Tie breakers: Just the facts

If you’ve been keeping up with this wonderful blog for the past few days, you’ve seen that David Tubb and Carl Bernosky have been fighting it out for the top spot. Then, we see someone like PFC Sherri Hurd, who’s been flying under the radar. She might come out of nowhere and take everyone by surprise.

Now, there's still a lot of shooting left before a National Champion can be decided. However, if the current trend continues as it has been for the first two days of the high power national championship, the National Champion will not go down to a score and an X count.

So, how will a winner be decided?

(This is from the official NRA High Power Rifle Rules. I’m just saving you the trouble of looking it up.)

First, they take the total aggregate of all of the required matches that are needed to determine the national champion. In this case, for the high power championship, the scores are combined together from the Vandenberg Cup Match, Nevada Trophy Match and the Clarke Trophy Match.

The matches that I just mentioned have matches within themselves. It’s like a pyramid of matches that build all on top of each other, ultimately forming the aggregate of a National Championship.

If the score is tied, they go to the X count. In all matches, an X is a hit of highest value.

If the X count is tied, they take the highest total numerical score at the longest range or simulated longest range. Then, they take the greatest number of X’s at the longest range or simulated longest range.

If it’s still tied at that point, they look at the next to the longest range and look at the numerical score and then the X count.

If the tie is still not broken, then they re-examine the scores of the longest and next-to-the-longest matches. They first look at the person with the fewest misses. Then they look at how one did with the hits of the lowest value. Then they look at it by the fewest hits of the next to the lowest value.

It’s pretty complicated. There are a couple more ways to go into determining a tie breaker, too.