Classification System

[maddmatt]

Seeing as the new cut offs are due out (end of May) I thought I would start the most contentious topic outside of fixed or multi chokes for guns in shooting...

Every single shooter will at some point said "how on earth is [enter name here] in [enter class here] when they just shot [enter stupidly high score here]?"

Each shooter is classed twice a year, 1st June and 1st December, is this the fairest way it can be done? Why cant the CPSA implement monthly averages? Every registered ground must submit all registered shoot scores (not sure how long they get) so why can;t this be used to run the cut offs and classifications at best monthly, or second best quarterly (for you trap shooters that means every 3 months :biggrin: )?

Surely it would go a long way to stopping at times some ridiculous scores in certain disciplines where the shooter in question *should* really be in a higher class?

Or is this asking too much of a) The CPSA and/or B) The Technology?

 

[Will Hewland]

Potentially a massive debate, but on balance it's a pretty good system. (Even though I have a slightly better one..)

My one practical criticism is that it is unnecessary to look back a year at each classification point. Surely 6 months is enough time to represent form, whilst not being so long that 'old form' can affect the result?

 

[Dog Tyred]

But they will be in a higher class come the next re-classification?

I know a couple of trap shooters who shoot well above their current classification but they'll be bumped upwards come June 1st so I won't have to worry about them in my class. I also know of a couple who are shooting well below their current class so I may have to worry about them instead if they come down!!

Sandbagging only lasts for six months, then they will move up. Sticking in a couple of low scores to maintain a low average doesn't work as they are discarded anyway if they are 10% below the average (5% for DTL). It's a costly exercise as well because you would have to bang a load of them in the bring the average down so as not to discard really low scores.

Don't forget its based on averages over a six month period. Most shooters will only shoot maybe 8>12 comps in that time. Have you never had a really blinding day when you have shot out of your skin only to revert back to your normal score the following week?

Why not change it to 3 times a year (for you non-trappies thats every four months) DT

 

[Fuzrat]

Having shot some skeet for a while know, I think this is only really a problem in sporting and the low class of the fixed disciplines. Occasionally on a sporting shoot you will have a good day and the targets just suit you hence a biggie and in the fixed disciplines the learning curve is very steep at the beginning as you get to know the targets very quickly and get used to shooting them so scores improve rapidly.

Just to throw a controversial one in, maybe its to do with the bigger prize pots at sporting? many skeet registereds I have entered I have thought its not worth going comp as there are only 3 entries in my class and 2 of them are birds only. So it would be a fiver in to win a fiver.

 

[Jan Powell]

I have suggested the CPSA follow the NSSA model of classifying shooters for years. Reclassify after every 5 events rather than every 6 months. It's easy enough to do by computer. This ensures you're shooting in a class commensurate with your ability and are competing against those of a similar standing.

 

[johnyT]

As has been said I think that this predominantly a sporting problem which, as much as anything, reflects the range of difficulty of individual shoots.  If a shooter mainly shoots at a "hard" ground and has a classification to reflect that and then goes to a softer shoot they may well shoot big scores, there is also the factor that many sporting shooters will shoot throughout the winter with twenty seven layers of clothing on and this reflects in pulling their average down, the 12 month rolling means that there is always 6 months worth of winter scores in the mix.

My solution would be to award points on each individual shoot as distance from the average of the top three shooters and calculate classifications based on the avearge of that so if you are on average  0 - 10 away AA, 11 -15 A etc

This would at least reflect varying shoot difficulty and would allow grounds where the targets are traditionally a bit harder to go back to setting proper shoots that would not hammer there customer's classification.

 

[Madmillie]

Shame that this discussion seems to be restricted to registered shoots only. The amount of sandbagging(fraud) in unregistered shoots is now completely out of hand. At one of my local shoots this weekend c class was one with an 87 and second place went to an 85. The 87 would have been good enough to have come second in A class. Neither of the winning c class shooters has a CPSA classification!

