Scoring and Range commands during a
Highpower match
In the
interest of not having to repeat myself, I’m posing a quick description of how
to score during a Highpower match, as well as range commands, eitquite, and
what it all means.
A few
notes regarding range commands and scoring:
RANGE
COMMANDS, for vintage rifle, Remember all shooters start in position.
In
general, if you are on the firing line, you will hear the following, in order,
and I’ll define what they mean:
1)Shooters
may bring their equipment to the line: That means you can bring your mat,
stool, ammo, spotting scope to the line and get set up, THIS DOES NOT MEAN you
can touch or bring your rifle to the line, it should remain in the rack.
2)Shooters
may bring their rifles to the line: This means you may carry your rifle cased to the firing line. THIS DOES NOT MEAN you may handle the rifle, get slung up, etc. When you remove your rifle from the case the muzzle must be pointed down range at all times and the chamber flag must be in with no removable magazine in place.
3)Shooters,
as soon as your targets appear you are in prep time: This means once your
targets go up, you can sling the rifle and dry fire and adjust your scope and
position. THIS DOES NOT MEAN you can load the rifle. When the
targets go down your prep time is over.
4)Shooters,
the next course of fire is……(description of course of fire follows and will be
one of the following.
§
Slow fire Prone: 2 sighting shots and 10 rounds in 10 minutes. These are loaded and
fired ONE AT A TIME, you do not need to take the sighters.
§
Rapid fire Prone: 10 rounds in 90 seconds. All shooters except
those shooting a bolt action rifle will start with two rounds in the gun, and
will reload with a clip or magazine of 8 rounds ONLY. Bolt shooters will
start with 5 rounds and reload with 5.
§
Rapid fire Sitting: 10 rounds in 90 seconds. All shooters
except those shooting a bolt action rifle will start with two rounds in the
gun, and will reload with a clip or magazine of 8 rounds ONLY. Bolt
shooters will start with 5 rounds and reload with 5.
§
Offhand/standing: 10 rounds in 10 minutes. These are loaded
and fired ONE AT A TIME
The next
commands, after the course of fire will be:
5)On the
line with one round load(for slow fire) OR On the line with 2 or 5 rounds
load(for rapid fire, 2 for semi autos, 5 for bolt guns). THIS IS THE ONLY TIME
YOU MAY LOAD OR HAVE AMMO IN THE RIFLE.
6)Is the
line ready? The line is ready? Ready on the right? Ready on
the left? All ready on the firing line…: (At any time during these
commands, if you are not ready, yell out or raise your hand and we will stop
and give you time).
7)You may
commence fire when your targets appear!: (at this time as soon as your target
is up you may shoot, once your target is down you must stop shooting) For rapid
fire, once you have fired the initial 2 or 5 shots, you reload and continue
firing. For slow fire, once your target goes down and comes back up with
a score and you have recorded it, you may load and fire the next shot at your
discression.
8)Cease
fire!: After all firing is over, the director will ask if there are any
saved rounds(alibis/jambs aren’t generally allowed, you have plenty of time to
fix a jam, if your gun breaks that will be evaluated by the director) If
you did not get all your shots off, notify the match director how many rounds
you fired, and he will relay that to the pits so the scorers know how many
holes to look for. Any shots that you do not fire count as misses(0) on
your score sheet.
*If you
fire extra shots your target will be scored for the low 10 shot values, and you
will be warned. If you believe someone crossfired onto your target, (ie
next target to you has less than 10 shots) you will generally get the high
value 10 shots, unless it is obvious which shot was the crossfire(ie caliber or
placement not consistent with your group). A crossfire by a shooter
counts as a MISS for that shooter.
*If you do
not believe you missed the target, and they can’t find all 10 shots, you may
ask them to look at the target again and see if they can find it. If they
can not, the score will generally stand, unless for some reason the target
puller finds the missing shot and the match director ok’s it to be counted for
your previous score. If all the shots are in the black. or in a tight group,
benefit of the doubt should be given to the shooter, this is on the honor
system. The shooter can request a re-fire of his 10 shot string if there are no
extra shots on the adjacent targets and the target puller confirms that he saw
10 impacts in the berm but cannot find all shots.(See the target puller
requirements!!) We would like to avoid this as this isn’t the national matches.
