2012 IHMSA World Championship

[AtomicDogg]

Nancy or Madame President,

Just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed the "Championship"; it was such a pleasure to see folks I had not seen in a while and my first championship where the competitors were not required to have a "Work Day". The only things I did not like very much, and you had no control of these, was the extreme heat and my poor shooting. I would like to commend you, your staff and the members of the Oklahoma City Gun Club for their hard work to make this a successful championship and especially to all of the IHMSA members who were able to attend and show their continued support for this sport; Thank you all !!!!
Oh, one final comment, this deals with auto reset targets and how you score targets that fail to fall. I believe it should be established as to what the protocol is for such occurrences. I'm aware that there were some "rung" targets, and this can be expected from time to time with auto reset; it's just one of the negatives, but it sure beats the heck out of manual reset. I believe in instances of "rung" targets, at the discretion of the Match Director, the competitor may be allowed an "alibi"; but under no circumstances should targets be given to competitors, even if it were determined they were set improperly.

Thanks,
Robert L. Walker - Georgia

[35isit]

Nancy or Madame President,

Oh, one final comment, this deals with auto reset targets and how you score targets that fail to fall. I believe it should be established as to what the protocol is for such occurrences. I'm aware that there were some "rung" targets, and this can be expected from time to time with auto reset; it's just one of the negatives, but it sure beats the heck out of manual reset. I believe in instances of "rung" targets, at the discretion of the Match Director, the competitor may be allowed an "alibi"; but under no circumstances should targets be given to competitors, even if it were determined they were set improperly.

Thanks,
Robert L. Walker - Georgia

I want to preface this post by saying I was not at the Internationals. My home club The Anderson County Sportsman Club has been using mechanical reset targets for about 10+ years. In fact I now can't remember when we didn't have them. We attempt to always to be fair. If a hit target fails to fall we try to determine why it failed. If it is the fault of the machine we give the target. But we can only do it before the targets are reset. Once the targets are reset we are not always able to tell if it was the fault of the machine. If it is the machines fault we call it a clamped target and award it. We take into consideration where target is hit and caliber of gun. When I say caliber of gun I don't mean to start a war that my .22 whiz bang with ?? grain bullets take them down everywhere but here. Case in point my .223 with 60 grain bullets is about 75% no matter where I hit them. At Jackson Ms. one year it was about 10%. As a large number of us on here have shot for a long time now, we probably have seen properly set reset and free standing targets rung with about every cartridge out there. I realize at the Internationals stopping to check each rung target may not have been feasible.

I am not trying to start an argument or disagreeing with Robert. I'm just saying what we do at our range.

[AtomicDogg]

No argument here Greg; all I'm saying is, it would be nice if everyone used the same protocol for "rung" auto reset targets. I just wish we could afford them; if we could, I think I would first give an "alibi"; since pressing the button and resetting the target does not require necessarily going down range. That also would not unnecessarily hold up the match.
Just food for thought; we probably will never have auto reset at Little River Gun Club, unless Melvin or I hit the Lottery, and neither one of us can ever remember to play.

Regards,

[KickBass]

I'm right with Robert with the accolades of what a great job the OKC folks did in hosting the Intl for the first time there. It was a great experience and a fantastic shoot.

As far as the rung BB rams, my understanding is that people who rung them were required to shoot an alibi. Here was my experience. I shot BB UAS on the first day (Fri), and rang #3 twice in a row. Others had been ringing it as well--the guy before me rang that one ram 3 times. Initially, the line officer said count them. Then the next day, they made an announcement and read all of the names of people that had shot BB UAS that previous day--they would have to shoot alibis for any rang rams. So I went back and shot my two rams again, and all others had to shoot theirs as well. Nancy had a list of all the names and checked them off to be sure everybody affected was now on the up and up. Seemed like the right decision to me. I'm assuming they followed that same protocol if there were further problems throughout the week.

[Richard Pickering]

I was able to attend this year. It was nice to visit with aqaintences. My slight criticism is that the relays cannot run on time unless the first begins on time. One day the relays were cut off at #19. I believe and mine was #21 or 22. I had to abandon it and we (Eddy and I) rearranged our schedule to get our entries in.
Lets give a round of applause to the target setter crew and especially the two ladies working rimfire and field pistol. They displayed that they were certainly not afraid to work. I was told that they are both school teachers. If they put as much effort into their classwork as shown on the range, their students are getting a treat.
I, too, lost targets. They were the last two rams on half scale. I had them checked and was not awarded hits or an alibi. I elected to bring a .221 and I live with the results. It happens.
We should all appreciate the apparent volume of work put forth by Jim Fields and the club to make the match a success. RP

[35isit]

Richard said:
Quote I, too, lost targets. They were the last two rams on half scale. I had them checked and was not awarded hits or an alibi. I elected to bring a .221 and I live with the results. It happens. Quote

That's why we try to determine if the machine held the target up. If it didn't its a miss. If it did it's a hit. No alibis are given. Again I don't know how many targets were rung at the match. But I'm sure it wan't feasible to check each one.

[Richard Pickering]

Not to belabor the point about ''rung'' targets or to detract from the thread but it is impractical if not impossible for any match crew to ascertain that any target will fall at any hit. We all shoot or have shot freestanding targets which may turn but not fall. We should expect a reasonable chance to knock down any target with reasonable loads for that discipline. Was this not why we altered the topple point on big bore targets several years ago ?
This being the case you'd expect random failures but not a succession of failures on a particular target---usually a ram but it may be another.
As to a remedy, if we have a reasonable chance to topple any target set reasonably then we just lose a target. If there is a mechanical problem that would make it more than reasonably difficult to get that target the cometitor may have a point. We cannot make this perfect even at the International match where the prestige of ''shooting 80'' is on the line. But adding six targets to my score would have made it admirable rather than ordinary. RP

[johnranderson01]

Nancy
Thank you for your continued efforts and another wonderful experience.