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What percentage of shooters make A class?


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Steve Alpha mike is having a Classifier match Saturday, knowing Donald the stages will be the kind you can move up on. I'll be at Ted's Rifle fun shoot, I'm going to stay in "C" till I make it the hard way one classifer at a time, I broke into C prematurly at 61.

I'm fairly certain I made A on Saturday with an 83% on Bang n Clang, I was sitting at 74%.

Besides, you and Ted and a few others have started to insinuate (in a gentle and loving way) that I may be sand-bagging.

Steve - When its official on or about June 15th - Then we are going to have to have a major celebration I'm talking Beer and BBQ, maybe some cake. I'll see if we can talk Ted into hosting it and I'll kick in some $$ for Beer and Beef.

Maybe we should wait until I make Master...

But I'm always up for a party!!!

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theres only 9 SS GMs?

I need to get to work!

Is that really true, or is there some mistake with the data?

There are at least two people who post on this forum every day who are GMs in SS.

I just checked the SS nats results, 5 GMs competed this year, two of which were GMS last year.

Wow, maybe there really are only 9 SS GMs.

That's pretty bad ass.

There are only 9. Johnny Brister is the most recent GM in SS and the first person to be a GM in all six divisions.

Johnny B is a class act! I really enjoyed the two times we've chatted at Double Tap.

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I agree with you Jake, and I am begininng to think that the same could be said about M, But what is your opinion on GM? Do you think anyone could do it ?I am of the opinion that you almost need freakish hand eye coordination to pull that one off, and not every one who wants it, can do it. What do you think?

I was once told I would never become a GM because I have to shift my grip in order to hit the mag release. Because of that I took a fanatical approach to developing my reloading ability. I know a lot of other people who hear things like that and believe them without a fight. Those people will never be GMs. I'd also say that anyone that can hit M can hit GM barring some physiological aberration. Most M class shooters are as fast as GMs, they just lack accuracy and consistency.

Ultimately I think it comes down to how much people are willing to sacrifice to hit their goals. If Joe shooter practiced for hours a day. If he ate, drank, slept, and bled shooting. If he was on a continuous mission to better himself by reading, thinking, and cross training every single day. If they never missed a training session. I'd bet on that shooter becoming a GM every time. It might take months, it might take years. Persistence is critical. Now obviously this comes at a very high price - usually to the exclusion of all other things besides work and family. Most people are not willing to pay that price, therefore most people will not become GMs. Does it come easier for some than others? Sure, absolutely. But I refuse to say that someone can't do something because their hand-eye coordination isn't great.

You know what they say - The person who says it can't be done is often interrupted by the person doing it.

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Sometimes I think its not the making these classes that is hard but getting to a match once a month and having a good run on what ever is set up, and that is where the practice to become consistent comes in...I think?

I just made B it took a year but I could only make 11 classifiers of which 3or so came from state level matches. I thought this a great thread as I was just thinking I have mad respect for A + class shooters, to hit the 75%+ on classifiers when you get to the match cold have not shot in a week and it may be your first stage....and I wanna try and do well for the match , so hero or zero thinking does not fit in to my mind yet. I dont know, does anyone else see this as a pretty big jump? I want A, Hell I want GM but the ability for me to shoot enough and make classifiers an avg of once a month seems like it will be many years away and I fear since I am already 48, I am not getting any fresher :rolleyes:

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Sometimes I think its not the making these classes that is hard but getting to a match once a month and having a good run on what ever is set up, and that is where the practice to become consistent comes in...I think?

I just made B it took a year but I could only make 11 classifiers of which 3or so came from state level matches. I thought this a great thread as I was just thinking I have mad respect for A + class shooters, to hit the 75%+ on classifiers when you get to the match cold have not shot in a week and it may be your first stage....and I wanna try and do well for the match , so hero or zero thinking does not fit in to my mind yet. I dont know, does anyone else see this as a pretty big jump? I want A, Hell I want GM but the ability for me to shoot enough and make classifiers an avg of once a month seems like it will be many years away and I fear since I am already 48, I am not getting any fresher :rolleyes:

Took me just about 6 years to make "A". I am 43. When I was hovering in the 50% range it seemed that 75% was miles away.

