USPSA BOD Meeting

[de03x7]

I believe a true "Box Stock" Division would be a nightmare to enforce. What mortal among us can look at every part in every gun and tell with authority that it is truly box stock?

It would not be a nightmare at all. Make it a division for new shooters to start in with no national championship, no area championship and only award at a local match at the director’s discretion. There would be no need for a classification system as shooters in this division would be competing with other new shooters getting their feet wet. Their scores could be included with the unofficial overall results and when they feel that they are competitive and want to move to a recognized division they could. Being that it would be “Box Stock” shooters could load their magazines to capacity as they came from the box so the people who only have 2 or 3 magazines wouldn’t have to compete in limited division to have enough ammo to complete the course. They wouldn’t have to compete in production against those dreaded sub 3# triggers. Everyone could be scored major so they wouldn’t have the minor scoring disadvantage. This division is just a place for new shooters after all so experienced shooters shouldn’t have any problem with any of this. It looks to me like a win-win for everybody. USPSA would still get their buck fifty shooter fee, the local club still gets their match fee and the new shooter competes against other new shooters yet they can see how they stack up with the others. No one would stay here long but it would give them a chance to learn the rules of the game and decide where they would like to play.

How would you know their guns were "box stock"? The reason they would be at a USPSA match would be to compete or at least to learn how to compete. Egos being what they are, would there not still be bragging rights among the group and a reason to seek an advantage?

I have sent this to my area director and the incoming president with further suggestions. Do not allow any Classified shooters to compete in this division. There would be no National or area championships. Awards at a local match would be at the match director’s discretion. Other than safety rules no rules on holster and mag pouch location needed. If someone shows up with obvious work done on their gun put them in a fitting division or if a new shooter let them get their feet wet here until they decide where they want to be. If their ego is such that they would cheat to win they would want to shoot in a division that they could win something in anyway. Unless beating a bunch of new shooters and getting no recognition is what turns them on.

[Thomas H]

Several people have commented on Sherwyn's post, which said:

So far I have received 1 e-mail asking about this vote.

There are a lot of spots up for election on the BOD this year, after reading this I expect that there will be numerous candidates for each spot.

My e-mail and phone number are on the area 3 website if anyone wants to discuss this or anything else with me.

Sherwyn

The reason you haven't gotten much feedback yet is that most people don't know about it yet.

We'll be talking about this at our next monthly match (probably talking about it at the next several monthly matches, since people don't always come out in the cold months) so that more people know about this, and thus you will probably get some commentary about it after that. And you may be assured that you'll hear about it from me.

[bgary]

oh yeah, it's an eight shot with a dot, so it's not legal in USPSA.

Completely legal in USPSA ...open division!

[Pat Miles]

I have sent a mass email to the members of my club, Rio Grande Practical Shooting Club, regarding this change of rules. I also directed them to the Area 2 website where they could find the AD's contact info. Now it's up to them to respond or not.

That being said, with just that one action I have done more than USPSA has done to inform it's members.

Pat

Oh Crap Pat, I did the same thing. Chris is going to be busy! FWIW, I was impressed with his answers and candor, he will do the right thing for us.

I agree with your assessment of Chris.

Pat

[spanky]

Got an e-mail back from Phil within an hour.

Thanks Jeremy,

Thanks for your input. I can honestly say that there have been many emails/calls like yours, and I can promise that your voices will be heard at the next meeting. I definitely wouldn't tell anyone to start buying trigger weights at this point.

Sent from Phil's iPhone

[spanky]

I just sent out an e-mail to my mailing list for my club as well.

[225 Fireman]

Gonna send out my email tonight when I get home from work !

[hueycrew]

Wish I could remember what trigger weight I ask for when I sent my pistol to Rich. I didn't like the long reset (XD Tactical). Lowering the weight was an added bonus.

[Nik Habicht]

Again, I don't disagree that it was poorly communicated. It took place before any of the current- and former-Board members in this discussion were involved in the Board, in fact part of the reason I decided to run for the Board was because I thought some of the decisions were poorly formed.

