This is a description of the calculations involved in the derivation and application of a new handicap system to apply to all normal Saturday shoots (including Championship days) at Rosedale Rifle Range from the 2004-05 season onwards.
Until now there have been separate handicap competitions for Target Rifle and F Class on standard targets. Because the Championship target is now used by some shooters, and because numbers are often too low for the separate categories to have a meaningful competition, it has been decided that a single competition is more appropriate. The adopted method allows all categories to compete directly and equitably.
For each shooter/rifle combination :-
· Take the 5 most recent prior scores and calculate the scores as percentages of the maximum possible. Note that for Target Rifle scores, central bulls are discarded e.g. 98.11 becomes 98 and with a possible of 100 becomes 98.0%.
· Discard the highest and lowest of these 5 percentages, and mean the remaining 3 (rounding to the nearest 0.1%) e.g. with percentages of 95.2, 98.7, 99.5, 94.0, 96.5, you would discard the 94.0 and 99.5, and mean the other 3 to get 96.8%.
· Subtract the mean percentage from 98.0%. If the result is greater than 0.0% then it is the current handicap. If it is less than or equal to 0.0%, then the current handicap is held at 0.0% e.g. for a mean percentage of 96.8, 98.0% - 96.8% = 1.4%, which is greater than 0.0%, so the handicap is 1.4%.
For each shooter/rifle combination :-
· Calculate the daily aggregate score as a percentage of the maximum possible e.g. an F Class score of 113 out of a possible 120 becomes 94.2%.
· Add the current (calculated from previous 5 shoots) handicap to get the Nett Score e.g. with a percentage score of 94.2% and a handicap of 7.2%, the Nett score is 94.2% + 7.2% which is 101.4%.
The Nett Scores of all shooters (regardless of equipment category) are then compared directly to get handicap results for the day’s competition.
Thanks to Ken Tatterson for suggesting the method.
Alan Fraser 18 July 2004