to cartridge.
By that I don't mean bin dewar - I enjoy it, and wouldn't want 100yd to go away, but equally the idea that ISSF courses are elite and NSRA are grassroots also needs overturning - a couple of years ago someone on another forum asked how you went about getting invited to the British 50m Championships, labouring under the idea it was an invitation-only selection shoot. In reality it's an open, but that's the level of misinformation that's floating around.

It's the old catch-22 - clubs aren't going to invest in electronics, or tarting up their 50m facilities until there is substantial demand from their members. But that demand won't emerge whilst the British Prone Championship is shot on Dewar cards, along with most county and a lot of other national stuff.
Wales have made really good strides and have a great set of mega-link gear at national level that they can cart to events, and one would hope that counties might take the initiative to pool the resources of their clubs for the sake of a pool of electronics that could be used across the spectrum - for 10m Championships, 50m prone and 3P.
Electronics are coming down,and with the new laser and hybrid models,you don't even have to find money for the consumables like rubber, or spare parts (mechanical motors). With solid state laser systems counties should be able to maintain a pool of reliable gear that is cheap to run (unlike some early electronic adopters who got burnt with the costs of the rubber and sometimes poor mechanical reliability with the moving parts).

I constantly work against the view that one does 60-shot matches if one has GB ambitions, and for everyone else there is Dewar. What rubbish! I shot at Bisley this year, and the County Dewar - I also shot ISSF matches on electronics and boxes (the Welsh 50m Open and Isle of Man Easter shoot respectively).

[tufty]

That is simply not so, even in world cups, world championhips, and olympics, 600's and 400's were rare, and the decimals were always there at that level to split ties. Just a new system? Ok if every range and club had the facility but we have one antique range with electronics, and the ocasional club that has the odd one here in the UK, and it does favour the lower shooters, as I said a 365 club shooter can beat a world record 400. But how we score is irrelavent to me, after all, the shot is in the same hole regardless, but it does mean that a club shooter can not shoot on a comparable system in their club so has no camparison, where with 9's and tens they did.
To me the crime of the ISSF is changing the equipment rules to make pre 2013 kit illegal or involving expensive mods or replacement, our club kit accumalated over years to allow young shooters to compete nationaly is now non compliant so they will not shoot in open shoots, this will happen all over the UK.

An excellent post Robin,and I completely agree with you,the only thing to come out of the latest ISSF meddling is to discourage the very people it should be encouraging within the sport,it's not cheap to start with,without them throwing these seemingly pointless changes in every year......do they never wonder why the average age of competitive shooters goes up year on year