Winter Rules: Part 1

Were it not for the horribly destructive effects of Global Warming, we should be will into the Rainy Season now.

For IPSC competition, this means that every outdoor match will be composed in equal parts of

• chilled, soaked, cranky competitors and workers
• soggy, slippery, hard-to-score cardboard targets
• target frames (and steel Popper targets) that are blown down by the wind
• slippery footing, and water saturated soil in which Popper stands dig deeper into the mud every time the steel falls ... changing the calibration
• difficult to score paper targets from which tape will disappear

THOUGHTS ON STAGE CONSTRUCTION, AND TAPING TARGETS

Good stage design and quality construction techniques are more critical during this part of the year. Travel conditions are less than optimal. Shorter daylight hours mean that we have less time to set up, shoot, and tear down the stages. As workers, rainy/muddy conditions make it more difficult to secure target frames, keep cardboard from being soaked, and handle wet, slippery and heavy steel targets.

As a consequence, there is a temptation to take short-cuts during stage construction. We're wet, we're cold, and we just want to put up the minimum amount of stage components.

We also tend to take shortcuts during shooting.

Most frequently, the practice of covering cardboard targets with plastic bags to protect them from the rain often increases frustration. It's easier to bag the targets before mounting them on the frames. Unfortunately, this means the targets will be stapled on each side of the target two or three times. It's impossible to tape the targets during the match because there isn't enough slack in the bags to reach up where the holes are, so competitors slash the bags until they can reach the holes. Then the wind blows the slashed bag apart, the rain soaks the targets, and the tape just falls off.

(Hint: bag the targets after they are stapled to the frame, then bag the targets. Put a couple of staples near the top of the target, through the bags. This will prevent the bags from being blown off by the wind, and the tapers can still lift the bags to tape the holes.)

Many of us who shoot several times a month, all year long, have bought Target Tapers. These are plastic tape-dispensers which allow us to quickly cover the bullet holes with squares of adhesive tape. They are very convenient, quick and easy to use, and even have the added advantage of increasing our reach when access to the surface of the target is restricted by bagging the targets.

Unfortunately, they provide too small a surface for the tape to reliably stick to targets which have become wet. Leave your Target Taper in the bag, and use Masking Tape instead to cover the bullet holes in cardboard targets. You can tear off great long strips of tape, using enough to ensure that they will stay in place. The earlier holes will be covered by enough tape that the surface of the target will soon be criss-crossed with tape. Masking tape is less likely to soak up water than cardboard; it is easier to get tape to stick to wet tape, than it is to get tape to stick to wet cardboard. Be profligate in the use of masking tape.

Let's go back to setting up the cardboard targets for a moment.

Most of us have become enamored with using a minimum number of target sticks to mount the maximum number of paper targets. That works during the dry months, when we don't have to bag the targets. But in the Rainy Season, overlapping targets are impossible to bag. Stage Designers should STRONGLY consider the use of painting paper targets with 'hard cover' Black paint instead of embedding white 'no-shoot' targets which must be stapled together to provide reliable scoring when a shot passes through a penalty target and then hits a scoring target.

It's always a good idea to deny the shooter a stage of full-size targets; make him pay for being too hasty with his shots, it will make a better man of him. (Assume the usual apologies for sexist bias in these remarks; constructing Feminist-Friendly sentences is too stilted and sacrifices clarity of concept for the dubious benefit of Political Correctness.)

But it is better to minimize the number of White Penalty Targets (which must be cautiously taped and sited, while they make it difficult to tape the accompanying Shoot Targets when the bags are stapled too tightly to allow for taping the bullet holes), and allow target restriction techniques which do not provide such match management penalties. To make this clearer: don't use no-shoots, use hard-cover instead.

Target Replacement
It's a good idea for the Match Director to provide a generous supply of replacement targets for each stage. They should be stored in a place where they are not going to get rain-soaked before they are used. Then provide a defined time in the match when all squads should replace the targets.

Example: "After you have completed your third stage of the six stage match, replace all targets which need replacement before shooting the fourth stage of the match. Don't replace the targets on the stage you are leaving; replace the targets on the stage you are about to shoot."

Provide plenty of staples, and make sure that the targets are all easy to replace.

Translation, for those who have not been paying attention: put one target on one stand, provide replacement bags, don't leave sticks poking up above targets, don't make the cardboard targets lean to one side so that you can't bag them after they have been stapled to the frame, and put no more than two staples, no less than one, through every bag. Oh, and make sure the staples securing the bags go into the frame, so they don't pull out.

Is it necessary to mention that the purpose of these instructions is to insure that the bag will protect the target from the weather, and still prevent the plastic bag from blowing off when the wind gusts -- and yet making it easy for the squads to tape the bullet holes without ripping or cutting the bags?

Design and Construction

During the Rainy Season, it is even more important that good design techniques be used to insure that there are no problems on any stage. Everybody may be assumed to be wet, tired, cold and cranky. It's hard to make problems go away. It's easier to make sure that the problems don't occur.

Toward this end, allow the stage designs to be simple, the stage procedures to be easily understood (and subject to only one interpretation), and don't put up complicated stages which are likely to cause mechanical problems. Mister Fixit is home in bed with the flu, so keep the number of swingers and bobbers and other moving targets down to the bare minimum. (The 'bare minimum' of moving targets is, essentially, zero.)

Every cardboard target must be bagged to protect it from the rain. Target arrays which move and which incorporate cardboard targets must still be bagged. Moving targets which are protected by a bag have two very important vulnerabilities during the Rainy Season.

1. They are made of cardboard, so they must be bagged. But movement tends to throw off the bag, so they get wet.
2. Cardboard targets also lose their structural integrity when they are wet. They go limp. The B-Zone disappears, so the people who shot that stage before it started raining have more target area available than those who shot it after the target got soaked. The first competitor who protests a stage because he wasn't presented with the same shooting problem as his brother, who started on that stage (when the target was dry, and he could see the B-zone) will legitimately cause that stage to be thrown out of the match. This is A Bad Thing.

Summary: The stage designs need to be simple, easy to build, easy to maintain, easy to score. The construction crew needs to be able to put them up quickly and accurately according to the design. The competitors need to experience no problems with the 'difficult' elements of the stage, which means they need to spend their time shooting ... not fixing props, asking for clarification of stage procedures. The stage design must be sufficiently basic that nobody slows down the match by asking for interpretation of the hair-brained way they decide to shoot the stage.

(I liked the last match I shot. There was one stage where it took an extra second to move to the 'nominal' shooting position to engage the final target array. Someone noticed that the two screening vision barriers were imperfectly mated ... there was a gap between them. Was this a legal shooting position? When asked, the Match Director [Evil Bill] was reported to have said "This is a Jerry Situation. If Jerry can see them, he can shoot them." I love Rainy Season matches!)

______________________________________

Matches held during trying climatic situations are problematic at best. We all want to get out of the house and go shooting. The Competition Season is over, we're talking about means-nothing Club Matches here. While the rules of safety remain the most important factor, there is no need to design and build stages which force the competitors to waste their time arguing over petty rules interpretations, or which frustrate them because the props just don't work.

Stage designs should include a lot of steel targets, because steel doesn't rot when it gets wet as do cardboard targets. Need a moving target, or a difficult-to-hit target to spice up the stage? Consider using a Texas Star or a Plate Rack. Keep the moving cardboard target arrays in the prop room over the winter.

For a detailed essay on Rainy Weather match design, and general guidelines about year-around stage design, see Winter Rules: Part 2.