Arizona Blockers

 We tried Arizona Blockers again on the mountain. I think it was very successful for a practice session. I do have some data that would indicate that it does help shooters get better.

The format: We shot Arizona Five which sorts better and put pressure on the shooter to hit right away.  It has a gunfighter bias. There were no matches resulting in a double loses and only one match resulting in a double win out of 27 matches.  We shot two shooter matches, if we had had more shooters we would have shot three shooters matches which have a speed bias.

Targets: We used 24 inch targets set at 10 feet. Target height was 45 inches. The personal target height of the shooters ran from 44 inches to 46 inches so we set the height at 45. The larger targets at a closer distances creates a speed bias.  

Scoring:  The targets had a 10 inch black area with the balance being a different color, red or green. A hit in the colored area resulted in the time displayed. A hit in the black including thumb nails resulted in the time being divided by 2.  A clean hit in the light resulted in the time being divided by 3.

The point of Arizona Blockers is to motivate the shooter to care about where they hit on the target.  This motivation and the practice should result in the shooters getting better as the event progresses.  With several of the shooters it was obvious that they improved significantly during the event.  The final match of the shoot off really showed the results with both shooters hitting 100% with 50% in the black.

Group Data:  My perception was that the shooters improved significantly as the event progressed.  However, perceptions can be incorrect so I put the data in a spreadsheet to confirm what I thought happened.  The group as  whole shot 72% with 24 % in the black in round 1.  Generally the group improved as the event progressed with the best round being round 6 at 85% and 40%.  As I stated before the final match was 100% with 50 % in the black.  There was no lollygagging all day.  Fastest times report ranges from .122 to .337, of course, the scoring affects that report.

I don't know if we will do this again, but "we don't practice missing on the mtn."