“Shooter’s Choice” in Wild Bunch

[Abe E.S. Corpus]

I think I posted on the topic a while back but I’ve seen and read lots of confusion on this topic in CAS so I thought I’d ask about a “variant” that may be specific to the 1911.

Palewolf’s description of the shooter’s options upon ejecting a live round from a rifle in the middle of a sequence (levering the rifle counting as an “engagement”) is applicable to other firearms.  In short, the shooter can re-engage the target he/she attempted to shoot, or take the miss on that target and move to the next.  If the shooter re-engages, the ejected round may be replaced to avoid the miss.  It’s amazing to me how many experienced shooters can’t grasp this.

It is of course pretty common for a WB shooter to eject a live round from the pistol after a malfunction.  There is no “levering” or manual cocking but in my view pointing the jammed pistol at the next target satisfies the requirement of “engagement”, so that Shooter’s Choice applies.  Agree so far?

With a rifle you typically eject one live round.  In the course of clearing a malfunction with the 1911 the shooter may end up dropping a magazine containing several rounds.  How many targets may the shooter “skip” after reloading.

A simple hypothetical:  Seven pistol targets in a row.  Sweep the targets three times from the same direction.  Our shooter completes one sweep and reloads.  Shooter hits T1, T2, T3, and T4, then experiences a double feed malfunction as he points at T5.  Shooter strips the magazine and ejects a total of three live rounds.  Shooter reloads a full magazine and thinking “I’ll take the three misses”, starts the third sweep beginning on T1.

Three misses for sure.  Was the “Shooter’s Choice” option to skip limited to the first target he did not shoot at (here T5), or can the shooter choose to skip three, since three live rounds were ejected or dropped.

Arguably the only missed target he engaged was T5, so he earned a P.

Thoughts?

[Sedalia Dave]

Interesting.  I see your point.  Especially the part where the shooter skipped three targets without actually engaging them.

By my thinking, shooter's choice only applies to the actual target that the malfunction occurred on. Skipping any additional targets should earn a P for failure to engage plus the misses. Only way not to earn the P is to declare the pistol broke. Then it would just be the misses.

WBAS allows the shooter to carry extra mags just like SASS allows the shooter to carry extra ammo; so there is no justification for allowing the shooter to skip the other targets just because they dropped a partial magazine.

My justification for the above is that sometimes in SASS more than 1 round is ejected when clearing a malfunction The shooter still has to reload and engage the remaining targets or they earn a P for failure to engage the remaining targets plus the misses.

[Abe E.S. Corpus]

11 hours ago, Sedalia Dave said:

My justification for the above is that sometimes in SASS more than 1 round is ejected when clearing a malfunction The shooter still has to reload and engage the remaining targets or they earn a P for failure to engage the remaining targets plus the misses.

I disagree.

Failure to attempt to shoot a firearm is a Procedural.

Once the shooter has fired, or attempted to fire, a firearm, unfired rounds are misses.

[El Chapo]

I would think it's a P for shooting targets out of order anyway.  If there are 3 targets you haven't attempted to shoot at, and you start another sweep, that is a procedural error on top of the 3 misses.

[Abe E.S. Corpus]

4 hours ago, El Chapo said:

If there are 3 targets you haven't attempted to shoot at, and you start another sweep, that is a procedural error on top of the 3 misses.

Arguably pointing the jammed pistol at T5 is an attempt to shoot the target, satisfying the requirement to engage that target.

[Jim Miller]

I fail to see the correlation between a CAS rifle and a WB 1911. In the stated scenario the shooter should have enough ammo to complete the correct course of fire regardless of the time taken to clear the malfunction. If the shooter chooses to accept the misses and starts the next sweep in order to save time they should be awarded the misses and a spirit of the game penalty.

 

Jim

[Garrison Joe]

On 6/5/2025 at 12:57 PM, Abe E.S. Corpus said:

thinking “I’ll take the three misses”, starts the third sweep beginning on T1........

Three misses for sure.  

He did have 3 misses.  He had a jam preventing firing on T5 of the second sweep.  Yes, it was "engaged" when he attempted to fire at it.   But no round fired on it, and he skipped 2 targets in the second sweep (I assume) without engaging T6 and T7.  How many unfired rounds fell out of gun when clearing the jam are inconsequential.  A miss on T5.  2 misses for T6 and T7 that he did not shoot NOR engage, and a P for not engaging T6 (also T7, but P already earned).  But, I did not read in the "theoretical play-by-play" that the shooter EXPRESSED his decision to skip 6 and 7 target "to save time" - so it's real hard to read that into the shooter's intent and not simply accept that they were working from memory shooting sweeps, and with the fresh magazine they started on T1 again.  IMHO.   

So, P and 3 misses.

GJ

PS - the definitions section of the handbook, of course, sets the meaning of the term Engaged on page 38

Quote

Engaged – attempting to fire a round at the target.

Edited Tuesday at 02:52 PM by Garrison Joe

[Eyesa]

What should he have done to avoid the penalties, load a fresh mag, shoot the three targets 5,6,&7 then 1-4 for the next run and load another mag to complete this requiring dropping a mag with unfired rounds and one in the chamber? A newbie question! Thanks

[Garrison Joe]

 

3 hours ago, Eyesa said:

to avoid the penalties, load a fresh mag, shoot the three targets 5,6,&7 then 1-4 for the next run and load another mag to complete (the 3rd sweep)

That would make it a clean stage, yep.   Drop mag at end and rack to slide stop to make sure the 1911 is open and empty.  GJ

[Eyesa]

Thanks Joe, by the time I shoot a WB match I'll be clearer on the rules! Most appreciated.

EH

[Abe E.S. Corpus]

15 hours ago, Jim Miller said:

I fail to see the correlation between a CAS rifle and a WB 1911.

The “Shooter’s Choice” writeup specifically addresses live rounds ejected from a rifle and failures-to-fire in percussion or cartridge firearms.  I believe it has been applied to other situations in which a shooter has “engaged” a target (attempted to shoot it) but did not fire a round.  The cause of the failure to fire clearly includes outrunning the manually operated rifle, a cap only ignition in a percussion revolver, or a cartridge in any type of firearm that goes “click”.

Since the 1911 pistol is a semiauto there is no manual action (such as levering the rifle or cocking a revolver) to clearly evidence the effort to shoot a target.

One approach would be to only apply Shooter’s Choice to the 1911 when the hammer has fallen on a “dud” round.

For the record I would recommend that a shooter who experiences a 1911 stoppage to shoot the next target in the sequence.

The correct application of Shooter’s Choice can save a shooter from a ten second penalty.  I like that.