As I said before, though, I think this was a "fail" on the part of the Board, but I don't think it was entirely the Board's fault. I think part of the issue is - and always has been - our "culture" of looking for creative ways to "game a stage". The "fail" of Production has not been solely about rules, it has been about convincing the US shooter that *these* rules are different, there are no angles, treat them as black-and-white as written.

Case in point?

I was brought into the sport in May of 2001, by folks with some experience -- Dave Olhasso, Bucky Pollard, Dave Marques and Jim Norman among them. They all had experience competing at the Area and National level, and had served as match directors. I didn't get a sense from them that "the intent of production is to be close to box stock" was well communicated. Everyone at the time was discussing whether a proposed modification would be legal.....

If the red is true, it means that shooters "got" the communication that modifications were limited, and that they were already looking for the angles.

NTTAWWT, but... it illustrates the issue. For at least 11 years, Board members have thought that "modifications are strictly limited" was a clear way of saying exactly that, and for at least 11 years, USPSA members have been looking for hidden loopholes in that statement. So it goes.

Bruce,

thank you for making my point. The Board decided "no modifications except these listed."

A box stock division ran contrary to what the rest of the sport was about at the time......

The board decided to split the baby -- and go halfway.....

I don't know why -- but that decision essentially set this up. The board could have realized that competitors will always want to tinker, and that if they left barn door cracked, someone would drive a tractor through the opening.....

The board might have gotten better results with a bock stock division -- no way to know now. (Personally I think it's unlikely, given the quest for perfect tool and perfect technique inherent to the sport, maybe we would have ended up here anyway....)

No big memos trickeled down to the local level, explaining the intent behind the division. Is it any wonder that the USPSA competitors followed the ingrained logic of "if not forbidden, then it must be allowed?"

[bbbean]

How would you know their guns were "box stock"?

For that matter, there are guns that come from the factory pretty tricked out, and it seems likely that performance tuned guns will become even more popular if a "box stock" division was to be created. Would S&W Performance Center guns count as box stocks? If there was a "super pro" model M&P, would it be fair to put it in the same division as the base model? Are we really going to penalize someone who bought a base model XD for putting new sights on his bedstand gun?

The concept doesn't get past go.

BB

[Shadow]

Email sent to Area 6 AD.

[JKSNIPER]

Gary,

You're absolutely correct that no one has superman X men laser x-ray vision.

WHen someone won a match I guess then would be the time for trigger pull gauges etc...and if he's out of spec he forfeits.

Chemep....I feel the same way...not fair to all those guys who spent $ doing mods that apparently either were or were not legal depending on who is doing the telling....however a fair is a place to go eat cotton candy and step in elephant poop.

There will ALWAYS be someone screaming "Its not fair!" .......usually after they lose.

Strick,

IMHO even if you directly MAILED everyone in USPSA you'd still get only 20% return. Same as other voting goes...only a small percentage of people will take the time to bother.

In my old union we had similar results in participation.

A great many people feel its ok to say "This is what I think YOU should do...." they then go on to make a suggestion that will take a lot of effort and time on someones part but have absolutely NO intention of doing ANY of the work themselves.

I learned to say: "Hey thats a GREAT idea and I think YOU should get some volunteers and organize that and get on that right away." WHich would usually be followed by "Uhh I meant for YOU to do it.....I uh..... I don't have the time to do that."

And I DID have a guy say pretty much those exact words to me after I told him HE should do it.

In a perfect world everyone would care and participate, volunteer and vote but the reality is 100% of the people benefit from the work of maybe 5% of the members of any organization...about whom the 95% who never do anything that does not benefit themselves....... except complain....go figure.

If you push the edge of the envelope occasionally you will find that edge and fall off.

[sperman]

When someone won a match I guess then would be the time for trigger pull gauges etc...and if he's out of spec he forfeits.

Unfortunately, that his its own set of issues. What if the winner shot the match on Friday and is 4 states away when the final results are posted. Or worse yet, what if the winner is there, gets tossed because his gun is out of spec, and the 2nd place guy is 4 states away.

