Shoots are too easy nowadays

[chippy]

Just out of curiosity, who are, and where are all of these people that think that shoots are getting to easy?

I have never come across, or been at a shoot where I have heard people say, "not going back there because that was to easy".

I've said it several times. When C class is won in the 90s it's to easy..  in fact when B class is in the 90s it's to easy..

 

[tiptop]

I've said it several times. When C class is won in the 90s it's to easy..  in fact when B class is in the 90s it's to easy..

Really?....I need to find these shoots, so I can reach the dizzy heights of AA. :wink:

 

[chippy]

Really?....I need to find these shoots, so I can reach the dizzy heights of AA. :wink:

A mate of mine has just gone from B to AAA

 

[Sian]

A mate of mine has just gone from B to AAA

So are you saying your mate sticks to easy shoots and has therefore gone from B to AAA?  I know someone who was C about a year back and has gone to A now and is putting in a AA average but he is genuinely really good.

 

[Richard59]

A mate of mine has just gone from B to AAA

These 90 to win C & and your chum B to AAA in six months? where pray tell are these shoots.

Always held high regard for those that can put a 90+ in at at a reg ESP, not changing that anytime soon based on the events Ive shot

 

[JER2]

I remember one evening a couple of winters back I was idly floating around the WWW and I came across a long and fairly acrimonious thread on a site called Shotgunworld. They were arguing about suggested changes to the classification system for sporting clays in the US. Many Americans subscribe to Charlie's view that averages can't possibly work for sporting clays because of the wide variety in difficulty level and weather etc. Apparently they have a much wider range of difficulty between soft local shoots and tougher major events.

It was pretty clear that most of the posters didn't really understand that one poor score doesn't ruin your average for months as seems to happen with American skeet and trap where the top shooters tend to stay home on wet or windy days. It was also obvious that the system of measuring people in terms of where they were placed on each shoot as opposed to what their actual score was and awarding points (or punches as they're called) may seem more fair on a per shoot basis but it's heavily weighted in favour of the higher volume shooters.

I'm not a classification slave but I like the fact that if I were, our averaging system works just as well for those who shoot 1000 targets pa as for those who shoot 20000.

You're dead right.  Most Americans have zero knowledge of the CPSA classification system but are convinced it can't possibly work here. 

The overwhelming majority of naysayers here also have never, EVER shot in the UK but are happy to tell you why our shoots are so much different than yours.  Maybe they are, maybe they're not; but the people complaining speak from ignorance and are convinced they are correct.

I am not a fan of the punch system for the reason you mention.  The reason Master class is so large in the US is because if you are moderately talented and shoot a lot (including a bunch of small bore events) you can accumulate the number of punches to get in.  Add to all that the fact that NSCA shooters can refuse to be down-classed, and you realize that our system is a joke meant only to promote shooting (collection of NSCA target fees) and not to provide any meaningful stratification by skill.

I wouldn't mind a straight up average-based classification like yours.

Nor would I mind a classification system where one's score is indexed as a % of the high gun score; or a system where one's overall finishing position (not just within class) is used to assign a percentile rank then the percentiles averaged over time.  Of course, the class cutoffs should be revised a few times a year and based on a normal distribution, not unlike your issue system.  We might be seeing the seeds of the latter being sown with the introduction last year of the Current Class Ratio (CCR) as a supplemental to punches in up or down classing.

 

[Westward]

Target fees?? Does that mean the NSCA collects money for every registered target shot?

 

[Hamster]

Just out of curiosity, who are, and where are all of these people that think that shoots are getting to easy?

I have never come across, or been at a shoot where I have heard people say, "not going back there because that was to easy".

People tend to mask it by saying soft or my own favourite "steady", no harm in that whatsoever because at the end of the day they're right as there really are such shoots which cater to the less serious but what they forget in the process is overall context. 

In my neck of the woods (which now prolly includes Churchill's and Owls Lodge) the only shoot that could justifiably be called steady is Horne, not so much because the layout as a whole is easy or that many manage 95+, trust me they don't,  or they'd be there kerchinging the £100 quid wouldn't they but because they have a nasty habit of throwing samey single on reports and certain stands don't appear to change much. Therefore when you finish with a 92 a) you don't feel you've shot well and b) you get careless with the bankers. The latter is why there is a clear pecking order even within AAA where the true Greats never moan about the targets "quality" but instead prove theirs.  

