TargetTalk

Our state is looking for ways to improve the speed and efficiency of the state shoot. We had something on the magnitude of 535 .22 youth this year and I'm not sure how many "total" entries, probably on the magnitude of 1250.

What do you folks in large participation, and even small, states do? Our .22 is run in one day, and in my opinion it was the hand scoring and contesting time that really bogged us down.

So the recommendations I've seen are:
1) Limit the youth involved by minimum qualify score
2) Limit the # of youth on a team
3) Go electronic (Orion)

Personally 1&2 dont hold much credibility for a 4-H program, given the "we provide the building blocks" lecture I heard at the National 4-H competition. So that puts us squarely in line with Orion. I've never used Orion on a competition with (possibly) 4000 targets to be scored.

So Texas, NM, comments?

Thanks

In Arkansas we have about 400 kids who shoot in our state 4-H championship. In one weekend they shoot sporter 22, and air rifle along with air pistol. So combined we have 1200 targets to score over a couple of days.

We switched to Orion a couple of years ago and it works great. The scoring is quick and there are very few protests so there is not a lot of time used up for that.

Since you are doing a 4-H program I think Orion is the way to go rather than limiting the number of shooters. After all, 4-H is (or at least should be) the pipeline for bigger and better things for the kids..... more is better!

In New Mexico we score Air rifle with ORION. (and have since 2011 ... all the coaches and shooters are VERY happy with it)

We may go to ORION in .22 as well this year, but while it's more accurate than hand scoring, not sure it would be quicker.

We also limit our state match to two teams per county per 4-H discipline (33 counties in NM). Each county decides how to select their own teams, but most shoot a selection/qualifier match about a month to 6wks before the State Match.
We only shoot 2 of the 3 national events ... i.e in Air and 22 Rifle, we fire the 3-P and the silhouette events. We follow the National 4-H SS rules that will be used at the nationals ... none of this pick & choose rules ... the kids shoot the same as they will if they go to the National event.
In addition each participant is only able to shoot 2 disciplines.

We are expecting about 500 shooters this year (across all events) and we are for the first time looking at going to two days of competitions.

We are VERY fortunate to have the NRA Whittington Center as our 4-H State Match venue ... all the ranges we could want.

In Virginia we just had our 4-H state shoot 10 days ago. We had 300 register and about 280 showed up. We shoot all day Saturday and until about 1:00pm Sunday.

Squadded events (either 30, 45, 60, 75 or 90 minutes) are:
.22 3P rifle (sporter any sight, sporter iron sight or match rifle iron sight)
3P air rifle (sporter or precision)
PPP air pistol
BB rifle
Archery
Skeet
Trap
Muzzleloading Rifle
.22 target pistol (NRA national match course)

Unsquadded events (fill in as one's schedule permits) are:
Silhouette (.22 rifle, .22 pistol, air rifle, air pistol)
Field Target Air Rifle
Seneca Trail (knife throw, tomahawk throw, field target archery, mzl rifle)

3P air rifle, PPP air pistol and BB rifle were all scored by Orion. 3P .22 rifle was scored manually (hope to use Orion next year). Some participants did as few as one event, but some did as many as 6-7. Team scores were just the top 3 seniors and the top 3 juniors from each county/club in each event. Awards ceremony was held 3-5pm Sunday.

Event was held at the Holiday Lake 4-H Center in Appomattox, Virginia. Facilities were: 10 point 10m air rifle range, 8 point 10m air pistol range, 10 point target archery range, 2 overlaid American skeet/trap fields, 27 point 50 yard .22 rifle range which was also used as a 18 point 50 yard muzzleloading rifle range, 100 yard 8 bank .22 silhouette range, temporary indoor (conf. room) 7 point 5m BB rifle range, temporary field target air rifle range (on the ball field) and Seneca Trail through the woods.

About half the participants, parents, coaches, officials stayed overnight at the Center either in the available lodging or they brought RV's, travel trailers or tents. Maybe 20% stayed in nearby motels. Others were close enough to drive in each day. Maybe 60% used the Center's food service.

In Louisiana, we hold a two Regional Matches to qualify for State (north and south). Regional matches are split into the northern and southern Parishes (counties). Each match has 1200+ entrants. We shoot the match from Wednesday thru Saturday, with Sunday as a makeup day for weather or other problems. We take the top 15 shooters from each regional event to the state match.

Our state match follows the same format (Wednesday-Saturday). We shoot small bore rifle 3P and Silhouette on Thursday with CMP the next day, at all matches. The regional matches are held on separate weekends, usually in March. The state match is held in April. We had to cancel/postpone our Northern regional at the last minute, last week. Massive flooding in the area affected too many shooters and their safety is at the forefront.

I hope this helps you with your match scheduling. Good lock and be safe!

We were timing orion sat on 22 targets. Was taking about 2min per ten shot page. That seem right?

We used a i7 laptop last year w/ 5 shots per bull (A51 type)
no more than 30 sec per target.
It makes all the difference as to how much memory & cores you have in the machine.

We have to shoot a qualifying score for our state BB match and still have just shy of 600 kids every year. We score with Orion and we still don't wrap up with awards till around midnight the day of.