*In slow
fire, if you shoot and the target doesn’t go down, call for the match director
as follows: Mark Target number…….The director will call down to the pits
to have them pulland mark the target.
*In
standing/offhand position, if you are not able to fire the shot, and need to
rest, if the rifle is loaded, you MUST keep the rifle horizontal with the
muzzle aimed at the berm, not at the ground or up in the air. You must
keep the muzzle horizontal when loading the round.
*The
shooter is responsible for correctly marking down his score for each shot and
putting a total on the score sheet.
SCORING:
When you
arrive at the pits, your target will be all the way down. Once you are
ready to do your scoring duties, you will half mast your target, that means the
bottom of the target is aligned with the bottom of the target weight, and the
target is showing only halfway up. That lets the match director know that
you are ready to go. Once the stage starts, the person running the
pits(person with the radio) will say “Targets Up” to indicate to run your
target up all the way and shooting will start. When the stage is over he
will say “Targets Down” and you will pull the target down to indicate the stage
is over.
During a
highpower match you basically have two types of stages, slow fire and rapid
fire.
Slow fire
scoring:
If you re
in the pits, your shooter will shoot, you need to look at the target, or impact
berm and decide if a shot was fired, then confirm by seeing a hole in the
target. If you confirm a shot/hole, then you pull the target down, look
at the hole, and decide what the value is. If the diameter of the bullet
will touch the next higher scoring ring, the shot gets that higher value.
The scorer will then put a marking disk in the hole, with the opposite
color facing the shooter. Black on white or white on black, so the
shooter can see the shot placement. The target puller will then put a
value paddle on the target. That tells the shooter what the value of the
shot was. Starting in the lower left hand corner and working counter
clockwise the values are, V(counts as 5, used as a tie breaker), 5(bottom
middle), 4(bottom right), 3(middle right), MISS(top middle).
Any shot that is not on the manila paper is a miss, any shot touching
the manilla paper but outside the 3 ring is counted as a 2. On subsequent
shots, the target puller will remove the previous spotting disk, and put a
colored patch over the hole FIRST, then find the new hole and mark it.
Make sure to mark the value correctly.
*Note, it
is much better to not pull the target down if you aren’t sure the shooter shot,
as nothing sucks worse than shooting a good shot while your target is being
pulled down….if you don’t pull it down and the shooter fired, we will call down
on the radio for you to pull it down. You need to pay attention, as if
this happens a lot, it is extremely frustrating for the shooter and he will
return the favor to you when it is your turn to shoot. Good pit service
is rewarded by good pit service for you.
If you are
shooting, your job is to make sure your target goes down after you shoot, and
then recording the value of the shot on your paper. If you think the
value is mis marked, you may call for a re-mark on the target(re-mark target
#…..). If you can obviously see what the value should be, don’t waste
time and just write it down correctly.
Rapid fire
scoring:
Once the
targets are UP, the target puller will leave them up till the person
running the line says to pull them down. During the course, the puller
should watch his/her target and count the number of impacts or shots fired on
their target. You do this by looking at the berm and watching to see 10 impacts
behind your target! This will help them have confidence in finding all 10
shots later on, or confirm that the shooter did not fire all 10 shots.
THIS IS IMPORTANT. If you are not paying attention and cannot confirm
that all 10 shots were fired on the target and there are missing shots the
benefit will generally be given to the shooter if his shots are all in the
black, or at least in a tight group, or if not you may force the shooter to
refire his 10 shot string.
Once the
targets are down, the target puller will note the values of all shots and write
them down on the chalkboard, with the number of each value scored. Our
chalkboards are marked with X,10,9,8,7,6,5,M Since we are using the older
5 targets, an X=V, 10=5, 9=4,8=3,M=miss. You then mark each hole with
a small spotting disk as for slow fire, hang the chalkboard on the top left
side and run the target up so the shooter can see his score and shot group.
Once done, the person running the line will ask to pull down and clean up
the target, at which point you remove the chalkboard, remove the spotting
disks, and past up all holes with the right color sticker, and half mast the
target when ready to go.
For
example if the shooter fired 3-V’s, 5-5′s one 4 and one miss, the shooter would
record on his score sheet: V,V,V,5,5,5,5,5,4,M and the total would add up
to 44-3V’s
Their
chalkboard would look like the below where x means V etc…
X
3
10
5
9
1
8
7
6
5
M
1
