Possible move to Open

[sumo]

I have been shooting Limited for the past year with my Para P18-9. Since this gun will not allow me to shoot major I am placing down in the standings. I have not been classified yet but I would call myself a C class shooter. Points down is killing me. So I am considering making the move to open. I have purchased a c-more serendipity reflex sight ( eyesight is not what it was)and will be adding a comp to my gun. I hope that these changes give me more of a chance to place higher in the standings. The questions I have is what bullet weight and powder would work to make the Major power factor? I am currently shooting 124 grain Magnus SWC lead bullets over tightgroup. This has worked well for minor but I will have to change everything to make major. I understand that I will need to move to jacketed bullets and looking at Berry's 124 grain as I have a couple thousand of them sitting around. Also what are the thoughts on the C-More I have bought. I'm still new at this after moving from IDPA, way too many rules. Thanks for any help and comments.

[Sarge]

To be blunt, you are setting yourself up for a huge letdown in many ways. First, It sounds like your primary concern is moving up in the standings. When you move to Open you have to do everything 50% faster just to maintain your current standings. Open is a fast division. Just go to cmcalc and plug in some classifiers that you have shot. Then plug them in again under "open" and see how much they drop. Granted you will shoot faster with a dot but not nearly fast enough. I was on the verge of making A in Production before I switched to Open. I immediately went right back to low C. You will be higher in the standings overall but certainly not within your division.

Second, it takes a lot more to make a gun viable in Open than just sticking a comp and a dot on a gun. This really needs to be a job for a gunsmith who builds Open guns.

Third, and I have personally never tried them, but by most accounts Berry's won't hold up under Open velocities. The thin plating will shred off and cause you problems. You are going to be running 124's close to 1400 fps to make Major. You will need to buy some better, more expensive, bullets such as Montana Gold JHP's or CMJ's.

I switched to Open because my eyes were getting to the point I could not see the sights clearly. Switching to Open allows me to have more fun but I knew from the beginning it would not move me up in the standings.

My advice would be to get some good prescription glasses and a good .40 and keep shooting Limited if you want to move up.

[Mitch Harrington]

What Sarge said except I would add you need to shoot more A's if points down are killing you. Shooting major over minor is not a cureall for inaccuracy.

[Chris iliff]

Sarge nails this.

I would add that buying a good .40 to shoot in Limited is what I would do. It doesn't have to be a S_I platform. You can get Glocks (35), M&P's, and XD's all for substantially less than the $$ you are going to have in converting your gun to Open IMHO.

[twodownzero]

I am C class shooter and it's penalties that always kill my scores. I suspect that the experience is similar for most other shooters at my level, too. Switching to an open gun is not going to solve the problem of walking past targets or mikes/no shoots on tight shots. Progress will come for me when I can solve those problems, and not before. I suspect that if you really are a C class shooter, your experience will match mine.

[blaster113]

Before I started dabbling in Open I thought that my scores would go up once I picked up an Open gun. wrong. Open is all about speed, you really have to be able to shoot and move fast to be competitive. After shooting Open consistently for a bit my scores never caught up to my L10 scores so I went back to L10.

Unless the OP is dead set on playing in Open I would suggest unloading the 9mm Para and getting one in .40 or a used Edge.

[Hi-Power Jack]

what bullet weight and powder would work to make the Major power factor?

Sumo, you want to work up a load, with a chronograph, of approximately

7.0 gr Winchester Auto Comp under a 124 grain bullet that is completely

jacketed (MG JHP's). Or, same bullet with c. 8.0 gr HS6.

It's a lot of fun to shoot with a dot/comp - welcome, and hope you

enjoy it.

[gunguru]

I don't think moving to open will really help.

First, as it's the point down that kill your scores, work on your accuracy! Minor or Major "A" give the same points! And it's not a game of sights or comp, it,s a game of gun control. When you will be accurate enough, you will be OK to move up.

Second, you said you're screwed by the "penalties" of minor counting. If so, go to a major caliber gun in the same division. At worst, borrow a friend one just to try, go to range a few time to train, and then test it in a match. And have your gun built for Open will cost you more than a new gun in major caliber. Or try the Prod division, as all are in Minor, we are all on the same base of scoring.

A old master class shooter once said me than shooting faster will never help shooting better! The progression will always be "shoot well" then "gain speed", the reverse will be almost impossible. I play some guitar, and my teacher always said the best way to learn a difficult chords progression is to slow down, and then to speed up.

[Reshoot]

I am making the move to open, next year, for the same reason Sarge did. I am tired of looking at fuzzy targets! Had a pair of Rx shooting glasses made this past spring, giving me a crisp sight picture but, blurred the targets. I am doing this knowing I may never make C class.

[Skydiver]

As long as you are out at the range, with friends, and having fun, it'll be good! It doesn't matter what you are shooting.

[Neomet]

Hate to tell you about this possibility, but other than on stages with a bunch of distant partials and swingers I often shoot faster with irons than I do the dot. And my vision is terrible. I would make no assumptions about what going to Open will bring you although the free cookies are cool!

[EkuJustice]

My class actually went up when I went to the dot over my iron sight classes. Coming from a shotgun background, I definately like looking at the target over the sights. I can shoot the irons fine if its slow fire but at speed keep wanting to look at the target which I did on close stuff. Ended up just quitting fighting It and went with the dot. Figured roughly 250K rounds staring at a target with the shotgun was hard to break. I have much more confidence with the dot than I did with the irons as well

[CocoBolo]

What Sarge said.

I will add that if I had a good limited gun (well I do have one) I would not destroy it by turning it into a half ass open gun. This is because it would lose its original value, plus all the money I spent messing it up.

No doubt shooting an open gun will improve you ability to hit. Example is I let a noob girl shoot my open gun over a plate rack at nominal distance she cleared the rack with 6 shots. She had just shot in a match with iron sights and failed to clear it in 24 shots. This all sounds real good, did I say she cleared it fast? Nope it was sun dial time. Now to the point the open gun has the same problem that your iron sight gun has, a trigger, I'm sure you have sites on when you pull the trigger, so it has to be your trigger pull.

When I went to Open from limited it took about 6 months to master the dot, until I mastered the dot, I had poor scores, once mastered I got back to the good C I was. To make B I had to work at it, to make good match scores I had to concentrate on movement skills, and positioning skill and stage breakdown.

Shoot some groups start out at a distance you can shoot a 3" group as skill improve increase the distance. If you can't shoot a group at 7 yards then you need some training to perfect your grip and platform.

I know this is all tuff love, but getting better isn't easy.

If you like PARA used open gun are fairly cheep as are Limited guns, just not popular, and require extensive work to make them very good, replace all para internals with good parts etc.