Prevalence of cheating at club matches?

[Mark Walker in TX]

Wondering if you all have ever caught anyone cheating at a club match, and if so, how did you handle it?

We have 2 x monthly club f-class matches, and recently, a couple scores turned in by the shooters did not match up with what the guy pulling the targets thought they should be.

These are only NRA approved matches, so there is no scorekeeper. We do shoot unlimited sighters, but in these cases, it was misses occurring in the middle of strings, and there was not a possibility that the misses were sighters.

 

[NorCalMikie]

Could have been a difference of opinion by two different sets of eyes? : Or (I hate to say it but..) if the shooter cheats on a paper target, he probably cheats in life as a general rule. And that trait gets passed along to his kids (which is OK in his eyes) and it goes downhill from there. JMHO, Mike. (Use him as a target stand!!)

 

[spclark]

It's a shame that it occurs at all, even in informal club events, but it will happen.

Individual psychology being what it is, an observer noting a verifiable incident needs to make a judgement call about the value to the shooter involved, the other shooters and the integrity of the club itself whether to "call" the individual on their behavior. If money is involved (match prizes, match fees, etc.) that judgement should be somewhat easier to make.

At least make note of the event history so that some kind of timeline can be established to determine if it's habitual with an individual. Perhaps have a brief conversation with the RSO or line officer that day.

Errors in judgement happen. The effect they have on others can be hard to see at first but over time they accumulate. We're all diminished in some way by such behavior.

(Where I shoot, when we don't have score keepers we shoot two relays. The target puller scores for the shooter on that target. If the shooter calls for a mark after firing a record round and no visible impact can be found, scoring the shot is easy: MISS!)

 

[JERRYHM]

Just keep track of those who are questionable, make sure they shoot on a new clean target. Take the target off when they finish, easy to compare the result of the target and score card..

 

[JohnnyJohnson]

Pretty easy to settle. Get an IBS varmint for score taget. There are five targets and one sighter target. One shot per target. Count 10's and X's. No one handles their own target and get a scorer. Takes all the questions out of it the only ones that won't like it are more than likely your cheaters.

 

[1000yardstare]

That is why benchrest installed moving backers. Guys were claiming 10 shots in one hole when witnesses said they only fired 8 or 9 shots. Meant expense and a lot of work to keep the game honest.

You cannot have shooters scoring for themselves. This means added organizational effort to have second party scoring. The sad part is that if the matches disappeared these clowns wouldn`t really care. The people that would be upset about the loss would be the honest shooters.

 

[memilanuk]

It may be 'only' an Approved match, but I personally think letting competitors score themselves is not kosher - I'm not sure it's even legal. Either run it with three relays (one relay shoots, one scores, one pulls targets), or with two relays and score in the pits. If we have three relays, we may (usually) have unlimited sighters for the first string for each relay. If only two relays (because of a low number of competitors) and scoring in the pits, it's usually not too hard to call down via radio when each target goes for record.

 

[Mark Walker in TX]

Lots of good suggestions, which I will be passing on to our HP committee.

Thanks to you all!

 

[memilanuk]

Took me a while to find it...

In the main body of the rule book (which still applies to F-class), under section 10: Range Commands, Control & Operation...

10.5 Competitors will score - competitors will act as scorers when requested to do so by the Match Director or Chief Range Officer, except that no competitor will score his own target.(emphasis added)

Problem solved.

 

[rayjay]

At my club's monthly 100/200 BR matches we alternate between group and score. The group matches are 'honor system'. Supposedly there was a guy that got caught not shooting his 5 shots but it was before I started shooting so I don't have the full details about how he got caught.

IIRC some spectator was watching him shoot and counting his shots and he shot his sighters and shot 3 on the record and then got up from the bench. Oddly, I have seen this guy at some of our matches and didn't find out about this episode until later. The main thing is you have to have iron clad proof or else you may falsely accuse someone which is probably worse than not calling out the cheater.

I know for certain that there have been a couple of targets where I shot 6 record shots. You get to swapping back and forth between record and sighters and the next thing you know you have a doubt about how many record rounds you have fired. I always fire another.