I refuse to enter any competitions that are not registered as you have better odds of winning some cash by buying a lottery ticket. At least with a registered shoot you have some form of control even if the system could do with revamping.

 

[Hotshot100]

Shame that this discussion seems to be restricted to registered shoots only. The amount of sandbagging(fraud) in unregistered shoots is now completely out of hand. At one of my local shoots this weekend c class was one with an 87 and second place went to an 85. The 87 would have been good enough to have come second in A class. Neither of the winning c class shooters has a CPSA classification! I refuse to enter any competitions that are not registered as you have better odds of winning some cash by buying a lottery ticket. At least with a registered shoot you have some form of control even if the system could do with revamping.

How very true this is. I have written about this on many occasions on forums and through the Kent write up in Pull magazine. Unfortunately it is something that is impossible to control even if there was a desire by ground owners to do so.

 

[** Pending Removal **]

Sandbagging.......ahhhhhh....!

This has always been the trouble in sporting. Cheating at all levels. The game is not regulated properly. Who would pay large amounts of money to be reffed by a kid. Add to that tiredness, poor weather and losing the will to live.....it is no wonder that they can be pushed into giving birds again. When money is involved there should be qualified refs....or it is never a level playing field.

In FITASC sporting the cheating gets more subtle, but has always been there and it is still there.....probably only a few on here would remember the great open letter to FITASC Paris written by gorgeous George who was sick to death of seeing it.

Point is yes the classifications could be done after each shoot...there is the tech available as another poster said.....who cares if a shooter shoots only the easy shoots and gets into AAA.....it would be obvious who they were when they turned up at a good shoot and put a C class score.

IMHO you should not be able to drop class at all.....once you get up there ....you never come down. Folks the class should be a badge of honour and the higher you get the better.....so why would you want to come down?

Hence I have no interest anymore in shooting sporting or Fitasc sporting seriously.....I have seen where the skeletons are hidden....and how they have been repeated......and I do not like it......so I voted with my feet.

 

[Skeetfreak]

This is a potentially huge debate that will NEVER really reach any kind of solution that will appease everyone and that i think is the issue - it the proverbial "hot potato"!!

For what it is worth i tend to agree that we SHOULD be re-classifying more often - and being used to the NSSA system of re-class every shoot based upon your last 5 shoots can work well. Initially it works like so:-

New Shooter - joins association - and for first 5 shoots can move up and down as freely as the average gives them.

eg:- 91 = C class

       91 + 95 / 2 = 93 average (C Class)

       91 + 95  + 97 / 3 = 94.33 average (B Class)

       91 + 95 + 97 + 98 / 4 =  95.25 average (B Class)

       91 + 95 + 97 + 98 + 97 / 5 = 95.6 average (B Class)

After 5 shoots you can only drop a single class in any given 12 month period (Jan - Dec) but you can rise as far as your average takes you!!

for your sixth shoot you would simply drop the first score (91) and replace it on the end with the last score and keep doing that for the rest of the year.

eg:- 95 + 97 + 98 + 97 + 97 / 5 = 96.8 average (A Class)

The beginning of the following year your BEGINNING average would be the sum of all your scores for the previous 12 months divided by the number of shoots - but you can only drop a single class in this 12 month period as you are now NOT a new shooter in your rookie year!

If you walk away from the sport for a period of time then as per existing rules your classes are retained FOREVER rather than you lose them / they disappear after a period of time.

This does give a degree of responsibility to the shooter to be honest and declare into the right class each shoot - assuming the CPSA data is not able to track that you did one registered in the morning and another in the afternoon and your average might have altered and moved your class! The way NSSA do this is they give each shooter a card that they use to track their own scores / shoots and calculate their own rolling average.

it is however NOT a perfect system....

But you want the hard truth?????????????

Its not the averages that are the real problem or even weather the shoot is registered or not - the problem lies with us (Humans) and the fact that some are dishonest and because there is prize money available people will cheat.They will manipulate the averages / alter score cards etc etc to win a few quid off unsuspecting people.