[Strick]

=

Strick,

IMHO even if you directly MAILED everyone in USPSA you'd still get only 20% return. Same as other voting goes...only a small percentage of people will take the time to bother.

In my old union we had similar results in participation.

A great many people feel its ok to say "This is what I think YOU should do...." they then go on to make a suggestion that will take a lot of effort and time on someones part but have absolutely NO intention of doing ANY of the work themselves.

I learned to say: "Hey thats a GREAT idea and I think YOU should get some volunteers and organize that and get on that right away." WHich would usually be followed by "Uhh I meant for YOU to do it.....I uh..... I don't have the time to do that."

And I DID have a guy say pretty much those exact words to me after I told him HE should do it.

In a perfect world everyone would care and participate, volunteer and vote but the reality is 100% of the people benefit from the work of maybe 5% of the members of any organization...about whom the 95% who never do anything that does not benefit themselves....... except complain....go figure.

If you push the edge of the envelope occasionally you will find that edge and fall off.

It is not about how many people respond, it is about letting the members that make up USPSA know what is happening.

Also I am not sure what to take from the last part of your post. It has no relevance to the discussion about the rule and surely no relevance to the BOD's passing rules that are not well thought out.

[ErichF]

I kinda mentioned it before, but to clarify my position:

The 3 pound minimum rule is not so much a deal breaker for me. As a new member of USPSA, the process for major rule changes/additions in this organization is very troubling, and I'm surprised this organization has been running so long like it has. My only guess is that the past members of the BOD have been fairly "hands off" and reasonable when it came to the rule book. The By-Laws of the USPSA regarding rule making is incredibly lacking and vague. There really doesn't seem to be a process whatsoever, at least not in print.

I challenge the current BOD to move for a By-Laws review, specifically the rule making process, and affect changes/additions to the By-Laws that put in place a more specific process for voting in new rules. Add some teeth to the two year rule cycle that is barely mentioned in the By Laws, and put in some form of member comment period. After which, the BOD makes an EDUCATED vote on the proposed rule addition/change/repeal. There also needs to be an emergency rule proposal process that could allow out-of-cycle rule changes for extenuating circumstances.

Until the By-Laws are addressed, I would also say that a rule making freeze go into affect for at least one year so that the process can be vetted by the membership.

Is any of this even remotely possible in the organization?

[Rob Boudrie]

First off, please pardon the long winded nature of this post.

I've been thinking over the Production issue, and am convinced that the board should revisit this with a fresh look - making a careful effort to neither fall into the trap of attempting to justify the recent vote, or alternatively, to simply reverse it due to reaction from what may, or may not, be representative of general sentiment.

Any of my comments regarding "why things were done" are my own impression of the circumstances, not official positions of the entire board.

It's absolutely appropriate for members to push back if they don't like the direction the board takes, and it's our job on the board to take this sort of feedback seriously. I thank everyone who has posted comments and thoughts for the feedback. Please keep it coming.

As I previously mentioned, since we already had a policy statement, the vote was just a matter of implementing that policy, not a change of direction. It appears that many members either were not familiar with the formally published board position statement of March, 2009, or felt that statement was fine as long as we didn't actually use it to guide our decisions.

We should start by reviewing the goals of Production - accepting those premises if appropriate; altering them if necessary; and proceeding to implement rules that are congruent with the goals. In other words, change the goals if necessary - but don't handle the situation by choosing to ignore goals, or pretending they don't exist.

I believe that an original intent of Production was to allow a "reasonably out of the box double action 9mm handgun" to be fully competitive. The "no single action" requirement was, indirectly, a de-facto trigger pull limit and the 10 round capacity not only accommodated the environment of hostile territories such as MA, NY and CA, but also leveled the field across a very wide variety of handgun models (since it precluded the "chasing of that extra round in the mag" effect). To that extent, the production rules were effective at creating an environment where someone could show up with their 9x19 from the local gun shop, unmodified, and be fully competitive.

And then, competitors being what they are, the inevitable started. It became a game of "how much of an advantage (real or imagined) can I build into the gun while in compliance with the rules?" We saw efforts to push the limits on the Production requirements, and pushed back with the Board "Policy Notice" of March 7, 2009 that was an attempt to clarify and formalize the intent of production, and provide a fundamental guideline as to "what production is all about".