After I realized that 1 match and no practice a week would just not cut it(3 summer journey), I started to practice. The practice paid off. I layed off the practice for awhile, somehow sqeaked into "A" and now I'm back to practicing. Went back to practicing because I know in my heart that I need some work to hang with the good "A's". Sorry off topic of thread.

Back on topic: I didn't think to add the M's and GM's to those that make A. So, my numbers are skewed, Ahh, the little things :cheers:

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What are you worried about? You blew thru A so fast the ink wasn't dry on your card when you made master. :bow::devil:

OK, Mike, I want to thank you for speaking this into my life.

I may not ever see A on my card- from B to M?!

Today I posted the following classifier scores:

8.1325 on CM 99-08 "Melody Line" which is estimated at 87.4463% (M)

8.8719 on CM 03-09 "On the Move" which is estimated at 77.5938 (A)

and

9.4340 on CM 08-03 "Six" which is estimated at 98.4340 (GM)

If my calculations are correct, that would make my average 86.1467... that's Master class. I've observed the Classifier Caluclator is sometimes just a hair higher than what actually posts, but I suspect the 1.1467% cushion will be enough.

I don't know how USPSA will finally classify it, but I feeling butterflies in my belly.

Late last year and earlier this year I was in a funk. I went back to basics and read Brian's book. What a difference "seeing" has made. Thank you Brian (whether or not I make M this next run of the numbers or not).

Edited by Steven Cline
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This is all great info and congrats to those who have made the grade (any grade).

This is current info.

Is my memory bad or does anybody have info from say 15 years ago? My recollection is that GM's were few and far between. Now there is over a 100 of them not to mention the M's.

Makes me wonder if my recollection is correct, what is getting better, equipment, maybe practice techniques. I doubt the gene pool of physical skills and gifts have changed. Any thoughts guys?

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This is all great info and congrats to those who have made the grade (any grade).

This is current info.

Is my memory bad or does anybody have info from say 15 years ago? My recollection is that GM's were few and far between. Now there is over a 100 of them not to mention the M's.

Makes me wonder if my recollection is correct, what is getting better, equipment, maybe practice techniques. I doubt the gene pool of physical skills and gifts have changed. Any thoughts guys?

I suspect it's more shooters practicing diligently.

When a sport is first established there are few who are practicing it and even fewer who are diligently practicing it. As a result there are fewer great practitioners.

The practitioneres get better and always will, but at first this development is rather dramatic keeping the those who are the pinacle few. Then the limits of human capabilities are approached. This slows the dramatic increase in the top HFs.

As the number of shooters who are diligently practicing, learning from these top dogs, and incorporating skills from other sports increase the number of shooters who qualify as top dogs and those who approach the top dogs (GMs and Master) increase.

At least that's my theory.

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Putting aside all the anecdotal responses. The truth is still out there. Of the 18K shooters in USPSA, the classifier system should reflect the population. It does not. If GM is to be 95% or better, then there should be 5% of the population as GMs. Perhaps I have forgotten my statistics but this has to due with a normal distribution of a population. It appears there is not a normal distribution of the population. Something is amiss. I do not understand why there is a positive skewness to the distribution.

Edited by pjb45
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Think of the classifier HHF as a score. It, my understanding, is an average taken from the best in the sport on a classifier. It is not a grading curve. If they averaged the top 5% total, I suspect that I would possibly jump a class. There are very few people that can consistently run classifiers at max once the HHF is figured. Basically these are the top in our sport and we are scaled off of them. It's not that 5% of us should be GM's. Think of the classifier HHF as a 100 question test. In our system we take an average of the best to come up with the 100 questions. Then everyone takes the test and it shakes out pretty much just like a class in school. It may have flaws, but I also suspect the flaws are caused by shooter shenanigans(repeatedly shooting until you get what you want). This could be the skewing. My .02 cents, practice and none of it really matters.