My mind set is that for STANDARD registered shoots there should be no prize money at all!!! It should be a purely average based system where we shoot for honour and enjoyment, take the prize money away and you remove the reason to cheat. Take the prize money away and you make the entries cheaper - reducing the cost of shooting and maybe encouraging people to shoot more.

I will in all standard registered shooting always opt for birds only. In fact at the recent English Skeet England Selection i shot birds only - I was not interested in the money, what i generally want is lots of good quality targets at an affordable price. There is one club i shoot at that does 100 registered skeet for £21 members and £26 non member.

The simple fact is that as long as there is prize money in standard registered / non registered shoots then this issue will exist and people will feel aggrieved by it. Remove the money and the issue goes away - simple!!!! - but this will never happen as ground owners use prize money to lure people in by guaranteeing prize funds and putting on high gun money etc etc. Getting all the ground owners to agree on doing this would be impossible I'd wager.

Harsh truth is that if you NEED the prize money to justify shooting then you are on the road to financial ruin anyway and should have stayed at home. You will never make a profit at shooting by winning shoots so why have the prize money and make entries more expensive? In what have been a tough few years we should be looking at ways to make shooting more affordable and get more people to shoot more often. This is the more sustainable way for the sport to progress and for grounds to keep going - stack them high and sell them cheap.

Then get the CPSA to remove the RIDICULOUS rule that you can only shoot a registered event once on a given ground in a day - the way to help grounds is let shooters enter multiple times on the same day in the same location to save on fuel costs. With no prize money at stake this suddenly becomes possible - registered re-entry is the way forward for grounds as if you have travelled over an hour to a ground you want to shoot a couple of hundred targets really!!

This is one of the appeals of NSSA skeet to me - i can shoot multiple times (as many as i like) in a single day.

So what about championships??????

Where there is and should be prize money..... well my radical thought is the following.

You enter in advance paying in full in advance - you enter using your given class based upon your averages however it is calculated.

ALL prize shoots are random squads with a person from each "class" pot drawn so each squad contains a AA, A, B, C shooter plus a wild card slot for international shooters / unclassified shooters.

But as you enter the CPSA check your average against a "championship" average that they keep separate which is ONLY your scores in major events which are "prize" shoots. So they in effect check your not fiddling the system by shooting poorly in standard shoots vs well in prize shoots.

Lets face it anyone rigging the system will be shooting better when there are prizes on offer.

Default rule is that you ALWAYS enter championships in the higher class  of either "Prize or Standard average" whichever is greater.

This should stop the sandbaggers and also catch the rising super star who could put in way above average scores due to the fact they are above their current "championship" class ability wise as they got better since their last "prize shoot".

 

[Will Hewland]

Don't forget its based on averages over a six month period. Most shooters will only shoot maybe 8>12 comps in that time. Have you never had a really blinding day when you have shot out of your skin only to revert back to your normal score the following week?

Why not change it to 3 times a year (for you non-trappies thats every four months) DT

It's NOT based on six months. It's is graded every six months, but it looks back a year each time. That was my point. Six months would be better IMO.

 

[Clynt]

This is a potentially huge debate that will NEVER really reach any kind of solution that will appease everyone and that i think is the issue - it the proverbial "hot potato"!!

