2017-2018 USAS JOs now running by ISSF rules

[jhmartin]

2017-2018 JO Match Host application states that we are now to use ISSF rules.
(looks like USA Shooting is moving away from publishing a set of their own National Rules)

However, I've emailed Alex & Dave and asked them to consider the implications and to publish a Match Director's Bulletin (MDB) on the following issues:

1) Are we really scoring all 10m events in decimal now -- will make the published auto-cutoffs easy-peasy!
I really believe this is an oversight as it was last year ... not enough staff to double check these easy catches
2) Shoe/Boot flexibility - 7.5.2.3 - will disqualify many older junior boots
3) Shoe/Boot measurements - 7.5.3.4 - will disqualify many older junior boots
4) Jacket Side Panel rule - 7.5.4.5 - will disqualify almost all the old youth jackets
5) Tape to hold on weights - 7.4.2.7 - youth clubs and individuals do this for cost savings - also has the double-sticky tape to hold on wheel weight issue been resolved?
6) Lowest point of but-stock (140mm) - 7.4.4.2(f) - All metal stock 2002CAs are illegal now? (popular youth gun)

Without a MDB on these items youth programs here are severely effected.
Please email Alex & Dave with any other issues you may have regarding some MDB inclusions you think they should consider.

While I applaud the use of the ISSF rules:
A) The version should be stated as ISSF seems to have "rule change parties" quite often. (current is 2017 V1.1 --- I think)
B) Maybe a USAS versioned "Common Match Director Bulletin" (CMDB) is a quick easy way for USA Shooting to accept/not-enforce certain ISSF rules
C) Where USA Shooting seems to be hard over on non-written rule interpretations of their own, these should be included in the versioned CMDB

(sorry about the made up acronyms ... we engineers tend to go crazy with them)

[damonlan]

Interesting. I think sometime these rule changes are made in a vacuum. Well so much for being in the off season, time to start doing my homework. A week and an half is enough rest. Thanks for this information Joel. I'll look into these as see how it applies to my shooters this upcoming season.

[Chris__Colorado]

"While I applaud the use of the ISSF rules:
A) The version should be stated as ISSF seems to have "rule change parties" quite often. (current is 2017 V1.1 --- I think)
B) Maybe a USAS versioned "Common Match Director Bulletin" (CMDB) is a quick easy way for USA Shooting to accept/not-enforce certain ISSF rules
C) Where USA Shooting seems to be hard over on non-written rule interpretations of their own, these should be included in the versioned CMDB"



GREAT Recommendations on all three accounts!

[COBelties]

Let us know when you hear back on #1. It will be interesting to see how they determine the auto-qualifier scores for Air Rifle if they go decimal.

[jhmartin]

I'm 99.9999% positive it is an oversight. My issue is I had to point it out last year too and much of the host packet is cut & paste with no "rational" error checking. This is noticed when you see they have selected ISSF rules, but still have "USA Shooting rules" scattered thru the document.
All Alex has to do is ask and there would be hundreds (including myself) willing to review it and ask these questions before it is published. But everything now is rush-rush-rush at the last possible time.
(And Yes .... I have offered.... multiple times)

As it is, Competitions really only has Alex now and is 2-3 people understaffed. (IMHO)

[COBelties]

Agreed on all sides - the conversion across is going to take some thought and it would be great to have them bounce it off a few of us who have been neck deep in it. I have lots of data (we set our levels here at the NTCSC on decimal and had to go through the brain damage) and always happy to help. - GS

[jhmartin]

The reason they cannot convert away from integer is that really only a few of us have electronic targets or ORION.
The only way I can see them going to decimal in the 10m events is to require that hosts have one or the other above.

Probably not all that hard these days. Heck, the states that don't have ORION could send targets to someone USAS determines can score them ... even if it's at the OTC. I hauled my ORION system up to Rocky one year and showed them how easy it was (when we were still shooting the cards on strings).
They would say they don't have anyone up there to do that ... and they are right, Alex does not have the time. But how many would volunteer to go up for 2 days and score targets and get the results back to the state host? The answer ... lots of us would.

P.S. ....(Sorta off topic) I'm also not very happy (incensed is more the word) of this new interpretation of 6 in each flipping event. It used to be 6 in your whole JOs, and even then we were able to get states like Oklahome & Arkansas back then who would only have 1 single, solitary shooter in the state entered get that kid a state invite ... which by the way, I don't care what there score is ... as long as they are not dinging the faceplates ... we and get them in to shoot. These states (New Mexico sure damn did) need that for promotional visibility if nothing else. There were years in which Lindsay and/or Nichole were running Comps where we had (in NM) only 3-4 shooting smallbore and we had a kid to write up in the local newspapers to help our programs grow.
Shoot, I a few times in the early days of our program, we'd have a kid invited in air, and 2-3 days before the event Lindsay would let the kid bring the SBR up and shoot if there was an empty slot.

And yes, I know there are quite a few that think the JO invites should be a smaller number with the more "capable" shooters ... I happen not to agree with that thinking. Fill up the lanes and send them home with memories .....[/rant-off]

[shawn706]

I am convinced that the committee that makes these rule changes often do so to remain relevant, and justify their existence.

[jhmartin]

NOOOOOoooooo! It cannot be so!

Like this meeting when they had made the decision already?
http://www.issf-sports.org/news.ashx?newsid=2848

[shawn706]

NOOOOOoooooo! It cannot be so!

Like this meeting when they had made the decision already?
http://www.issf-sports.org/news.ashx?newsid=2848

There's a lot of pretty words in that article. Reading between the lines looks more like an excuse to force clubs and leagues to buy new equipment and sold under the guise of being "good for the sport".

