Round count in Magazine

[Ranger Dan]

Stage instructions call for four 5 round magazines. Shooter has a malfunction, ftf 1st round 3rd magazine and pulls his spare 7 round mag and fires all 7 in the proper sequence. Then loads his last 5 round mag, finishing the sequence with 2 rounds unfired. So is there a penalty here ? Is this an "illegal ammunition" situation, 2 misses for the extra rounds fired from the 3rd magazine? And if the shooter had fired only 5 and changed mags, would the round chambered be "illegal" since it came from the 7 round mag?

[Garrison Joe]

Yes, you got it right.  The last two rounds in the "7-round spare" magazine, when fired, are "illegally acquired ammunition"  - these have to be counted as misses if when shot they hit the correct target.

 

From WB Shooters Handbook:

Overloaded rounds that are fired are scored as “illegally acquired” ammunition.

(Scored as miss) Each target hit with “illegally acquired” ammunition in the specified shooting string.

 

So, two misses would be the call on the main part of the question.

 

OK, second part:

 

If shooter only fired 5 from the spare and left a round from the spare magazine in chamber (and one in magazine when dropped), that one round would be "illegally acquired" if it is later fired and hits a target.  That would be one round counted as a miss (if it hit the correct target).   

 

To make this work without penalty, one way would be to do a tactical reload after 4 rounds are fired of the 7 rounds in the spare.  Thus you leave 5th round in chamber, and drop the mag with 2 live rounds left in it.  Then fire the chambered round and four of the five rounds from your last 5-shot magazine.  Lots of  thinking involved, though.

 

Shows you that for these particular stage instructions, even your spare mag(s) should be loaded with no more than 5 rounds.  Would prevent the possibility of illegal ammo calls.  And keep you from having to count rounds fired from a magazine or doing the tactical reload at the right time.

 

good luck, GJ

 

[Tully Mars]

With the 2022 rules change. it's a penalty for use of the illegal ammunition, no misses.

In this case he didn't fire two legal rounds , so 2 misses for the legal ammunition that was unfired in the last magazine. Procedural and 2 misses.

 

Synopsis of 2022 rules changes:

https://www.sassnet.com/wildbunch/handbooks/Synopsis%20of%202022%20RULE%20CHANGES%202022-01-09.pdf

 

6. Overloading

Overloading the rifle, shotgun or a pistol magazine will warrant a procedural penalty for any

overloaded or illegally acquired ammunition that is shot. However, if a shooter, for whatever

reason, shoots more rounds than required by the stage description, no misses will be assessed

for the excess ammunition shot. For scoring the stage, it will be considered that overloaded or

illegally acquired rounds were not shot. Any targets missed before these extra rounds were

fired will still be misses.

 

Tully

[Flying W Ramrod]

With the 2022 rules change. it's a penalty for use of the illegal ammunition, no misses.

In this case he didn't fire two legal rounds , so 2 misses for the legal ammunition that was unfired in the last magazine. Procedural and 2 misses.

 

Synopsis of 2022 rules changes:

https://www.sassnet.com/wildbunch/handbooks/Synopsis%20of%202022%20RULE%20CHANGES%202022-01-09.pdf

 

6. Overloading

Overloading the rifle, shotgun or a pistol magazine will warrant a procedural penalty for any

overloaded or illegally acquired ammunition that is shot. However, if a shooter, for whatever

 

Tully

Which rounds were "illegal"? The first two, the middle two, the two unfired? If they were not used in the completion of the sweep, they are not misses. It is a procedural only for loading 7 rounds instead of 5.

And who the heck uses 5 round mags anymore, anyway?

 

reason, shoots more rounds than required by the stage description, no misses will be assessed

for the excess ammunition shot. For scoring the stage, it will be considered that overloaded or

illegally acquired rounds were not shot. Any targets missed before these extra rounds were

fired will still be misses.

 

Tully

[Garrison Joe]

Well, I believe the new rules are even harder to apply in some situations than the old rules were.

 

Seems like it's becoming just about impossible to apply these rules for the 1911 pistol string because who really knows at this point, considering multiple mag changes and tactical reloads, which rounds are not to be counted, which are, and which have to be "counted as misses" if and  only if the shooter hit targets with them?

 

Let's just realize that the shooter made a Procedural mistake if they overloaded the gun/magazine and then USED one or more rounds that were overloaded.  No trying to figure out whether any particular round was illegal, just have to remember THAT the shooter used a round that was overloaded.  Easy on long guns, pretty challenging on the 1911.  But having to remember any MORE than that on the 1911 - is a "fools errand".   

 

And what would you do if the pistol string was an ordered sweep ("each round has it's designated target" - like Nevada sweeps, progressive sweeps, etc)? ALSO give the shooter a P for not shooting in the correct order?

 

Suggest the rules should just penalize the mistake of overloading and using one or more rounds that were overloaded as a single Procedural penalty.  Any more penalties on the "illegal" use of individual rounds is just too complicated, and it's a second penalty applied to the single mistake of overloading.  And ambiguous wording of what rounds "count as shot" or don't is just asking for problems.

 

These rules have to be applied by folks who are maybe old, maybe hot and tired, and maybe distracted.  Let's keep things simple enough to apply correctly without having to do deep dynamic shot-by-shot analysis

 

JMHO,  GJ

 

 

 

 

[Tully Mars]

GJ,

It's my belief the rule on overloading/illegal ammunition was made to decrease penalties to shooter. In this particular case it becomes a major pain to figure things out, however the last two unfired rounds were legal ammunition that was not fired as part of the round count of the stage.