It's a perfectly pragmatic desire to want more challenging targets but you must not lose sight of the overall picture, one thing the brave boyz easily overlook is that there is a world of difference between the mentality and mindset of a AAA and AA even compared to a B or less, some people may barely have the means or time to shoot 1 or 2 shoots a month and to them too many "big" targets may well be a poison chalice. Incidentally the last time I politely and articulately asked what "big" meant things went downhill rather fast.  People like to give it large sometimes but baulk when it comes to having a cogent exchange. 

 

[JER2]

Target fees?? Does that mean the NSCA collects money for every registered target shot?

$0.07 per, to be exact.

So you collect money on every target thrown in any registered shoot, and for that you sell a product (punches) which costs nothing to produce.

Nice business model!

 

[Bebo]

People tend to mask it by saying soft or my own favourite "steady", no harm in that whatsoever because at the end of the day they're right as there really are such shoots which cater to the less serious but what they forget in the process is overall context. 

Trouble is, individuals judgement on what is soft will vary. 

I finished at West London on Saturday with a new PB (as did several others on here).  At least two of us felt that the shoot could be described as soft.  However, when the scores came out, they didn't look particularly different from what you would expect at a typical reg shoot.  If you're having a good day and hitting everything, will it not feel like the shoot is 'soft'?  There were three stands at WLSS that had crossers coming from a way out on the banks that were moving with a bit of pace.  I think I missed one out of 12 of them and didn't think they were terribly taxing.  If I hadn't been having such a good day and wasn't moving the gun so well, I may well have considered them to be challenging targets.  Whereas the driven stand, which was probably a piece of cake for those that shoot driven targets well, was far from soft for me.

 

[Wonko the Sane]

I don't know this for a fact AFA sporting goes in the US, but in ATA trap the trend over the years has been to soften the targets to silliness supposedly to keep the hacks  pacified with The Holy Average Card to sooth the impossibility of winning the 200 target miss and outs.  The best still win of course.  From what I've read and heard around it seems that NSCA is sliding into this paradigm thru the last few years with the implementation of their averages card.

I have to admit that your class system is somewhat vague to me as the above posts are saying different things about how the averages are set.  If some scores are thrown out - who decides which shoots and which scores?  All in all it seems to me that sort of manipulation is only giving the system less cred than a straight up who GAF how easy the targets were?

Hamster's comment below is what I'm talking about

Respectfully though my point was more aimed towards demonstrating that the top layer is easily definable by their relative performances - the thing that has taken even me by surprise is how (relatively speaking) far you can be from the Top 20 and still not only be a household name but a multiple winner which again shows high percentage averages aren't the be all and end all. 

Nor would I mind a classification system where one's score is indexed as a % of the high gun score; or one's overall finishing position (not just within class) is used to assign a percentile rank.  We might be seeing the seeds of the latter being sown with the introduction last year of the Current Class Ratio (CCR) as a supplemental to punches in up or down classing.

And that in essence is nothing more than Lewis classification

 

[Bebo]

I have to admit that your class system is somewhat vague to me as the above posts are saying different things about how the averages are set.  If some scores are thrown out - who decides which shoots and which scores?  All in all it seems to me that sort of manipulation is only giving the system less cred than a straight up who GAF how easy the targets were?

 

[Hamster]

Trouble is, individuals judgement on what is soft will vary. 

I finished at West London on Saturday with a new PB (as did several others on here).  At least two of us felt that the shoot could be described as soft.  However, when the scores came out, they didn't look particularly different from what you would expect at a typical reg shoot.  If you're having a good day and hitting everything, will it not feel like the shoot is 'soft'?  There were three stands at WLSS that had crossers coming from a way out on the banks that were moving with a bit of pace.  I think I missed one out of 12 of them and didn't think they were terribly taxing.  If I hadn't been having such a good day and wasn't moving the gun so well, I may well have considered them to be challenging targets.  Whereas the driven stand, which was probably a piece of cake for those that shoot driven targets well, was far from soft for me.

Precisely my point, yes there is such a thing as a soft layout but don't anyone go thinking that means you will automatically fill your boots and shoot well above your average. 

