Quote Originally Posted by cysoto View Post
That is a great question with no easy answer. Let us look a few different scenarios to try to figure it out…

We know that the top two shooters on the 200yd stage shot all targets in under 50 seconds and ended up with a Hit Factor (HF) just below 1.5 (points per second).

Let us say that a shooter could have made the shots on the first two position then jumped on the wobbly bridge, get two “A” hits on each of the 3 paper targets and finally, sent 3 quick shots in the direction of the steel plates (missing all 3 but avoiding the “Failure to Engage” penalty). Now let us say that this person achieved this in 30 seconds. This person would have ended up with 60 points in 30 seconds which would have resulted in an HF of 2.0; enough to crush the competition and win the stage.

Now let’s say that another shooter would have taken the same approach but it took this person 60 seconds. This would have resulted in an HF of 1.0 which would have been enough to secure an 8th place finish on the stage.

Both of these scenarios would have afforded most shooters a better placement in the stage and the shooters would have not been wrong to do so because their actions would have been well within the rules of the game.

On the flipside of that is those of us who had never had the chance to shoot at 10” targets at this distance from a moving platform. I took this as an opportunity to practice a new shooting skill but, by doing this, I took a lot longer to make my hits on target.

Ultimately it is a personal choice and neither approach is wrong. One person can game it, another one can use the opportunity to practice a very challenging skill. In my opinion, neither choice is wrong.
If you want to "game" a local match to get a win, certainly your choice, but it won't make you a better shooter. If you were to take that kind of approach to stages at a major, like the Wyoming Governors match this past weekend, you would be absolutely crushed. Since the match uses their own ruleset, there can be several approaches on the 200 yard berm. Longer targets can (and should) have higher value penalties for misses and FTEs. If the way to "win" a stage is firing shots in the direction of targets to avoid FTEs but also lower their stage time, that is not a well thought out stage design...or there were just not enough good shooters at the match.

Every single major ruleset allows the increasing of the point value, or penalty for a miss, of longer, or more difficult targets. IPSC rifle allows doubling, USPSA can be more than double, same with UML, IMGA and most outlaw match rulesets.