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PJB,

What you are saying is called reification. You're treating an abstract as if it were reality. While the 5% of shooters being GMs may have been the original idea, ideas and theory rarely conform to reality in every way.

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Putting aside all the anecdotal responses. The truth is still out there. Of the 18K shooters in USPSA, the classifier system should reflect the population. It does not. If GM is to be 95% or better, then there should be 5% of the population as GMs. Perhaps I have forgotten my statistics but this has to due with a normal distribution of a population. It appears there is not a normal distribution of the population. Something is amiss. I do not understand why there is a positive skewness to the distribution.

No sir, I gently ask you to consider this.

In school when a teacher graded on a curve you may have someone score 100%, but frequently, no one did. Regardless, the curve scaled towards the high end. That's because the capabilities of the student skewed towards the high. Very few people would flunk a graded on a curve test because all have studied for the test.

This is because the test takers (whether they be students in a History class or USPSA shooters) are not a random population. They are instead a population of persons who study for the test.

Were we to take a 10k random folks off the street and put them through 5 classifiers you would see a Bell curve, but that Bell curve would skew low because the curve setter was not just your random joe.

The USPSA shooters are not a random sample either. They are a population of test takers who practice and study for the test. This is why they skew high.

Edited by Steven Cline
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If GM is to be 95% or better, then there should be 5% of the population as GMs.

No. You are confusing a percentage with a percentile. Your USPSA percentage is your percentage of the high score. A 75% score means you scored 75% of the HHF. It does not mean you scored better than 75% of the shooters on that classifier or match.

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Now I am really confused.

I thought for GM it was 95% of the highest human performance possible, not upper 5% of shooters. What I think I am getting at is more folks are acheiving maximum human performance, at least in absolute numbers anyway. I am not sure if the absolute number is increasing but from my limited perspective seems to. I bet Rob B. could figure out something out his database if worth the effort. Possibly too arcane for time investment.

Another thought, which does not apply in reality since guys cannot get downgraded unless something unusal happens, BUT if guys are always geting better would that mean there should be fewer upper class shooters(in abosolute numbers). For example someone is 95% GM but highest hit factor on classifier increases over time and he is now 94% would that means a smaller absolute number of relative human performance are actually shooting to newest limits of human performance?

I absolutely repsect any acomplishment new or old, my only question is whether there really are a lot more really good guys than there were before? I think maybe yes.

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What are you worried about? You blew thru A so fast the ink wasn't dry on your card when you made master. :bow::devil:

OK, Mike, I want to thank you for speaking this into my life.

I may not ever see A on my card- from B to M?!

Today I posted the following classifier scores:

8.1325 on CM 99-08 "Melody Line" which is estimated at 87.4463% (M)

8.8719 on CM 03-09 "On the Move" which is estimated at 77.5938 (A)

and

9.4340 on CM 08-03 "Six" which is estimated at 98.4340 (GM)

If my calculations are correct, that would make my average 86.1467... that's Master class. I've observed the Classifier Caluclator is sometimes just a hair higher than what actually posts, but I suspect the 1.1467% cushion will be enough.

I don't know how USPSA will finally classify it, but I feeling butterflies in my belly.

Late last year and earlier this year I was in a funk. I went back to basics and read Brian's book. What a difference "seeing" has made. Thank you Brian (whether or not I make M this next run of the numbers or not).

Good luck. You are the one who scared me out of single stack. I think I bumped to "A" this weekend at the Austin match in Lim10. I plan to run SS for a while, if I can get a magwell put on it. My 6" gun will be out for a new finish.

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Now I am really confused.

I thought for GM it was 95% of the highest human performance possible, not upper 5% of shooters. What I think I am getting at is more folks are acheiving maximum human performance, at least in absolute numbers anyway. I am not sure if the absolute number is increasing but from my limited perspective seems to. I bet Rob B. could figure out something out his database if worth the effort. Possibly too arcane for time investment.