[jhmartin]

NOOOOOoooooo! It cannot be so!

[Ltdave]

I am convinced that the committee that makes these rule changes often do so to remain relevant, and justify their existence.

you just won the internet

[damonlan]

"The reason they cannot convert away from integer is that really only a few of us have electronic targets or ORION.
The only way I can see them going to decimal in the 10m events is to require that hosts have one or the other above."

.0 - .9 decimal by hand is impossible. But rating by .0, .4, and .9 is not. In the end it is a fairly accurate average, but admittedly, mixing electronically scored with hand scored is difficult.

[shawn706]

"The reason they cannot convert away from integer is that really only a few of us have electronic targets or ORION.
The only way I can see them going to decimal in the 10m events is to require that hosts have one or the other above."

.0 - .9 decimal by hand is impossible. But rating by .0, .4, and .9 is not. In the end it is a fairly accurate average, but admittedly, mixing electronically scored with hand scored is difficult.

In addition to this it gives the possibility of a score greater than 100. A 327 is possible in a 3x10 & 654 in a 3x20. Its also possible to shoot a 99 without shooting a 10. What would be a clear winner with hand scoring could be beat once all the decimals are add in. I would be doable, at leased for events where all competitors where scored on site, if the gross score were used only to break ties, and the net score used as the official score.

Another case of if it ain't broke, lets fix it.

[COBelties]

I think 2-4 years ago, "not everyone can score decimal" was a pretty honest and accurate argument when trying to provide inclusion to the the masses for JO competition. With Orion making more of an impact on the market lately, it would be interesting to know which States holding USAS JO State Championships do not have access to Orion or electronic decimal scoring? Just thinking of the USAMU air rifle championships which is scored on Orion, it seems most states are fairly well represented. Many 4-H clubs now also own their own Orion systems.

Does anyone know which states holding JO Championships don't have Orion or electronic? West of the Mississippi I can think of <maybe> Wyoming?

Anyhow for a competition immersed in precision Olympic rules it doesn't seem hard pressed to ask the qualifier to be in the same format if everyone has the ability?As a coach I personally would want my kids practicing what they would compete in.

[jhmartin]

Anyhow for a competition immersed in precision Olympic rules it doesn't seem hard pressed to ask the qualifier to be in the same format if everyone has the ability?As a coach I personally would want my kids practicing what they would compete in.

Agree totally, the mental shift between integer and decimal is huge to the competitors. See/Hear of this with the NCAA sompetitors that come to Winter Airgun. A shift from integer to decimal on matches in less than a week ... sometime if they are competing at USAFA, they compete in integer one day and the next they are in decimal ... it's hard on them.

[jhmartin]

From Alex -----
===============================================

Once the official host sites have been announced I will be sending the respective clubs an exact set of rules to follow so that all are using the same thing. At this time the ruleset will also be posted to the website so that all junior Olympic competitors are aware of what rules will be used. I am hoping that we will have a finalized USAS rulebook by then but if not we will have to use the ISSF rulebook. Should it come to that I will specify the exact version and what rules, if any, we will change to make specific to USAS. I would expect that similar to last year we will not enforce certain restrictions that would eliminate many of our junior competitors. We would never want to limit our base by enforcing rules that are not reasonable for the up and coming junior competitor.

To answer the first question please reference my previous email in regards to clarifying the rules with the respective host sites once announced. This will be at least 4 weeks before the first event of the State JO’s so should allow plenty of time for clubs to prepare.

As far as the scoring this is one of the things that we would do separate from ISSF rules. We will continue to do as we have in the past with the integer format in 10m events.

===============================================
My response

I figure all this Alex ... the problem is you want our match programs that detail things like this submitted by Oct 1st. It does not sound like we'll have these details to put into the match programs.....

So it looks like we will have some edits to our match programs after they have been "approved" --- they don't get it --- we have to make those changes before we send them out or look as inept as they are.

[Pat McCoy]

West of the Mississippi I can think of <maybe> Wyoming?

Nope, the Lander (WY) Junior Rifle Club now has one.

[gspell68]

"The reason they cannot convert away from integer is that really only a few of us have electronic targets or ORION.
The only way I can see them going to decimal in the 10m events is to require that hosts have one or the other above."

.0 - .9 decimal by hand is impossible. But rating by .0, .4, and .9 is not. In the end it is a fairly accurate average, but admittedly, mixing electronically scored with hand scored is difficult.

My kid just started precision 3PAR this month.
His JROTC unit does have an Orion system but it is not permanently set up and is a hassle to break it out just for him since he's the only precision shooter.

So, last night we downloaded the Target Scan phone app (Apple or Android) and he played with some of his old targets.
Take an individual snapshot of each bull and it'll save 'em all under one session.
It seems to do a pretty good job.
More than just air rifle, too: Multiple calibers, ranges, and courses of fire (NRA/ISSF/etc.), shot grouping, tendency/progress of grouping over time, etc.
Of course it's not officially approved, but a $10 app for decimal scoring is probably better than the alternatives.


http://www.targetshootingapp.com/

There's some YouTube videos of it out there, too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HFdcyrpstY

[damonlan]

I would be careful using Target Scan. I tried using it and they seem so score by the leading edge breaking the line method rather than the plug gage method. When I used it, all combined scores were higher than they should have been because they seemingly didn't know how to score correctly.

Now, it is worth downloading it ant trying it out. It's been quite some time since I have used it, so it is possible they have corrected by now. If you don't like it, you can always delete the app.