One of the things every stage designer and match director needs to keep in mind is that USPSA is a shooting sport. Our sport is supposed to test accuracy, power, and speed (Diligentia, Vis, Celeritas – DVC). Are your stages testing those things? Are they testing in a way that separates the skilled marksmen from the rest of the crowd? Let’s look at each of these and discuss how to test them.
Diligentia, or accuracy, is the obvious one to test in a shooting sport. How do we test this in USPSA? The target scoring zones is the first way. Hit the A-zone and you get the most points. We also test accuracy by covering part of that A-zone with hard cover or no-shoots which tests accuracy even more. If the competitor wants the maximum points, he or she needs to aim for the smaller A-zone. Or if the easier shot is desired, then C and D hits for less points are okay. We also test accuracy with unusual shooting positions. Leaning around, reaching over, or getting low to see under walls and other vision barriers also causes awkward shooting positions and test accuracy. But remember your audience. A match where every stage has a prone position will not make you popular with the competitors.
Do your stages consist of all wide open targets? Or does every target have a partially hidden A-zone? Good stages have a mix of both and still challenge the top competitors. Look at your match results, specifically the top competitors. Are all the top finishers getting all the points on the stages and time is the only thing that separates them? If so, you may want to add some hard cover or no-shoots or increase the distance of the targets from the shooting area to test accuracy a little more. If competitors are hardly getting any points, then the stage is probably testing accuracy a bit too much.
Vis, or power, is tested with poppers. We obviously measure power when we have a chronograph stage at a match, but on stages this is tested with poppers. Major power factor rounds will knock over those poppers faster than minor power factor rounds. We also give more points to C and D hits on cardboard targets for major power factor.
Not every stage needs to have poppers, but some stages need to have them to truly test power. Steel targets are expensive so some clubs don’t have a ton of them, but having them on at least one stage per match at the local level is great. Just remember to check the popper calibration after stage setup (knuckle test) to ensure the poppers are not set too heavy.
Celeritas, or speed, is where the time it takes a competitor to shoot the stage comes into play. We then take the points earned and divide by the time to get the hit factor for the stage. Highly skilled competitors that can balance accuracy and speed get the higher hit factors.
Many stage designers think speed is just how fast you can move your feet, and that is a big part of it, but speed also includes target transitions and reloads. Any factor that can contribute to overall stage time. However, sometimes stage designers take this to mean a start stick 30 yards away from the shooting area or 10 yard runs between shooting positions. Remember to primarily test speed related to shooting skills and not physical fitness because this is a shooting sport and those are the skills we are testing. So, have shooting positions with targets or target arrays at varying distances which is a transition challenge or do a standard exercise or speed shoot and test reloading skills. Or if you are going to have large sections of movement between shooting positions, at least have some targets that are visible and can be shot on the move. Shooting accurately while moving is another good skill to test.
Remember to keep these the three tenets of our sport in mind when building stages and matches and make sure to test DVC.