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Kevin Imel

The Cultured Club

April 24, 2025 by Kevin Imel

Here at NROI, we all too frequently have complaints about ROs come our way; generally they are not formal RO Incident Form type complaints but more along the lines of “I had a bad RO at xyz match last weekend.” There is usually an implied “NROI needs to do something!”

[Read more…] about The Cultured Club

Filed Under: Free Advice

The Evolution of Stage Design Tools

January 23, 2025 by Kevin Imel

Back when I started in this sport the new hotness for stage design were a bunch of templates for MS Office products like Word and Excel. This was a HUGE step up from the green plastic stage design template many had been using for years or freehand drawing. Some were using Corel Draw as well but that required a Corel license (or at least a bootleg copy of Corel) and “laptops” were under powered and over heavy so portable stage designing wasn’t a thing. Things have come a long way since those days.

[Read more…] about The Evolution of Stage Design Tools

Filed Under: Stage Design Tagged With: 3D Stage Builder, PractiSim, Sketchup, Stage CAD, stage design

Interference/Assistance/”Coaching”

December 12, 2024 by Kevin Imel

One of the rarer calls that is made at major matches is that of Interference, or Assistance, or more commonly called as “Coaching”, as defined in 8.6. For Level 1 matches, we have 8.6.2.1 which allows for coaching for competitors with Range Officer approval. But what constitutes each of these? Which ones can be penalized? Who gets the penalty, if any? Let’s dive in.

[Read more…] about Interference/Assistance/”Coaching”

Filed Under: Rules Insights

Timber!!!

October 10, 2024 by Kevin Imel

We’ve all done it. Moving along through life and everything is going our way and suddenly we are landing on the ground not really sure how we got there. All well and good, usually, with nothing more than our pride bruised or maybe a minor scrape. But what if this happens at a match, during a stage, and we are the shooter? DQ? Let’s step back from the dust cloud and look the situation over.

[Read more…] about Timber!!!

Filed Under: Free Advice, RO Best Practices

Circlestack? What the heck?

August 29, 2024 by Kevin Imel

Revolvers get referred to by a lot of names. Circlestack, Wheelgun, and more. The revolver, typically in a .38 variant or .45 ACP and the 1911, generally in .45 ACP although .38 Super was around as well, were the foundation firearms of our sport going back to the very early days before double stack magazines, comps and, optics. At that point the 1911s were using surplus magazines so were 7+1 vs. 6 rounds in the revolver so there was not that much disparity. As revolvers were still the duty guns for most law enforcement agencies at the time they were very popular in the sport and readily available. Now, they are a rarity in our sport, especially USPSA, and it is not uncommon to run across ROs that aren’t “Revolver Aware”. They are a bit different from a rules standpoint so let’s stroll through the book and take a deeper look.

[Read more…] about Circlestack? What the heck?

Filed Under: RO Best Practices

Compassion in the Shooting Sports

July 18, 2024 by Kevin Imel

It either has happened already or will happen sooner or later to all of us. Either we get injured and/or we get older; and our ability to be agile and speedy in our sports of choice diminishes. Should we just give up, start playing checkers in the park, and go away or soldier on? Let’s cogitate on that.

[Read more…] about Compassion in the Shooting Sports

Filed Under: Free Advice

Match Staff – What Does it Really Cost?

June 27, 2024 by Kevin Imel

I don’t think anyone that has been involved in Major Match administration will argue that the single largest cost to any match is the staff and related expenses. Let’s dig in to something that is rarely considered by looking at it from the other way round and see what working a match costs our staff.

[Read more…] about Match Staff – What Does it Really Cost?

Filed Under: Match Directors

Stage Design – Details…details…details

May 16, 2024 by Kevin Imel

Most of us have some particular features we put into the stage during the design process that we want to be there for whatever reason. Be it the design of target arrays, arrangement of targets around the bay, or just about anything else. We designed it a particular way and we want it set up that way mostly because it is “ours”. But what REALLY happens and, maybe more importantly, what SHOULD happen during the transfer from the paper design to reality? Let’s dive in…

[Read more…] about Stage Design – Details…details…details

Filed Under: Stage Design

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