Pistol League, scoring, and caliber choice.

[Walther]

I've been shooting a league for the last 5 weeks. I chose a Ruger MkIII for a lot of reasons. This particular league is any caliber up to .45.

Something popped up yesterday that never ocurred to me before. On my last target, one of the rounds landed squarely in the 9 ring but touched the 10 ring line just enough to make it fuzzy, but the line was still intact. I was scoring my targets and put it down as a 9. One of the range officers told me it was a 10. Ok, your range, your rules. I'll gladly take the extra point and an X. To me, it was a 9. Unless the line for the next ring is completely severed I always score it lower.

To my point, or question:

If I had been shooting anything larger, (even a .25), there would've been no question that it was a 10. I got to thinking that shooting a .45 would give an advantage over the smaller caliber in that it could hit well into the 9 ring and still score a 10, where a smaller caliber would score the 9.

So, what do you shoot, and why? Interesting to note the next league at my club is rimfire only, which will then be followed by a centerfire league. Is it common practice to allow mixed calibers on a casual league?

[wishn-i-was-fishn]

I've been shooting a league for the last 5 weeks. I chose a Ruger MkIII for a lot of reasons. This particular league is any caliber up to .45.

Something popped up yesterday that never ocurred to me before. On my last target, one of the rounds landed squarely in the 9 ring but touched the 10 ring line just enough to make it fuzzy, but the line was still intact. I was scoring my targets and put it down as a 9. One of the range officers told me it was a 10. Ok, your range, your rules. I'll gladly take the extra point and an X. To me, it was a 9. Unless the line for the next ring is completely severed I always score it lower.

To my point, or question:

If I had been shooting anything larger, (even a .25), there would've been no question that it was a 10. I got to thinking that shooting a .45 would give an advantage over the smaller caliber in that it could hit well into the 9 ring and still score a 10, where a smaller caliber would score the 9.

So, what do you shoot, and why? Interesting to note the next league at my club is rimfire only, which will then be followed by a centerfire league. Is it common practice to allow mixed calibers on a casual league?

Your range office was correct. In geneeral when scoring competition targets the shooter is always given the higher score when a bullet hole is touching the line between two different values as described in your quoted scenario above. In most competitions the advantage always goes to the shooter unless otherwise spelled out in the rule book.

[ltdave]

all the round has to do is TOUCH the line to score the higher value...

kudos to you for not being a petty point burglar but the RO was right. if he had plugged the hole and it showed touching, its a point...

[Walther]

Yeah, I get that. I just always feel guilty taking points in that manner. Probably shouldn't, everyone else takes them. I would've felt better about it if the line was broken.

But back to my point, does anyone shoot a larger caliber just to take advantage of the size? I could probably go back and look through my targets and take another 10 points per week if I was shooting a .45.

Just thinking out loud.