Everyone talks about competitive equity when it comes to things like moving targets, the angle of the sun, or even the weather (stupid rain bags). The first one is something range staff can manage and hopefully prevent. The last two, well most of us shoot outdoors and have to deal with the weather variation. When designing and building stages there is one thing that occasionally gets forgotten and that is we have quite the range of competitor heights in our sport and we need to make sure to keep that in mind.
I am 5’2″ and I consider myself vertically challenged. I have to sometimes ask for help to get something off the top shelf at the supermarket. When I started shooting USPSA back in 2008, clubs had a ton of walls with ports because everyone used ports. Often the lower edge of the port was about 4’5″ and the targets were low and tight to the wall. I had to stand on my toes to see and engage the targets. I also saw junior shooters with Open handguns put all their shots through the wall under the lower edge of the port because of the sight offset. Smaller ports above the midpoint in the wall were all the rage because it was a comfortable height for most of the competitors. When I started, I was usually the only female competitor at the match and there were very few junior competitors – the competitors who tend to be more vertically challenged. And yes, I know that our tall competitors dislike low ports so those considerations need to be made as well.
Luckily thanks to efforts of NROI, specifically in the CRO seminar, we see very few ports in stages. NROI has been encouraging the use of gaps between walls instead of ports to accommodate competitors of all heights as well as promote more freestyle stage designs. It also saves the club from having to maintain a ton of walls with ports built into them. Every club has some walls with ports because you occasionally need them, but the port sizes are now a bit longer and are more friendly to competitors of all heights.
What are the other areas of stage design that competitor height needs to be considered? Height of targets in relation to the berm and shooting area. If there is a target which is 5 ft at the shoulders along a side berm, stand in the shooting area and crouch down to the height of a shorter competitor and see where a shot in the upper A-zone goes. Does it travel over the side berm? Does it hit into the bottom 2/3 of the berm? We don’t want shots leaving the bay so drop that target down if needed.
What about prone positions? Make sure your rear fault line gives tall competitors plenty of room to lay prone and not foot fault. Tunnels and Cooper Tunnels – we don’t see many of these anymore, and these are hard to make truly equitable for all competitors, but make sure to choose a height that isn’t too punishing for the taller folks.
Hard leans around walls is another area where competitor height needs to be considered. A hard lean to shoot downrange targets may be very easy for a 6’8″ competitor, but very difficult for a 5’2″ competitor. PCC competitors also have a harder time making hard leans. Move that target over a few inches and save your walls and make it equitable for all competitors.
And remember that this is a shooting sport and we should be testing shooting skills and the stages should be challenging, but also built to accommodate competitors of all heights.