ihmsa forums

How manys hits in a match would you give credit to a spoter for.
Me not shuch a good shooter, still learning and building on basics, I would say ten hits plus per match for a good spoter.
Spoting is tought , some times you just cant see where the shot went.

A good spotter is worth at least 4 targets.

Your first target at each distance is the one where a spotter is most valuable. He can do nothing to help you on that one, you will either hit it, or miss it, on your own. After that first shot, he will tell you where the bullet went, then it is up to the shooter to make the proper corrections to stay on target. or get back on target.

I've been shooting without a spotter since 1995, when he quit to take up karate. I was INT class in everything but standing, and was used to getting a lot of perfect scores. When I started shooting without a spotter, my scores came down...the 40's just weren't that often, lots of 37-39 scores. Not knowing where the bullets were hitting, or how much time I had left, took a toll on my concentration and I lost confidence. It took me about a year to get over it, and forget about not having a spotter and wondering where the hits were. I knew what my sight settings (confirmed on practice days) were supposed to be, and just concentrated on making good shots and calling them...to myself. If I did what I was supposed to, the targets would fall.

Dean's post just about covers it. I can only add that where a spotter really helps is on those shoot-off targets. It can mean the difference in hitting some........or none.

I always found that using open sights the biggest problem was elevation. If you were a little off in elevation, and this could happen from one range to another due to lighting conditions or temperature, then you could be missing targets and not know why. As I ot better sights this was less of a problem. I ended up shooting a King Tube sight which really helped because the lighting on the sights was always the same. But anyway a spotter was always essential for me.

I was at a range one time and noticed that another shooter was about to start production without a spotter. I offered to spot for him but he said he didn't need a spotter because his sights and loads were dialed in and he knew where they would hit. This could be viewed as a bold statement but he backed it up with a good score, shooting 7TCU in a 10" Contender with unhooded open sights. I wasn't shooting bad scores but I never got to a point where I was willing to shoot without a spotter.

IHMSA80x80 wrote:A good spotter is worth at least 4 .

That is exactly right! Last match I was shooting SBUAS without a spotter & cleaned up to the 1st bank of turkeys (my longest no miss streak yet, yeah me! ). 2nd bank of turkeys I missed the last 2 when I knew my shots were good so I walked down to see where I had been hitting. Here I find out that all my shots on turkeys were well high with most of the shots in the head. The fact that I hit the 1st 8 was sheer luck. Had I had a spotter I would of known I was hitting high & made corrections probably resulting in my cleaning the turkeys too.
Of course next up was rams & when I made my sight adjustments for them I forgot to apply what I learned when I walked up there & missed the 1st 2 of them. Unfortunately you can't fix stupid!