Another thought, which does not apply in reality since guys cannot get downgraded unless something unusal happens, BUT if guys are always geting better would that mean there should be fewer upper class shooters(in abosolute numbers). For example someone is 95% GM but highest hit factor on classifier increases over time and he is now 94% would that means a smaller absolute number of relative human performance are actually shooting to newest limits of human performance?

I absolutely repsect any acomplishment new or old, my only question is whether there really are a lot more really good guys than there were before? I think maybe yes.

Classifier High Hit Factors are rarely adjusted up. Couple that with better access to info, a dedicated dry-fire and practice regimen, folks doing what it takes to excel -- from figuring out nutrition, exercise, hydration, sleep, physical and mental preparation, stage breakdown and execution, etc. --- and you'll have more folks hitting the higher grades. I didn't work very hard for my B card in production -- I shot a ton of matches, mostly, and practiced a little.

Since then I've slacked off a bit. I'd like to see what it would take for the A card (and performance) but time and money are both lacking at the moment and for the foreseeable future....

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Now I am really confused.

I thought for GM it was 95% of the highest human performance possible, not upper 5% of shooters.

Correct. But wait for more illustration.
What I think I am getting at is more folks are acheiving maximum human performance, at least in absolute numbers anyway. I am not sure if the absolute number is increasing but from my limited perspective seems to. I bet Rob B. could figure out something out his database if worth the effort. Possibly too arcane for time investment.

It's probably not that more people are achieving maximum human performance.

Let's look at it another way.

There are some 300 millions people who live in the US. Let's arbitrarily say that 200 million are old enought and healthy enough to be the population of people who could shoot USPSA if they wanted to. Out of these 200 million people only 380 people are GMs. That includes duplicates, which means there are less than 380. Maybe, what 200? So in reality for ever 1 million persons who could attempt to be a GM there is only 1. That is very elite.

You may have correctly identified that not every person who could shoot USPSA does. In fact, there are a total of 27k classified. I have no idea how many may actually be or ever have been USPSA. My member number is over 53k. So let's say there are at least twice the 27k number and that's 54k. Out of 54,000 persons who have ever been a member of USPSA, only about 200 have been classified as GM. That's 200/54,000 = .0037 or 0.4%.(four tenths of one percent)

GMs are still a very elite group or persons, even when one considers the much smaller population of USPSA shooters.

What is messing with you is the number of shooters who classify and further classify in a particular group. Something less than half of all USPSA members are classified. There are only about 5000 members classified in Open. That's less than 10% of all USPSA members, ever.

What you must remember is these are dedicated shooters- they buy the most expensive guns, almost all reload. They have speciallized magazines and hoslters and mag pouches. They are very dedicated. As a result, GMs are over represented in the group. This group is already shooting a lot, practicing a lot, trying hard to be really good. They are already elite. As a result, GMs only appear to be less elite in the Open division because these are already an elite group of dedicated shooters.

If you look at the numbers carefully, only 2.9% of Open shooters with classifications make GM... only 2.9% of Open shooters can get within 5% of the HHF.

Across the six divisions, only about 1.3% (on average) can make GM.

So, dear friend, the GM is still a very, very elite group within the already very elite group of competitive shooters. Remember your average C shooters would probably be well outside the second standard deviation of shooting skill of the entire population of the US.

I dare speculate that if you grabbed 5000 random persons off the streets of the US and had them shoot 5 classifiers you'd likely not have a single one classify as C or higher.

Another thought, which does not apply in reality since guys cannot get downgraded unless something unusal happens, BUT if guys are always geting better would that mean there should be fewer upper class shooters(in abosolute numbers). For example someone is 95% GM but highest hit factor on classifier increases over time and he is now 94% would that means a smaller absolute number of relative human performance are actually shooting to newest limits of human performance?

Not so much, the population of shooters attempting to gain that 95% are also improving.

I absolutely repsect any acomplishment new or old, my only question is whether there really are a lot more really good guys than there were before? I think maybe yes.

I think so too, because the population of shooters in USPSA is increasing is but one reason.

Edited by Steven Cline
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