I have to admit that your class system is somewhat vague to me as the above posts are saying different things about how the averages are set.  If some scores are thrown out - who decides which shoots and which scores?  All in all it seems to me that sort of manipulation is only giving the system less cred than a straight up who GAF how easy the targets were?

That's simple, if you bang in a score that is more than 10% below your own personal period average, that is deemed to be unrepresentative of your true ability, this does have critics for and against but it seems to fix more problems that it creates in my opinion. 

 

[chippy]

 a shoot local to me is always known as being stiff. but last sunday the owner softened it because of several complaints. now my average over the previous 7 shoots there is 75.4 with a high of 82, last sunday i shot 93. As a shooter in the bottom of A class i should not be hitting 93. 96 won A and 2x 97s were high. 

 

[Hamster]

 a shoot local to me is always known as being stiff. but last sunday the owner softened it because of several complaints. now my average over the previous 7 shoots there is 75.4 with a high of 82, last sunday i shot 93. As a shooter in the bottom of A class i should not be hitting 93. 96 won A and 2x 97s were high. 

Sounds like it was over softened, not an easy job as it takes a lot of experience to set a shoot with a HG score in mind. 

If I had to take a guess I'd say it sounds like every stand was given a make over when perhaps tweaking three or four would have been adequate. 

 

[JER2]

And that in essence is nothing more than Lewis classification

No, it's not even close. 

The problem with fixing our classification system is that nobody wants to stop and think about what is being proposed.  Instead, every proposal is met with an immediate "that's been tried and didn't work/that will never work" knee jerk and given zero consideration.

That's why I've stopped giving a sh*t about it and never plan to bring it up with the NSCA again.  I just shoot.  If I punch I punch, if I don't I don't.

 

[Skeetfreak]

Target fees?? Does that mean the NSCA collects money for every registered target shot?

Yes.

BUT......

The annual membership is much less than here.  $30 with a e-zine OR $40 with a printed magazine. 

NSSA (skeet) do the same thing - although the target fees are only 0.04 a target instead of 0.07.

It is actually a model i like as if you shoot less your annual fees are less. Shoot more and that increases workload to the association and as such you pay more for that. Works for me. 

 

[Richard59]

 a shoot local to me is always known as being stiff. but last sunday the owner softened it because of several complaints. now my average over the previous 7 shoots there is 75.4 with a high of 82, last sunday i shot 93. As a shooter in the bottom of A class i should not be hitting 93. 96 won A and 2x 97s were high. 

If I ever manage a 90+ Ill be grinning like a Cheshire Cat for weeks, and no I won't be "it was too easy" with the comments, Chippy Id say that your 93 is a terrific score you should be really pleased, as for the 97s winning. in this neck of the woods we often see the AAA & AA superstars rattling off such scores, it is after all how they get & stay AAA whilst the rest of us flounder.

After a recent shoot not to far from my front door, 20+ shots banged in 90+ and the media was alive with critics, what they failed to notice was an entry of 200+ a high proportion being AAA & AA, in such a field, and with these guys driven by fierce competition one would be surprised if it wasn't such a high scoring event.

Do feel at times the shots putting in these scores don't get the acknowledgement that they deserve

 

[Wonko the Sane]

No, it's not even close. 

I'm not gonna get all snarky here and lose my Perfectly Lovely Person badge.  but you clearly seem to misunderstand or not understand some fairly simple mathematical concepts.

Nor would I mind a classification system where one's score is indexed as a % of the high gun score; or one's overall finishing position (not just within class) is used to assign a percentile rank. 

This is what I was referring to in the event that I may have been unclear in my post.

 

[paul b]

I think whats happening is that there's just a lot more good shooters about these days,i genuinely dont think shoots are easier .When the big comps come and the cream goes to the top then thats more of a reflection of the top boys being able to manage a big comp better than the less experienced local reg hg boys.Having said that you then have 2 camps of shooter to keep happy ,one likes a steady score builder to keep there averages high and like me theres some who like to get a kick out of hitting big targets and dont care what that does to averages a hg in very low 90s with a field of big names in it would probably put me in the 60s if i shot ok but i would enjoy that more than a staedy comp putting me in the 80s.