For what it is worth i tend to agree that we SHOULD be re-classifying more often - and being used to the NSSA system of re-class every shoot based upon your last 5 shoots can work well. Initially it works like so:-

New Shooter - joins association - and for first 5 shoots can move up and down as freely as the average gives them.

eg:- 91 = C class

       91 + 95 / 2 = 93 average (C Class)

       91 + 95  + 97 / 3 = 94.33 average (B Class)

       91 + 95 + 97 + 98 / 4 =  95.25 average (B Class)

       91 + 95 + 97 + 98 + 97 / 5 = 95.6 average (B Class)

After 5 shoots you can only drop a single class in any given 12 month period (Jan - Dec) but you can rise as far as your average takes you!!

for your sixth shoot you would simply drop the first score (91) and replace it on the end with the last score and keep doing that for the rest of the year.

eg:- 95 + 97 + 98 + 97 + 97 / 5 = 96.8 average (A Class)

The beginning of the following year your BEGINNING average would be the sum of all your scores for the previous 12 months divided by the number of shoots - but you can only drop a single class in this 12 month period as you are now NOT a new shooter in your rookie year!

If you walk away from the sport for a period of time then as per existing rules your classes are retained FOREVER rather than you lose them / they disappear after a period of time.

This does give a degree of responsibility to the shooter to be honest and declare into the right class each shoot - assuming the CPSA data is not able to track that you did one registered in the morning and another in the afternoon and your average might have altered and moved your class! The way NSSA do this is they give each shooter a card that they use to track their own scores / shoots and calculate their own rolling average.

it is however NOT a perfect system....

But you want the hard truth?????????????

Its not the averages that are the real problem or even weather the shoot is registered or not - the problem lies with us (Humans) and the fact that some are dishonest and because there is prize money available people will cheat.They will manipulate the averages / alter score cards etc etc to win a few quid off unsuspecting people.

My mind set is that for STANDARD registered shoots there should be no prize money at all!!! It should be a purely average based system where we shoot for honour and enjoyment, take the prize money away and you remove the reason to cheat. Take the prize money away and you make the entries cheaper - reducing the cost of shooting and maybe encouraging people to shoot more.

I will in all standard registered shooting always opt for birds only. In fact at the recent English Skeet England Selection i shot birds only - I was not interested in the money, what i generally want is lots of good quality targets at an affordable price. There is one club i shoot at that does 100 registered skeet for £21 members and £26 non member.

The simple fact is that as long as there is prize money in standard registered / non registered shoots then this issue will exist and people will feel aggrieved by it. Remove the money and the issue goes away - simple!!!! - but this will never happen as ground owners use prize money to lure people in by guaranteeing prize funds and putting on high gun money etc etc. Getting all the ground owners to agree on doing this would be impossible I'd wager.

Harsh truth is that if you NEED the prize money to justify shooting then you are on the road to financial ruin anyway and should have stayed at home. You will never make a profit at shooting by winning shoots so why have the prize money and make entries more expensive? In what have been a tough few years we should be looking at ways to make shooting more affordable and get more people to shoot more often. This is the more sustainable way for the sport to progress and for grounds to keep going - stack them high and sell them cheap.

Then get the CPSA to remove the RIDICULOUS rule that you can only shoot a registered event once on a given ground in a day - the way to help grounds is let shooters enter multiple times on the same day in the same location to save on fuel costs. With no prize money at stake this suddenly becomes possible - registered re-entry is the way forward for grounds as if you have travelled over an hour to a ground you want to shoot a couple of hundred targets really!!

This is one of the appeals of NSSA skeet to me - i can shoot multiple times (as many as i like) in a single day.

So what about championships??????

Where there is and should be prize money..... well my radical thought is the following.

You enter in advance paying in full in advance - you enter using your given class based upon your averages however it is calculated.

ALL prize shoots are random squads with a person from each "class" pot drawn so each squad contains a AA, A, B, C shooter plus a wild card slot for international shooters / unclassified shooters.

But as you enter the CPSA check your average against a "championship" average that they keep separate which is ONLY your scores in major events which are "prize" shoots. So they in effect check your not fiddling the system by shooting poorly in standard shoots vs well in prize shoots.

Lets face it anyone rigging the system will be shooting better when there are prizes on offer.

Default rule is that you ALWAYS enter championships in the higher class  of either "Prize or Standard average" whichever is greater.

This should stop the sandbaggers and also catch the rising super star who could put in way above average scores due to the fact they are above their current "championship" class ability wise as they got better since their last "prize shoot".

