When you're wrong, you're wrong!

Everyone has biases and prejudices. I admit that I have a bias against speed, probably because I have tried so hard to join the realm of the quick and have failed.

I looked at the results of Winter Range and saw all those quick shooters down in Bracket B and said, "See what I have always said about practicing missing!"  Not to be one to let useful data lie, I took the time to average the speed factor of each brackets assuming I would find that Bracket B was the quickest.  When you're wrong, you're wrong. What I found was that Bracket A was the quickest bracket by a wide margin. Converting the speed factor back to time, the average time of Bracket A was .525, Bracket B was .59, and Bracket C was .65.

Not to be one who gives up his bias so easily I would note that of the ten fastest shooters, 3 were in Bracket A, 4 were in Bracket B, and 3 were in Bracket C. That means that 70% of the speed ended up outside the top one third of the final standings

Some commentators have maligned the 5 shot option, especially Arizona Five, as a format that promotes accuracy over speed, most without ever having shot in it or tried it in their events.  Winter Range provides useful data on that format in comparison with Three Winning Shot format. We shot 3 rounds of Arizona Five followed by 2 rounds of Three Winning Shots. The accuracy for Arizona Five was 43%. The accuracy for Three Winning Shots was 45%. No significant difference.  The small difference that does exist comes from the fact that first round had an accuracy of 38% followed by four rounds averaging right around 45.5%.  It takes shooters a while to find the target in an event.

For those considering Arizona Five, it took 20% fewer shots to complete a round than Three Winning Shots which means it takes about 20% less time.  

The Arizona Gunslingers have finalized the format for the Arizona State Championship. Come on Friday and we will have a good warm-up event for you. The purpose of the Friday's event to get every gunslinger warmed up for the championship.  Every shooter should get a minimum of 6 rounds, maybe 7, of Three Winning Shots. Every shooter will qualify for the magnificent shoot offs.  We will be shooting 6 Magnificent 1 X shoot offs simultaneously.