Shoots are too easy nowadays
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Steve Lovatt
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What I am trying to get at is clays need to be enjoyable to shoot at , give shooters of all ages and abilities time , vision and interesting combinations to shoot at , in my own opinion nowadays far too many are just flung up sky wards left to their own devices and fall away or as an opposite hammered into the floor at about 20 yards off the trap .
ive never looked at cut off points , not a clue what my average is and to be honest I don't care , I want to shoot good sporting presentations and I'm sure there must be another 160ish people in England that want to do the same .
we are always going to get one person that goes daft on a day with a score example mr Myers in a shoot off I did at the Classique last week shot 9x10 on a 70 yard battue and a 80 yard battue , but you wouldn't want to see that as a stand on a normal course , would you ????
see you at Westfield this Sunday for a sporting course with good combinations oh and yes £100 first in each class
ive never looked at cut off points , not a clue what my average is and to be honest I don't care , I want to shoot good sporting presentations and I'm sure there must be another 160ish people in England that want to do the same .
we are always going to get one person that goes daft on a day with a score example mr Myers in a shoot off I did at the Classique last week shot 9x10 on a 70 yard battue and a 80 yard battue , but you wouldn't want to see that as a stand on a normal course , would you ????
see you at Westfield this Sunday for a sporting course with good combinations oh and yes £100 first in each class
shootinguru
Well-known member
A lot of these coloured clays are bad sellers!grounds get them cheap so they use them! False economy?
A lot of these coloured clays are bad sellers!grounds get them cheap so they use them! False economy?
A lot of these coloured clays are bad sellers!grounds get them cheap so they use them! False economy?
Nimbusgb
Well-known member
Add to all of the above that these days there is a wealth of help available to help a participants shooting, books and videos, people are more used to using coaches and even sports psychologists. Eyewear has improved. Guns and cartridges may have improved. Even the reliability of electric traps over the old manual trappers which contributes to mental attitude may have affected scores.
Given all the above it's bloody surprising that averages have not gone up by 10 or more! I'd say targets have actually made very little change in scores, peoples approach to shooting has changed dramatically.
Given all the above it's bloody surprising that averages have not gone up by 10 or more! I'd say targets have actually made very little change in scores, peoples approach to shooting has changed dramatically.
If recent history is any measure, there's a good chance of a three-peat.
Our top guys are shooting incredibly well. I had the pleasure to be squadded with David Radulovich on a 50 target FITASC side event a few weeks back. I wouldn't put it past Team USA to do a three-peat on the World FITASC too.
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There is a European Championship this weekend in Piancardato (FITASC tho) - will be interesting how it turns out. I was there in spring and HOA managed to get 182/200, only 3 managed above 180 and only 10 above 170...it was hard enough.
lost another "friend" who hates facts. 
Wonko the Sane
Well-known member
Just like here, in sporting and trap both the Holy Average and class assignment have become the goal of losers and the target "managers". The concept of some meaningful "average" in sporting in totally ridiculous as there is no standard field of fire to base it on. Judicious selection can make for impressive, or the opposite as desired, averages that contain no real indication of ability.
As I have mentioned many times and in many places the only class system that has any relationship to reality is a placing points based system.
As to the OP question, I think that the obvious wins of big time events by a relatively few individuals points out that "high averages" by others may not be indicative of skill and soft courses whether they exist or not have no influence on who wins Big$ events. Ah, well. What it really comes down to it seems is that if a shooter wants to fixate on average then that is a fine goal. I guess.
As I have mentioned many times and in many places the only class system that has any relationship to reality is a placing points based system.
As to the OP question, I think that the obvious wins of big time events by a relatively few individuals points out that "high averages" by others may not be indicative of skill and soft courses whether they exist or not have no influence on who wins Big$ events. Ah, well. What it really comes down to it seems is that if a shooter wants to fixate on average then that is a fine goal. I guess.
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Nimbusgb
Well-known member
Golf seems to manage it pretty well. Different courses, altitudes, weather, grass, terrain and a hundred other variables for every round. And yet they seem to come up with a pretty workable handicap system.
The secret is in handicapping the course as well.
If the results off a days shoot don't fit a standard distribution then everyones results are adjusted until they do fit before feeding in to the classification system.
I straighted my local club shoot twice in two years. 50x50. In 4 years I've never come close to straighting a reg 100 ........... not by a long way. I'm under no illusions that I'm an A class shooter on anything but that local shoot. If scores from that shoot were included in classification calculations I would be though.
Whilst I agree the system has room for improvement, as ever studying actual figures will prove that it is perfectly possible to rely on it as it is to separate the men from the boys : https://www.cpsa.co.uk/rankings/search?issueid=39&disciplineid=2&classificationid=&categoryid=&adjtargets=1000&mingrounds=5&membershipno=EE65335
Every one of those names will be familiar to the more experienced shooters and if you care to flick through the pages you will come to the inevitable conclusion that DESPITE its flaws and the "logical" critique of the non standardised format for ESP (that's the whole point why we love it in the first place) making classifications a lottery, the facts on paper tell a very different story to assumptions.
The reason is of course in the concept of "averages" itself, meaning that in the end so long as you select a fairly representative number of targets V grounds shot (1000 & 5 in this case) then things will average out in time, everyone gets the odd easy floppers day as well as a "hard" one, poor performances that are below your accepted norm are also dropped out to make figures more genuine.
Sorry but I'm afraid there really is no conspiracy out there with people who seemingly gather around "easy" grounds to falsely get themselves a higher class than they deserve, not saying there aren't one or two if you spend weeks analysing stuff but certainly not how things are in real life. There perhaps used to be a case where the better shots binned their poor cards but even that is now no more, I always personally thought people did it out of embarrassment but accept it may have had more to do with sponsorship in some cases.
Bebo
Well-known member
Playing with the search criteria in the rankings bit of the CPSA website is fun. Trouble is, however I sort it I don't even come out as the best shot in my house!
I think that works more towards the higher classes where consistency is less of an issue even in harsh weather or other criteria. I did a search on South East B Class and what we all finished on average wise issue 54 and I came out 37th in the list. I did not specify how many grounds we needed to shoot. The only name I recognised as a serious shooter was Glen Goldthorpe, the others I either did not know or knew very little about. It is interested the difference also in the amount of targets that have been shot. I then did the same with minimum of 5 grounds and I was 21st, then 10 grounds I was 6th, then 20 grounds I was 4th and then 30 grounds - I was the only one left. I love playing with that. I don't really know what my point is to be fair other than so many factors play into how well you can do at a shoot at my sort of level where one day I am a demon and on the very same day or the day after I can be a numpty. What is very real is that I do travel to many different grounds, all year round and have shot in weather where I should really be committed and all of this will have affected my average without going into my hormonal fluctuations and days where illness really should have made me not go. I also admit that perhaps two or three shoots in one day will have some affect also no doubt but I am only here once and I am on the catch up so I am greedy.
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As you rightly point out yours is a very extreme example because of the sheer numbers of reg targets you shoot which by definition means doing several in one day at times (which won't help if you factor in fatigue and you being a slight person) and the reality that it also means you won't be able to avoid poor weather.
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.
I agree Hammie and thanks for calling me slight because really I am a little tubby toots.
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.
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.
I don't think it does but I don't have the answer to it so it is what it is and that's that.
I have not heard "its too easy" just "it's poop" or "it's on the steadier side".
tiptop
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