I personally despise people that cheat at anything and I come from a motorsports background where cheating is rampant. If I ever catch somebody blatantly cheating at one of my matches they are banned for life.

 

[rayjay]

I also heard just recently of another way that people have cheated. Purposefully shooting on some competitor's targets. This was a rimfire match where shooting a bull twice isn't disqualification but you do get credit for the lower scoring hole.

You shoot all your record bulls and get up from the bench and later when you see your score there are extra holes in the target. I can't imagine the emotions a person would feel after having this happen to them.

On another similar note, I have heard tales of people purposefully shooting extra shots on their own target to blur the original hole and thereby making a 9 into a 10 as the plug would not have a definite hole to fit into.

That's ALMOST not cheating but it is surely not in the spirit of the rules and fair play.

 

[1000yardstare]

In the 1960s, .22 rimfire Match rifle shooters were starting to complain about wide 9s on their target in Canadian matches. Could be a crossfire but some suspected deliberate shots from down the line.

So at some expense and effort, target frames were modified to hold non-moving plain paper backers 6 inches behind the regulation targets. If a "mystery" shot appeared on a competitor`s front target, the backer would have a divergent angle for the shot if it came from another competitor.

This move immediately erased the problem. Too bad but it only takes one idiot to cause such a chain of events.

 

[rayjay]

I have a neighbor that is a religious person. Church every Sunday and Wed evening. Won't work in the yard on Sunday. Reads the bible often.

Until recently he was involved crew wise in Saturday night round track car racing. He would actually brag about cheating. He enjoyed getting away with it. Of course everybody else is cheating also.

In contemplating this quandry I came up with a vision for a cartoon. St. Peter is at the pearly gates pointing his finger to the gates of hell while saying "Remember that illegal cam you ran ?"

 

[falconpilot]

Mark

I had this dicussion more than once with some of the guys we shoot with. What we must be careful of is the fact that when shooting and keeping score, we can very easily miss or add an extra shot..ie..get lose in the string..I've done it myself before, and it wasn't on purpose...For those that shoot fast ,and have to keep score on themselves, this can happen..

I know it's a little more expensive, but the only way to do it is as Jerry suggested. This takes out all the varialbes, and leaves not qestions. Just like in IBS, simply start with a clean target on every relay. This will remove all questions as to score and number of shots. Doing this would also take away any "good old buddy" scoring as well..ie...buddies scoring/pull target for each other....

Jim

 

[Erik Cortina]

Have a set number of sighters so the target puller can keep track of points dropped, I don't think you need to worry about "X" count. When the target puller gets back to the line they can look at the shooters score and discuss it with the shooter if there is a discrepancy.

 

[1000yardstare]

Easy to lose track of shots fired when shooting single string. At the Canadian Nationals last year, two shooters in the same relay in the 300 metre Sierra ISU match got up and left the range after firing only 50 shots. They both thought they were finished. They never fired their last 10 shots. And they both had perfect targets going.

 

[CJ6]

I would think the self esteem of the person/persons cheating must be awful low. I would personally prefer to be at the bottom (rank/score)wise and learn from that experiance/s to improve myself than cheat and learn nothing.

 

[rayjay]

I think they actually get a big thrill out of 'beating' all the suckers. If they actually managed to win without cheating I don't thank they would enjoy it as much.

 

[canuck]

I was a top level archer in the mid 1990's. I personally witnessed one of the very top archers in the country cheating.This guy would not have even placed in this tournament but with cheating got a FIRST place( how pathetique). Word had it this was a regular occurance. Target shooting whether it is archery of rifle is a rather obscure sport.Why in the world would anyone feel the need to cheat? I can only conclude the cheaters have very low self esteem.

 

[mdavis78102]

All,

You know, I think Eric is right. Except having a set number of sights might be the wrong way. There has been a couple of matches I needed a few extra sighters to get on target at 1000yds (having just changed scopes, or a new load). There is no sense in punishing everyone for just a couple of cheaters. Yea, this isn't the first time someone's been caught!

Maybe the way to go about this is, let the target puller keep track of the shots and just count back 20 from the end for score. You could staple the scope sheet at the bottom left hand side of the target and as it comes down to be marked, record that shot.

I would still keep track of my own shots and compare at the end of the match.