One of the key components of that policy statement was "suitable for carry". Not a single member that I am aware of contacted the board and objected or claimed that "suitable for carry" was not appropriate in the production goal statement. This goal did not meet with any objection until December 2011 when a majority of the board actually voted in a manner consistent with the formal policy statement regarding Production published over 2 1/2 years ago.

The following statements in the board's policy document of March 7, 2009 spell out the logic guiding production rules. Excerpts from that statement (available in full on www.uspsa.org -> member services -> board minutes -> in person minutes -> 2009 minutes) include:

Summary:

The broad intent of the Production Division remains intact; to provide an equipment category where stock or nearly-stock guns can compete on a relatively level playing field. Due to unsupported member assumptions, a wide variety of internal and external modifications have been seen in competition. USPSA’s intent, with this ruling, is to re-level the playing field, respectful of both members existing investments in guns and current modifications, and the desire to have the Division remain viable for typical carry-suitable guns.

....

1) Is there a minimum trigger-pull weight in USPSA Production Division?

ANSWER: Not at this time. [My note: The implication of "not at this time" as opposed to "we will never have one" would appear to be rather obvious]

...

32) Is this the final and definitive set of interpretations for USPSA Production Division?

ANSWER: No. NROI will continue to issue official interpretations as questions arise. In addition, the USPSA Board is committed to preserving the Production Division as a division for competing with “stock” or “nearly stock” guns, suitable for carry purposes. As a result, NROI and the USPSA Board of Directors will be monitoring the Production Division closely and if it appears that portions of these rulings are being abused or misinterpreted, or if the new rulings prove insufficient to preserve the desired attributes of the Division, further restrictions may be imposed at a later date.

The statement "the USPSA Board is committed to preserving the Production Division as a division for competing with stock or nearly stock guns, suitable for carry purposes" pretty much sums up how we came to the recent decision. The statement "if the new rulings prove insufficient to preserve the desired attributes of the Division, further restrictions may be imposed at a later date" in the March, 2009 minutes further clarifies the intent established by the board at that time.

This of course brings us the fundamental question: "Should USPSA remove "carry suitability" from the stated goal for a production gun, and replace it with something like "minimal modifications", or "Suitable for carry with the exception of trigger pull"?

I don't believe it is reasonable to argue that a gun with a 2.5lb trigger job is a "nearly stock gun suitable for carry purposes" and, as such, conclude a 3lb limit is absolutely consistent with this stated goal - therefore, if a change is needed, the goal should be modified.

On the other hand, from a "marketing" point of view, I don't expect that competitors who are new to the sport will be intimidated because they hear someone has had a trigger job done on their Production while they are shooting a box-stock version.

George Jones said it nicely when he posted "I stand by my opinion that the Board did not clearly define and communicate the limitations they intended when they first introduced the Division. Everything after that was a band-aid.". The policy statement of March 7, 2009 was an attempt to properly "clean this up". In retrospect, I think the board did a fine job of defining the goals on March 7, 2009, but perhaps we should have done more to render the members cognizant as to the import of that position. Had we successfully communicated the full impact of the March 7 position statement 2 1/2 years ago, we may have received timely feedback that our members wanted a somewhat different direction for production.

So, the question on the table is simply "What should production be?". Answer that question, and the specific implementation details will be straightforward.

Rob Boudrie

Area 7 Director

.

[Gary Stevens]

When someone won a match I guess then would be the time for trigger pull gauges etc...and if he's out of spec he forfeits.

Unfortunately, that his its own set of issues. What if the winner shot the match on Friday and is 4 states away when the final results are posted. Or worse yet, what if the winner is there, gets tossed because his gun is out of spec, and the 2nd place guy is 4 states away.

Yep, and additionally we don't have a tech crew with that expertise and ability to examine every possible gun that could be eligible for Production Division and determine if a part was worn or illegal. Who knows the poundage of every mainspring or recoil spring or trigger return spring in every Production gun for example.

