I LIKE Gamers!

 A semi pro competitor by name of Rick Birdsall recently shot this 3 Gun stage where he slid underneath the stage wall and completed the course of fire. Pretty neat and a great use of time. Before people start ringing bells about safety, he cleared his actions with the RO before the match and if you look carefully, he completes his action with a magazine inserted, but no round in the chamber, and loads it on the other side of the wall. There was some criticism voiced on his page but overall it was conducted in a safe manner.

This has been written up on a couple of other gun blogs.    For those of you who have already seen the video I won't bother including it (go to the FIREARM blog link for the video ... they need the traffic).
  But as an IPSC competitor for thirty years, I have something to say.

This is about competition.  USPSA competition.

And I like that this guy chose to shoot the stage his own way; that's what IPSC is all about.
Whether he gained any actual competitive advantage from his approach is immaterial.  He shot the stage the way his way, and this bullshit about whether the score should be protested ... it's just bullshit.  Screw 'em if they can't take a joke; it's legal!



When I started competing there was one club in the state (TCGC) hosting  IPSC matches.  Nobody really understood the rules, so there was some pretty raw stages and unwise rule interpretations in the early days.

But one concept evolved, as we gained experience:

If it isn't forbidden, it is allowed.

The people who hosted the matches were upset when they had somebody take advantage of a short cut (yes, like crawling under a vision barrier).  Their complaint was that if the competitors found a flaw in the stage procedure, and took advantage of it, they called it GAMING.  Like it was a Bad Thing!

So ... people who dismiss this 'gamer' are ignoring the fact that GAMERS are a Great American Tradition!

THREE FIVE REASONS WHY I LIKE GAMERS:

Reason 1:
Does anyone remember the Lisa Provisio?

About 20 years ago, there was a match which featured a shooting position defined by a plastic barrel, open at both ends, laying on the ground.  The stage procedure said "All Rounds Must Pass Through The Barrel" (cue stentorian authoritarian voice).

Tiny Lisa Munson walked the stage and realized that (a) laying on the ground to shoot three targets through the barrel, and then having to get up to engage all the other targets, would be time consuming; and (b) if she was in front of the barrel instead of behind it, she could engage "all the rest" of the targets.

Thus, when it was her turn to shoot the stage, she flopped down behind the barrel and then CRAWLED THROUGH THE BARREL!   She shot a lot of targets from a prone position and (memory fails me) probably won the freakin' stage.  Because she gamed it.

No, she didn't consult with the range officer.  But when they (the arbitration committee) talked it over, they realized that Lisa's interpretation of the rules was literally correct;  all rounds HAD passed through the barrel ... when she crawled through it!  There were no fault lines violated, so they couldn't ding her on a "foot vault".  And that's all there was in their punitive war-chest, So they allowed it.

Since then, people have been a bit more careful in how they write the stage procedures..

Reason 2:
Does anyone remember "Drop-Turner"?
A couple of years later, I shot a match with a "drop turner".  You remember them?  It's a frame that holds a standard cardboard USPSA target. You perform some action to activate it, and the gravity fed mechanism moves a target on a mechanism from its initial turned-away aspect to it's turned-toward-the-shooter aspect, (There's a shaft the target carrier slides down, it's gravity fed, and it rotates the face of the target to present, then again to hide the face of the target.)  It's a disappearing target, you don't get penalties if you don't hit the target or even if you don't SHOOT at it ... you only have to activate the mechanism; any hits you get are considered 'bonus points', but it's a sometimes difficult moving target and it does add a second or two to your time as you wait patiently for the target to drop and be presented.

The drop-turner was protected by vision barriers on all sides, so you had to go 'over there' and 'do this' to engage  (activate) the target.  Then if you were going to shoot at it, you had to wait for it to present a scoring zone to the gun.

But when they constructed the stage, they didn't get all of the vision barriers perfectly vertical.  There was a 5 inch gap between the tops of the vision barriers, and during the walk through one competitor noticed that from the first shooting position, he could see the A-zone of the drop-turner target.

So he shot the targets in front of him, and shot the drop turner target while it was sitting still, and then ran to the other side of the bay to engage the rest of the targets ... activating the drop-turner mechanism on the way past, with no added time.

No, he didn't win the stage.  but he got a pretty good time.  He probably saved two, maybe three seconds on a 17 second stage.

You see, in the stage procedures, nobody had ever bothered to mention that "moving targets must be activated before engaging".

Since then, people have been a bit more careful in how they write the stage procedures..

