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The "CONE OF SAFETY"...


Phantom, SASS #54973

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1 hour ago, Assassin said:

I like the "corridor". 

Assassin, the concept of a corridor, lane, or even cone requires some additional thought, There are existing Props/Facades which will prevent these spaces from being implemented. While I haven't measured the stage arrangements at Briggsdale, it seems to me there are 3 or 4 stages where the gap from firing line to uprange structures would prevent full use of the corridor, lane, or cone dimensions.

 

This does not mean the concept is unworkable, it just means we have to consider how to incorporate existing layouts into any intended change. For example, there are some stages where the shooter is essentially inside of a prop building. I think there are ways of working this out but not without a small group taking concepts to the field for tests. I would be glad to help in doing that. 

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It seems to me that a problem with some of the proposals, both the cone and the corridor, is you're asking people to move from visualizing a two dimensional boundary, the 170, to a three dimensional boundary.   That's cognitively a much harder task.  Throw in angles that originate at different heights and for gunfighters, two three dimensional cones and most people just don't want anything to do with that.  KISS applies.  Theoretically the corridor and the cone sound great.  I suspect that when you have random spotters with varying degrees of experience and varying degrees of motivation these two ideas will not work out as well as in practice as they sound on 'paper.'  Just my two cents.   

 

I had to 'fire' all three spotters just a few weeks ago because they missed four misses on two shooters in a row (two misses per shooter).  To be fair, it was hot and they wanted to spot from the shade, which didn't give them very good angles.   Now those same spotters have to be imagining cones and/or corridors too?

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The basic premise of the cone could be greatly simplified and not even drastically change the rules we have now.  Just give the shooter command of the ground around their own feet and be done with it.  Keep the current rules we already have that everyone is used to:

 

1) First major motion must be downrange if drawing, or returning to leather if holstering. (in other words you may not just move position to position with the gun out for further use with it pointed at the ground outside the 170.)

 

2) Don't sweep anyone. SDQ/MDQ per existing rules.

 

3) You can't sweep yourself. (as in you can not get a penalty for pointng a gun at yourself)

 

The change would be to just go ahead and allow the gun to point at the ground around the shooter while drawing or returning to leather, but leaving all penalties for sweeping anyone firmly in place:

 

1) Don't sweep the TO or ANYONE.  SDQ/MDQ per existing rules.

 

We don't need much else.  The rules ALREADY dictate you ONLY get to move the firearm out of the 170 for the purposes of drawing or returning to leather.

 

This simplifies the calls down to what we already have been doing at matches that DOES work:  Calling sweeping or gross violations of safe gun handling.

 

If the shooter has to make a bunch of stabs at the holster but the gun is under control and safely pointed down and no one is getting swept then no problem.

 

If the shooter stabs the holster and has a major fail where the gun barrel slides off to some huge angle, just CALL it... which is what happens now and when it gets to that point I've never seen a shooter contest it.  They've either broken the rule of first major motion to or from leather or swept someone or committed unsafe gun handling.  Take your pick but we don't have a big problem with these calls.

 

Where we do have a big problem are the situations we end up in now where just one person, frequently standing too far forward on the firing line,  thinks they see something slightly out of whack and starts asking what to call which annoys the shooter and everyone else because these calls are supposed to be a SDQ and is either "they did it or they didn't" and even the person calling has a hard time being sure, or just doesn't want to be "that guy" especially over something where it's a technical angle violation and no one got swept.

 

Let's take the minutia out of it and make it far less opinion based and move the calls to more obvious results.

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3 hours ago, Smokestack SASS#87384 said:

Go to a match with a pen and paper. Ask 50 people to draw a 170° angle. Check them with a protractor and it will be painfully apparent why the rule as written is a joke. 

I'm suddenly picturing some of our cowpokes standing there, tip of their tongue sticking out in concentration...

Stub of a pencil in their trembling hands...

A hesitant line starting and stopping as they think and rethink the angle...

Paper worn thin with charcoal smudges and covered with shards of red rubber residue as the eraser is over utilized again and again...

Beads of sweat forming on their brow as they struggle to draw a pretty much straight line.

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