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Compare limited and open speed


igolfat8

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Posing a theoretical question, if you shot two pistols, say at similar distances and targets... you have two 9mm pistols, one was a limited and the other an open gun, which one would be faster racing against the clock? Both are loaded to the same velocity and PF. In my mind I would guess the open gun would be faster since the muzzle would remain flatter and settle back on target faster. Have any of you made similar comparisons?

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I've found under 7 yds I'm faster with iron sights shooting all A's

Over 7 I'm faster with an open gun. 

Guys who are truly good and fast are scary fast no matter the distance.  As said above more Indian than arrow!

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Open should always have the advantage. I mean that's the idea, right?  However I have noticed the difficulty of the targets matters greatly to separating limited and open shooters of similar skill set. 

The easier and more hosing a match is the less the difference between open and limited platforms shows. But, take a technical match with long shots, partials, and more no shoots and the differentiation starts to show up very clearly. 

The porting and compensation of an open gun helps no doubt, but it's the quick precision of the dot that is the big hitter. 

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5 minutes ago, theWacoKid said:

 

The porting and compensation of an open gun helps no doubt, but it's the quick precision of the dot that is the big hitter. 

But doesn't a limited gun have a dot too? Or are you saying that the dot on an open gun is more stable in the glass?

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When it comes to open I'm a firm believer that a dot is an advantage or at least equal on all targets and I don't think the comp matters much if you're comparing shooters that have a well developed grip. I've heard people say open guns are slower than limited guns at close distance but I think that's a bunch of nonsense.

Edited by Jake Di Vita
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23 minutes ago, teros135 said:

Here, try this.  Go to Practiscore and take a look at the scores in any upper-level match that has both Limited and Open.  Look at the Combined results and see where everybody is (major PF only).  Wonder no more. 

I took your suggestion but I must admit my ignorance. I don't know what colum to look at. Is 100% the goal and then do I look at the time next to the percentage. Having never competed in these competitions I have no clue what the data means.

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9 minutes ago, igolfat8 said:

I took your suggestion but I must admit my ignorance. I don't know what colum to look at. Is 100% the goal and then do I look at the time next to the percentage. Having never competed in these competitions I have no clue what the data means.

Then you're probably too new to be needing answers to this level of technical questions.  Just shoot what you have, and enjoy!

Edit:  See the bolded phrase.  That's what "new" means. 

Edited by teros135
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16 minutes ago, igolfat8 said:

Too new? Well I'll take that as a compliment since I've been shooting over half a century. 

I imagine he was referring too new at USPSA if you're having trouble interpreting scores.  Although you clearly mentioned that you've never shot in this discipline before, so it's understandable.

But yes, you'll have to do the mental calculations/filtering to remove all MINOR category shooters, then compare all Open vs Limited shooters. Unfortunately Practiscore doesn't have deep data analysis or filtering capabilities online.  If you wanted to actually compute differences, you could theoretically copy and paste the results tables from a bunch of matches into Excel and then do as much data analysis as you like.

Edited by ClangClang
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Years ago there was an article in gungames magazine that I think had TGO and BENOS running drills with both their open and limited rigs 

if I remember it correctly, the average time difference was an open gun was about a second faster than the limited

 

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16 hours ago, ClangClang said:

I imagine he was referring too new at USPSA if you're having trouble interpreting scores.  Although you clearly mentioned that you've never shot in this discipline before, so it's understandable.

But yes, you'll have to do the mental calculations/filtering to remove all MINOR category shooters, then compare all Open vs Limited shooters. Unfortunately Practiscore doesn't have deep data analysis or filtering capabilities online.  If you wanted to actually compute differences, you could theoretically copy and paste the results tables from a bunch of matches into Excel and then do as much data analysis as you like.

The PractiScore Competitor app for Android has an option to recalculate all your dropped points and penalties into raw time and also shows time cost of each C,D,M, NS and penalty, so you can see how much those are affecting the results.

Generally it depends on the value estimated stage hit factor (points / time) how much points you could afford to drop. For a high hit factor stage you can drop a lot of points (even M and NS) and still do okay (unless other contenders will shoot more accurate than you), but on a low HF stage you need to get all the points you could (especially for Minor PF). This is a rough breakdown:

HF 4 or less - max 2..3% of available points to drop
HF 4 to 8 - 3..9%
HF 8 to 12 - 12..13%
HF 13 or more - hose away

 

 

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7 hours ago, Sandbagger123 said:

Depends on the stage. I am classifieds the same in limited and open.  For hoser stages that don,t require precise aiming I have found limited guys give up nothing to open guys.  Only when the distance opens up dies the open gun start having an advantage.  

Or when you're shooting  at partial targets, Open's dot gives faster and more precise aiming. 

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Depends on the stage. I am classifieds the same in limited and open.  For hoser stages that don,t require precise aiming I have found limited guys give up nothing to open guys.  Only when the distance opens up dies the open gun start having an advantage.  


Classification has nothing to do with raw speed of the platform, as the HHF for limited is lower than open (on all but maybe the hoseiest of classifiers).

The short answer to this is that if you take the hypothetical shooter who is of equal skill with both platforms and equally practiced up with both guns, they will be faster and likely more accurate with the open gun.
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Igolfat8

If youre looking at scores on practiscore, scroll down page to where it says html results or something like that.  click on it & look at stage results.  one of the result columns will have HF at top.  That is Hit Factor.   That number is how many points a particular shooter earned PER SECOND on that stage.  If you compare HFs, you can see how things add up among open & limited shooters.

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In theory, open is faster, but you may change your mind when you see Robin Sebo shoot his Shadow 2 in competition. Most of us only dream we can shoot that fast with an open gun let alone a production gun. Like was posted, 'it is the indian, not the arrow' :)

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