Miscellaneous

There were a lot of matches this year, from locals to Section Championships, and Area Championships to Nationals. In all of these matches, there is, or should be, a common goal–getting it right. Most do, some don’t. Activated targets, poppers, start positions, angles of fire, specialty props, and written stage briefings all need to be closely examined and done right, otherwise, the match loses credibility, competitive equity is lost, and both staff and competitors are unhappy. Let’s look at this effort at all levels, from competitor to Range Master and Match Director.

Open up the USPSA Competition Rules and the first thing you are presented with are the eight “Principles of USPSA Competition”. These have remained largely unchanged over time and are the guideposts of our sport. Yet, I’d wager that most everyone that opens up the rule book goes right on by without ever taking time to read them. So, let’s take a look at these. Get out your rulebook and follow along.

Not all local matches are created equal.  Each match has a certain historical personality and “style”.  The Range Officers and shooters at those matches adjust their habits to fit the situation and all is relatively well, although perhaps not always particularly correct.  Those habits, however, don’t always mesh well at a major match.  Some of the differences deal with the correct application of the rules and some are simply good practice.  Shooters and ROs going to their first major may be uncertain about what to expect.  Let’s review some of the issues, both for staff and competitors.

Generally, we do not use the NROI blog space to do product announcements or endorsements but this product is different, very different, and we would be Fools if we didn’t avail ourselves of the opportunity to showcase this amazing new product.

Did you know you can set up a way to get notified when matches near you need Range Officials? As part of the new notification system, you can opt in to receive notifications when Match Directors put in a request for help using the Form C system.

Here at NROI, we frequently get queries from someone about what rule prevents a shooter, or can be used to prevent a shooter, from doing x, y or z. While many of these fall into the “help them find the relevant rule(s)” category, a fair number fall into “there isn’t any rule that does that”. Sometimes they insist that we need a rule, or a ruling, declaring said action illegal. And 99.9% of those simply are things that really aren’t rule worthy but should be taken care of with proper stage design, WSB authoring, and setup. Let’s look at a few examples. I’ve generalized the questions somewhat.