DonC
Scotchmo gave you a good answer. You asked a question that really will get responses that are the individuals personal opinion. Within the limits of the rules you can set the course up the way you want. My opinion is that the course you describe is more difficult that I like. years ago I used to evaluate my course by average target distance but now we use Brad Troyer's system, which although not perfect, gives us a better way to measure. Some people like to make their courses very difficult. I do not feel that way. This sport is supposed to be fun and not so difficult that shooters get discouraged. Not everyone is going to be a top level shooter so why design a club level course for just them? We design a course with a mix of easy to hard targets with an average distance of up to 31 yards and a Troyer of around 28. That way everybody can knock down some targets and there are some difficult targets for the really good shooters.. We only use one forced lane and that is standing. We run a 60 shot match with thirty total targets so it works out that 10% only are forced position shots. Field Target is basically a freestyle type of shooting. There are plenty of other shooting disciplines that we can shoot using forced positions if we want. Even with our relatively "easy" courses, in thirty years I have only seen our course cleaned one time and at our current venue it has not been cleaned in the last seven years.
That's how we like to do it. I suggest that other clubs run things the way they want within the AAFTA rules and guidelines. If you use the Troyer system you can compare your actual design to whatever your goal is so you end up with what you want and it can be repeated. Also keep in mind that there are a lot of other factors that go into a course design besides target distance. Target type, kill zone sizes, terrain, placement, etc. are other factors to consider. Thinking about what you are doing is the first step to setting up a successful course and you are doing that here. Good luck.
Rick B.