I like your prospectus here my friend some very good points raised,how this would be orchestrated by our ruling body could be a problem ? think the points at majors are spot on ...but who categorises a major if it was not run by the CPSA . manipulation of weekly scores will always occur where big money is on offer in A-B-C class those in AA-AAA are there through their averages and have nowhere to go bar down, with only a certain percentage of shooters being allocated to AA status, you will undoubtedly see some very able AA shooters drop into A class ?then on the softer sporting shoots you will see big scores on a regular basis....

this can be viewed as a faulty class system or grounds catering for lower classes to achieve bigger scores (which brings them a larger entry and better income) rock and a hard place comes to mind !!! due to the massive variation of sporting from ground to ground I tend to feel there is no real answer that would suit any system perfectly, Shooters like hitting clays fact ! where this takes them short term is their choice, what they then do out of their comfort zone,depicts them as a sports-person :hunter:    

 

[ips]

This is an excellent point to debate.

IMO it matters not what criteria you set for classification there will always be someone who shoots very well on the day and wins with a score way in excess of the class average.

Lets take for example DTL. an A class shooter needs to average approx 277 - 288 points to stay in A but when was the last time you ever saw any comp were A class was won with a 288 ..... never.

My point is that IMO classes are a nonsense and too much emphasis is put on them. Yes its nice to say you are AA but in reality unless you are at the top end of AA you will prob never win anything. Also if you choose to shoot in winter (trap anyway) your averages WILL be kept lower.

This idea may be nonsense but what about  .......... do away with classes entirely (incl lady and child etc) and just pay further down the leader board. ??

 

[P1Fanatic]

When I shot air rifles on the National HFT they did it that the top scorer’s score was 100% and then everyone else’s scores are given as a percentage of the winning score. That method does a better job of taking into account the difficulty of the course and the conditions on the day. For classifications you could then work out a bracket according to the average in that class and if someone clearly stands out above the rest (defined %) then they would get pushed into the next class above at least in terms of claiming prizes.
English Skeet Open last weekend and a C class shooter gets 98? Hardly inspires others in that class to stump up the extra for prizes knowing that more often than not you will need to shoot an AA score to be in with a shout of a prize.

 

[Will Hewland]

When I shot air rifles on the National HFT they did it that the top scorer’s score was 100% and then everyone else’s scores are given as a percentage of the winning score. That method does a better job of taking into account the difficulty of the course and the conditions on the day. For classifications you could then work out a bracket according to the average in that class and if someone clearly stands out above the rest (defined %) then they would get pushed into the next class above at least in terms of claiming prizes.

English Skeet Open last weekend and a C class shooter gets 98? Hardly inspires others in that class to stump up the extra for prizes knowing that more often than not you will need to shoot an AA score to be in with a shout of a prize.

As I noted with the EO at Doveridge, a stupid time of year to hold it, just before the new classifications. Guarantee of 'out of place' classes (morally).

 

[ips]

When I shot air rifles on the National HFT they did it that the top scorer’s score was 100% and then everyone else’s scores are given as a percentage of the winning score. That method does a better job of taking into account the difficulty of the course and the conditions on the day. For classifications you could then work out a bracket according to the average in that class and if someone clearly stands out above the rest (defined %) then they would get pushed into the next class above at least in terms of claiming prizes.
English Skeet Open last weekend and a C class shooter gets 98? Hardly inspires others in that class to stump up the extra for prizes knowing that more often than not you will need to shoot an AA score to be in with a shout of a prize.

This winner gets 100% sounds like an excellent way of doing it...

With regards to your last sentence, that is exactly my point no class is ever won by that classifications averages and there is always someone comes good on the day like your ES example.

