We have been getting quite a few rules questions in regard to significant advantage, which is great. But, many of the questions involve applying significant advantage for procedural penalties where significant advantage doesn’t apply.
First, we need to look at which procedural penalties actually talk about significant advantage. Significant advantage is discussed in relation to foot faults/gaining support from objects completely outside the shooting area (10.2.1) and for failing to comply with the stage procedure (10.2.2). These are the only two procedural penalties where significant advantage can make violations a per shot penalty, instead of a per occurrence penalty.
10.2.1 and 10.2.2 are also the only two penalty types where 10.2.3 applies. Look at the first sentence of 10.2.3. It says it only applies to the “above cases”, which are 10.2.1 and 10.2.2. 10.2.3 is the rule that limits the number of per shot penalties to the maximum number of scoring hits. Which means that if a competitor has a foot fault with significant advantage, and in the process of faulting fires nine shots at four targets, there can only be eight procedural penalties.
Significant advantage does not apply to the number of shots after failing to make a mandatory reload (10.2.4) or for using the wrong hand when strong/weak hand only is specified (10.2.8). Look at those two rules. They clearly say those are per shot penalties and do not mention significant advantage at all which means that significant advantage does not apply. And the number of penalties for these two rules are not limited by 10.2.3 either.
When in doubt about whether significant advantage applies to a certain procedural penalty, always look in the rulebook and at what the rule says (and does not say).