Reason #3: 
Does anyone remember Fault Lines which "extend into infinity"?


In the early years USPSA had this thing which they termed "fault lines extend into infinity".


USPSA Hadngun Rules, January 2008 Edition, page 9, rule 2.2.3:

Fault Lines extending rearward (uprange) should be a minimum of 3 feet in length and unless otherwise stated in the written stage briefing, are deemed to extend to infinity:

Unfortunately, that violated rule 2.2.1.1:

Shooting Boxes and Fault Lines should be constructed of wooden boards or other suitable material, must be fixed firmly in place, and provide both physical and visual references to competitors.  (etc.)

Perhaps it was because of unwillingness to do the construction work, or a shortage of materials, but some large stages featuring Fault Lines, would not define the 'rear' of the shooting area.   They said "All Fault Lines Extend To Infinity", with the (obvious) presumption that shooters would not attempt to engage targets beyond the end of ten-foot 2x4 timbers which represented fault lines.

One configuration was that there was a starting shooting box, and fault lines from the shooting box pointed backwards at a 45 degree angle.  It was an inverted "V".   Some of the targets could only be engaged from the back of the bay,because they were behind vision barriers; this forced the shooter to bend over at the waist to get a sight-line on the targets .. if he was determined to shoot 'over' the fault line.  But the targets were easily engaged from further back in the bay; past the end of the "fault line which extends into infinity".

This one local guy .. a total jerk ... would invariably scamper past the ends of the diagonal fault lines, plan his feet firmly outside the 'extended' fault line, and engage the targets from a much more comfortable stance.

When the Range Officer started counting off the procedural penalties for engaging targets 'outside the fault line', this guy would say "Prove It!  Show me the fault line that I violated from my shooting position".

Of course, this was just a Bad Rule.  Most shooters were all "girls just wanna have fun" and tried to abide by this ... unenforceable rule.   But when people started deliberately violating this unfortunate rule book provision, the match staff would reluctantly admit that there WAS no legal fault line there; the damn boards were too damn short!

If you can't see and feel the fault line, you can't be penalized for violating the fault line!

Since then, people have been a bit more careful in how they write the stage procedures.
And write rule books.
And construct stages ('fault lines' often become extended 'shooting boxes' or 'shooting areas').


Bonus Round A:
The "Reule Rule"
This is a local variation on The Lisa Provisio.   A local shooter named Reule (don't ask .. my name is Jerry and I'm not happy with that name either) found himself in a similar position, except he was required to engage a series of targets from an open-ended barrel which was solidly set on a stand,  He was a tall lanky guy, and the barrel was about waist high for him.   He DOVE into the barrell, until his shoulders were outside the leading opening of the barrel, and happily engaged ALL targets from one shooting position.  Local clubs started specifying that "all targets must be engaged with both feet on the ground".  

Yes, it's a one-off.  Unlikely that this would become a common practice, but it merely points up the theme of this essay.  Which is, if you really don't want somebody to game your stage, you gotta be smarter than the average IPSC competitor.



Bonus Round B:
The Bouncing Ball

Remember the "total jerk" from REASON #3?

Local match, A stage positioned in a very narrow very deep bay.  Four IPSC targets close, to the left, and four more close  IPSC targets to the right  Four more downrange and at the very end of the very deep bay.   So .. time is probably more important than accuracy,   Unless you can engage the far targets from a shallow position.

Starting position: sitting in a chair, holding a (deflated) Soccer Ball in both hands.  On start signal, engage all targets as they become visible.   Note: there is a 5 gallon plastic bucket behind the near targets on the right.   T he soccer ball must be deposited in the bucket before the last shot is fired, or suffer a 10-point procedural penalty.

So the choices are: (a) dump the ball in the bucket first, then move BACK where you can engage the six near targets (b); carry the ball while engaging the close targets, then move behind the right-hand targets (maybe having to do a reload); (c) there is no option C.

Actually, there is.  The Jerk elected to shoot the stage last, after watching everyone else in the squad juggle the ball during reloads and shoot one-handed.

Then he dropped the ball when the buzzer went off, and just shot the stage like any sane person would; Eight shots left, eight shots right, using both hands.   Move downrange while reloading, and eight shots to the end targets.  Eat the procedural penalty, because it's just a distraction and both accuracy and time are improved sufficiently to obviate the silly 10-point procedural!

There is no "gaming".  there is only an honest assessment of The Shooting Problem, and choosing the best way that works for your personal skill set.

Is this a great game, or what?