[Gary Stevens]

Rob one of the big problems, as I see it, with your "suitable for carry" falls into the beauty is in the eye of the beholder area. What you feel is not suitable, I might well feel that it is. As I posted much earlier, I have not seen a Production gun used that I would not be able to carry or would hesitate to carry.

[Pat Miles]

I am going to shoot "Production" with all the after market parts I have added till I am told at some match somewhere that it is illegal and I am DQ'd from the match. At that moment I will have a decision to make,....comply or shoot ICORE only, and just for the record, I like shooting my revolver more,....oh yeah, it's an eight shot with a dot, so it's not legal in USPSA.

Instead of replying with that attitude you would do well to read the USPSA rulebook regarding the division you want to shoot in. As said, you won't be DQ'd... you'll just be moved to Open where you will cry "foul" and walk away pissed.

Pat

[Rob Boudrie]

Rob one of the big problems, as I see it, with your "suitable for carry" falls into the beauty is in the eye of the beholder area. What you feel is not suitable, I might well feel that it is. As I posted much earlier, I have not seen a Production gun used that I would not be able to carry or would hesitate to carry.

If you're telling me that a 2.5lb trigger is fine on a carry gun, your the first LE professional to tell me so.

In any case, it's going to be hard to convince me that a trigger under 3lbs is generally "suitable for carry", but I am of an open mind on making an alteration to the "suitable for carry" requirement.

[Strick]

In any case, it's going to be hard to convince me that a trigger under 3lbs is generally "suitable for carry", but I am of an open mind on making an alteration to the "suitable for carry" requirement.

Why wouldn't it be suitable? I am not sure why it is safe to holster up an open or limited gun with a 1lb trigger but a production gun is deemed not suitable for carry if it is lighter than 3lb. Sure, I am mixing game and street but light triggers are either safe or not, if they are safe then they are suitable if the person carrying it decides it is.

[GrumpyOne]

Rob one of the big problems, as I see it, with your "suitable for carry" falls into the beauty is in the eye of the beholder area. What you feel is not suitable, I might well feel that it is. As I posted much earlier, I have not seen a Production gun used that I would not be able to carry or would hesitate to carry.

Exactly. I carry a full size Springfield 1911 when I carry.

[Sin-ster]

Regardless of initial intent, Production has spent the last 11 years transforming into what it is now-- one of the most popular and competitive Divisions in USPSA, for beginners and old hat shooters alike.

So who really benefits from the changes? Certainly not the vast majority of the veteran shooters, many of which face expensive and troublesome tweaks to make their guns compliant. Not so much the mythical new shooters, who despite their nameless/faceless status, will arguably want to perform tweaks of their own-- if they haven't for other reasons, prior to shooting their first match.

It seems pretty clear to me that the change is mostly supported by those still handcuffed to the "original intent"-- whether they were responsible for its inception, or simply agree with the notions. So to satisfy the minds of a few folks ( some of whom are directly responsible for the shoddy wording that made all of this possible), we will potentially alienate a large percentage of the people who have made the Division what it is today-- and loved every minute of it.

Politics, much?

[MarkCO]

The first e-mail I got back from the ECO section...

"I support the 3# minimum for the Production class, as well as the individual mag holders and no magnetic holders.... Keep the production class a production class."

[Gary Stevens]

Rob one of the big problems, as I see it, with your "suitable for carry" falls into the beauty is in the eye of the beholder area. What you feel is not suitable, I might well feel that it is. As I posted much earlier, I have not seen a Production gun used that I would not be able to carry or would hesitate to carry.

If you're telling me that a 2.5lb trigger is fine on a carry gun, your the first LE professional to tell me so.

In any case, it's going to be hard to convince me that a trigger under 3lbs is generally "suitable for carry", but I am of an open mind on making an alteration to the "suitable for carry" requirement.

The trigger weight is largely proportional to the skill of the shooter. My trigger weight on my 1911 that I carry on and off duty is safe for me. I can thank 33 years of USPSA for beating the safety issue into my head.

Edited December 27, 2011 by Gary Stevens