 

The real issue is the 5 round magazine requirement for this stage. Apparently the shooter had an appropriate and legal 7 round magazine on his belt. It's the 7 seven round magazine that caused the issue. Had all his magazines been 5 rounders, then all his ammo would have been legal and he would not have had problems other than failure to fire issues.

 

I get it that WB is shot with Cowboy at times, in my opinion it's poor practice and creates bad habits. I'm assuming this was a cowboy match that allowed WB as well based on the 5 round magazine.

 

Tully

[Flying W Ramrod]

I can see that rounds 6 and 7 are considered "illegally acquired" ammo. Which causes the P, for an overloaded mag being used to complete the required string, and the two misses. Wonder if he would have shot five, dropped the mag and went back to a five round mag to finish. As Artie Johnson would say "verrrrry interesting"

 

[trooper]

GJ,

It's my belief the rule on overloading/illegal ammunition was made to decrease penalties to shooter. In this particular case it becomes a major pain to figure things out, however the last two unfired rounds were legal ammunition that was not fired as part of the round count of the stage.

 

The real issue is the 5 round magazine requirement for this stage. Apparently the shooter had an appropriate and legal 7 round magazine on his belt. It's the 7 seven round magazine that caused the issue. Had all his magazines been 5 rounders, then all his ammo would have been legal and he would not have had problems other than failure to fire issues.

 

I get it that WB is shot with Cowboy at times, in my opinion it's poor practice and creates bad habits. I'm assuming this was a cowboy match that allowed WB as well based on the 5 round magazine.

 

Tully

 

THIS!

[Garrison Joe]

The rules need to be "easy to apply" regardless of the rounds in the magazine.  Either because of what the stage instructions called for, or what the shooter decided he could use/load.

 

Next question we see could very well be that the shooter has an 8 round magazine (legal if only 7 rounds are loaded), but in which he accidentally loaded and used an eighth round.  Several ways I can think of this being hard to detect and hard to assess penalties. 

 

I'd still strongly suggest we only penalize the "overloaded ammo was used" error (with a P) and stop with any other penalties about ammo that goes from good to illegal.  Just consider that the shooter already "paid the penalty for overloading," and let them continue with the 1911 as they see fit.  No trying to figure out which and how many individual rounds are legal or not. 

 

Is this a shooting contest or a differential equations class?  If they hit correct targets, good.  If they missed targets or messed up an order, then penalties are incurred like normal based on standard rules. 

 

good luck, GJ

[Tully Mars]

GJ,

That's a suggestion for the ROC, I'm just relaying the current rules as I understand them.

We are in agreement, once anything other than 7 rounds are fired from a magazine, it becomes very confusing to all involved, especially for scoring purposes.

Tully

[Elwood James]

GJ

 

Maybe this will help simplify the concept of applying the rules.

 

You only count actual misses or assess a miss for any rounds not shot with legally acquired ammunition as directed by the stage description. 

 

Any rounds shot with illegally acquired ammunition or overloaded rounds, will assess a P, no misses or hits, and overall time will not be adjusted.

 

Additional “legally acquired rounds” fired beyond the stage description, result in a P, no misses or hits and no overall time adjustment to final time. 

 

Using the example.  Shooter would be assess a P, no miss and time used firing an overloaded round from the 3rd  7 round magazine that was in the chamber as he changed to the 4th 5rnd mag.  The third mag should still have a round in it.  He would be assessed a miss due to the fact he only shot 19 legally acquired rounds.  Just for thought and further confusion..  If, in the heat of battle, the shooter loaded and shot an extra 5 round mag, the first round of legally acquired ammo would count toward the stage round count and the shooter would have no misses from being short in the round count.  The additional 4 rounds would assess a P (if not already assessed) and time only (no misses). 

 

Hope this helps. 

EJ

 

[Ranger Dan]

Jus to clarify, this was a wild bunch match. Like most matches this was a "side match" at a larger CAS match so we were using the existing CAS target array. These are set up for 5 or 10 round strings, so some stages will use 5 round magazines and the same strings used for the CAS match, x2 with 4 magazines. Other stages used 7 round magazines. I have shot many matches like this. Our usual monthly will have at least 1 stage with 5 round mags.

[Garrison Joe]

Thanks for the replies, gents!

 

As you can tell if you read the other replies carefully, the old rules and now the new rules both make it necessary to just about have X-ray vision to understand just how many rounds are fired from each and every magazine, especially when the shooter does tactical reloads.  Most of the spotters I have had the pleasure of being scored by, and probably half of the ROs I have shot with, don't count rounds-fired-from-each-mag, they count rounds-fired-toward-the-target-array on the string being shot.  A carry-over from being used to cowboy RO work, probably.  Mag overloading is a very infrequently encountered penalty situation, too.  So why count so as to detect the rare situation, when it's so much more likely to need to guide the shooter about "where am I?" on the target array, especially right after they slam in a new magazine.   

 

And the few expert ROs who actually CAN keep a running count of both at the same time?  My campaign hat is off to them big time!

 

I'll confess that I VERY rarely can count rounds-from-each-mag.  I try to keep up 100% with the shooter's progress through the target array.  While also trying to watch muzzle, position, and gun handling.

 

good luck, GJ

 

 

[Ranger Dan]

GJ, guess that is why I was the only one to catch this. I do count rounds fired from each magazine and leave it up to the spotters to track target hits. For me it is a carry over from CAS, counting rounds fired from each gun, in WB each magazine. As RO, I rarely can assist the shooter if they loose track of where they are in the string as my attention is on the gun and assisting the shooter to correct a malfunction, safely. In this case I was a spotter, but automatically count rounds anyway.

 

Thanks for all the input.