"Be sure of your target..." in competition

[cclaxton]

I regularly go up to Sights Practical for their IDPA match and they have a shoothouse that I love to engage. It is not a legal IDPA COF, let me say that up front. The way it works is they use standard IDPA targets but they put pictures of guns, knives, cell phones, hammers, and sometimes guns and badges together. There are usually about 9-10 threat targets and 6-10 non-threats which can include the badge-gun combination. You are usually given a 100 second par time. So a perfect score is 100, down zero.

When I first shot this COF, I ended up shooting the LE's and sometimes other non-threats almost every time. Now that I have shot it more than 8 times, I never shoot the LE's or non-threats because I learned to "Be sure of my target..." which is one of the four primary safety rules. That COF makes me THINK BEFORE I pull the trigger....is it a real threat? The 100s par time gives me the ability to make those decisions without the speed pushing me too fast to make fast decisions and thus making mistakes.

I don't want to get into a discussion on whether this should be IDPA legal or not.

I am more interested in hearing whether this type of COF should somehow be included in competitive sports because it trains us to THINK BEFORE we pull the trigger and fully upholds one of the primary safety rules to "Be sure of your target, and what is beyond it." (I have hit a few non-threats because they were behind my threat target.

My own view is that the idea of speed competes with the idea of making sound judgements on targets, but they also do belong together...we need to make speedy and sound judgments.

The IDPA guys are so caught-up in the current rules changes that they can't really hear anything new. So, I thought I would toss it out here.

Cody

[Sal Picante]

I always loved stages like this in IDPA!

Our match director would actually put a moveable cardboard cutout of hands/gun/knife on different targets at semi-random in a stage. You'd open a door, know where the targets were, but then had to look for the props/etc.

[jetfire]

The only way to make a stage like that work in competition is for it to be a blind (no walkthrough) stage. Blind stages have no business in any shooting sport such as IDPA so long as it purports to be a fair competition.

Blind stages are fine for one-off tactical matches, but they don't belong in anything serious.

[littlejerry]

The only way to make a stage like that work in competition is for it to be a blind (no walkthrough) stage. Blind stages have no business in any shooting sport such as IDPA so long as it purports to be a fair competition.

Blind stages are fine for one-off tactical matches, but they don't belong in anything serious.

Really? Why would you say that?

Stages shot blind are testing more than just raw firearm manipulation skills. Some of the most fun I've had has been on blind stages.

[Mr_White]

What you describe, including the badge/weapon combination, is a way we often arrange live fire threat ID and assessment exercises in our training group. We don't use it as a timed and scored competitive exercise, but using a PAR time or arranging things like WIILSHOOT said seem to have some potential.

[cclaxton]

Before the new IDPA rules, I shot a match last year at the shoothouse and it went like this:
Standing in front of a table, holstered and gun hot;
five cards face down on the table. Each card had a symbol on its face: diamond, square, circle, star and moon. Every target in that part of the shoothouse COF had a different symbol on it, and you were able to walk through and see all the targets before the stage. There were about 7 targets that you had to engage either from cover or while advancing, depending on the location in the room.

On the buzzer turn over ONE card, and the target with that symbol was a non-threat. Draw, and engage.
The end of this stage was at a door, where we would top-off and prepare for the next stage in the back half of the house, which used the same symbol idea. While I am stopped there and tell the SO that I didn't see my symbol, so I shot all the targets. He smiled, and said, "It was there...you shot it."

I learned a valuable lesson...LOOK AT THE TARGETS!.

I think what happens in competition is that since there are only two kinds of targets, we don't really think about them...they become threat or non-threat and we don't really think about looking at the target. That is my point.....how can we "Be sure of your target..." if we are subconsciously making shoot/no-shoot decisions?

CC

[JeffJ]

Blind stages are tricky in competition because it is very difficult if not impossible for them to remain "blind." Even you suppose that everyone is honest and not looking for an advantage there is a real practical problem of scoring and taping, which is usually done by the squad. It ends up making for a stage is really difficult to be "fair" in the sense that everyone comes into it with an equal opportunity.

I shot an IDPA stage once (I have no idea if that was IDPA legal or not) - there was array of targets downrange, the stage was shot "stand and deliver" with a reload mandated by the amount of targets. The shooter started facing uprange, once the shooter had turned, a t-shirt was placed on one of the targets to indicate a "no-shoot." It was cute, but I don't know if it really caused learning to occur, the people that shot the no-shoot where the people that usually shoot no-shoots.

[Mr_White]

I think what happens in competition is that since there are only two kinds of targets, we don't really think about them...they become threat or non-threat and we don't really think about looking at the target. That is my point.....how can we "Be sure of your target..." if we are subconsciously making shoot/no-shoot decisions?

Positively ID'ing your target in competition means first determining that it's cardboard or steel (or whatever type of targets are being used) and not a real person, and second, that it's not a no-shoot.

That is different from what I would consider a robust threat ID and assessment procedure for use out in the world (credit to Paul Howe): look at the whole person, then the hands, then the waistline, then the immediate surrounding area.

I think the fundamental procedure of threat ID and assessment does exist in competition, but it's way easier, abbreviated, and is different from threat ID and assessment out in the world.

[jetfire]

Really? Why would you say that?

Stages shot blind are testing more than just raw firearm manipulation skills. Some of the most fun I've had has been on blind stages.

Because blind stages present safety hazards for the SO, and are almost impossible to actually keep blind so that no one gets an unfair advantage. They're fine for tactical practice or whatnot, but they don't belong in serious matches where there are trophies, titles, and money on the line.

[Sal Picante]

I should add that the stages weren't blind, but you didn't know which target was going to take priority or be a non-threat...