I don't really care what class I shoot in these days as I accept that if I want to shoot all year round (and also dabble in different trap disciplines which doesn't help matters) then my averages will not be a true reflection of my ability. Also the occasional devastating result such as Nutty ABT the other week can seriously damage your averages and if its only 9% less and doesn't get thrown out then it makes a difference unless you have shot a lot of targets at that discipline.

When I was younger I may have been bothered and wanted the credibility of shooting in AA but when you have been there the novelty soon wares off when you are not wining. All I care about is shooting well on the day (for me) and if I win high gun or class win occasionally then that's even better.

 

[Skeetfreak]

English Skeet Open last weekend and a C class shooter gets 98? Hardly inspires others in that class to stump up the extra for prizes knowing that more often than not you will need to shoot an AA score to be in with a shout of a prize.

First up - i am not picking on your directly more a comment about the statement and the scenario and using the quote to illustrate my point.

If you take a peek at the averages of the shooter over the preceding time then that was a phenomenal score and IMO they actually deserved the win. Best score they have ever shot was a 99 around a month ago and all the others are high 80's / low 90's going back to 2010 so just a case of some-one having their day / a run of form which no-one should have an issue with.

It will happen that some-one has a good day - and they should be entitled too. Never know with a lot of effort and dedication it could be anyone of us next time.

I figure no matter which way you classify shooters OR whenever you hold a shoot you will always get this scenario. You cannot possibly work out a way to cover it and IMO we shouldn't need too as everyone is allowed a good day!

NOTE:- It was the shooters in lower than 20th place who shot a "class average" score - so what do we say no-one above that score should be in that class? I susepct no matter which way we worked out the averages / classes you would never get all of those shooters in better than 20th place into the class above - not possible!

This issue is not the score / the person / the average / the class - its's everytime we have prize money we have this debate (noted after the EO sporting - the same) as people always want a slice of the fund. Do not use the thought that there is prize money available as motivation to shoot better - use the fact that you want to improve / do a new PB etc - the rest is a result of those achievements. They matter more than any winnings as you will ALWAYS in the long run end up out of pocket - shoot to enjoy it!!

 

[clayclouter]

We all have the option to shoot Birds Only,your score still counts to your average and is registered with the CPSA. So if you think that sandbagging is so rife and the chances of you winning are remote then shoot birds only.

You get just the same birds,you get your score registered and you get an average as normal .Plus you are not contributing to the sandbaggers prizepot.

Me ? I am an incurable optimist I always shoot for prize money and have won some on occasions, I have also shot some scores which were way above my average and current form of the time and wondered where the hell they came from.

I don't consider myself a sandbagger, but like most average weekend shooters one has good days and bad days,the good days can be exceptional and the bad days can be dire,just take a look at my scores over the last 2 periods. 

I think the whole issue for me is more  about cheating during a shoot,rather than sandbagging which is completely counter productive if one thinks it through logically. The entrance money one wastes in order to drop a level is surely more than the money you might pick up winning in a lower class? Or at best you might make a little?

I am far more concerned with the intimidation of scorers and the squad of "he hit that!" mates that  frequent some shooting grounds at times

This is a bigger problem in my opinion

 

[Julesy]

Just to clarify the point about the C Class Win at the EO Skeet - Jess Roe has been shooting with us for many years - over the last few weeks everything just seems to have clicked and she has posted a 99 a few weeks ago and a 98 this weekend - She is a club member and was shooting at her home ground that she practices at every week, she has put the work in to get that class win and it was thoroughly deserved.

Practically every compeition shooter in skeet can hit 25 in practice - it takes a certain mental ability to do that 4 times at a big championship and that is what seperates the winners from the rest of the pack.

Anyone that saw Jess's score and was put off by it should be ashamed of themselves - she is a 17 year old girl that has worked really hard to finally be getting the scores that she deserves. She is well liked by everyone at the club and is a credit to her family, the county and the ground.

The fact that Jess posted a 98 should be motivation - if Jess can do that then the targets are there to be hit.

Jess deserves her success and should be encouraged - the same as Rosie at the EO Sporting.