Well, my advice comes from jumping around for a while and finally settling into 2 main divisions. If you know you will go to open, then go ahead and jump in and start there. You can bypasss(for now) some of the things that I have seen run new shooters off. I see many new people go to production and get fed up with all the reloading, the minor scoring and having to plan out a stage around 10 round limits. A Texas star to a newer person can be bad. This gets in their mind and they quit having fun and leave the sport. Now, with open once you have working equipment you can focus on watching the targets, trigger pull and movement. Someone local will probably have a backup open gun they would probably loan you for a couple of matches and might even have one for sale if you ask. Just don't take it to a match until you know it runs 110% or else you will hate open and your decision to go that way. Since you seem new to STI's try to get a local shooter that has working equipment to take you under their wing. They will be glad to.