Major/minor at nationals

[pskys2]

So I just finished unloading my moonclips (and Sam's) from the match yesterday.....and I have a question:

If this match favored the 8-shooters so dramatically, why did so many of my spent moonclips still have 2 loaded rounds left in them?

That is a little vague. And does every one that doesn't mean a reload was saved?

See my post earlier. The 8 shot clips that were empty or had 1 left were due to maximizing my options. If I had 6 it would have altered my attack and in some cases been even simpler than scheming to get 8. Some were due to Steel, never had to reload due to a dropped shot on steel. And that is where the real advantage does come in.

[seanc]

I agree, although reluctantly as usual with Carmoney. How different is this years top 20 from last years? Without looking I'm gonna bet mostly same players in different positions?

I guess I mostly agree.

To me though, only question that really matters is if you had shot 6 major instead, would you have still beaten dave shooting 8 minor?

[Blueridge]

Personally as interesting as I find this discussion, I will stick to my 6 round capacity revolver. Then again I have yet to see anyone else field a Ruger revolver in .45 Colt in USPSA or IDPA competition aside myself. To the best of my knowledge, at the 2013 Revolver Nationals (sponsored by S&W) I was the only person fielding a Ruger revolver. I do own a S&W 625, but I have never enjoyed shooting it as much at the Ruger Alaskan that I use in competition. I had fun at the 2013 Revolver Nationals, even after going minor at the chrono . By the way Carmoney, that won't be happening again. 2013 was you one and only chance to take a jab at me for going minor.

Personally I simply want the Revolver Division to become stronger in competitor numbers and number of competitions such as the Memphis Charity Challenge and others that make an effort to draw more revolver participation. I will continue to use my 6 shot revolver and enjoying the competition and camaradarie of USPSA competitions.

Mister Leatham, I enjoyed talking about English Premier League Soccer at the Revolver Nationals in 2013. I know that I was not very talkative, but the conversation was interesting. I doubt that many others aside from you knew that the jersey that I was wearing was a Newcastle United Football Club one. Most people think that it is a referees shirt.

Edited May 6, 2014 by Blueridge

[mcb]

Don't know how much this adds but I took each class and calculated their average overall-match percentage by Major/Minor. Sort of interesting...

Average of all Shooters by Minor or Major

Minor:65.8% (73)

Major:55.8% (39)

GM

Minor:89.9% (8)

Major:75.1% (1)

M

Minor:77.5% (12)

Major:77.3% (2)

A

Minor:72.3% (14)

Major:61.9% (4)

B

Minor:59.9% (15)

Major:57.2% (12)

C

Minor:54.7% (12)

Major:50.0% (14)

D

Minor:37.4% (4)

Major:38.5% (1)

U

Minor:54.4% (8)

Major:54.8% (5)

[seanc]

I think the 1 GM stat is going to be skewed. I heard that Matt suffered a gun breakage that cost him very badly.

[MWP]

Another question to ask is how many people got the choice to shoot major vs minor. Almost everyone on my squad only had one gun, and the few that had both only brought the one they felt comfortable with.

I brought both, and did my best to talk myself into 6 major. Up top, and on the standards, everything was even by my math. The last three stages convinced me to go minor. Then when I went back and looked at the stages from a minor scoring perspective, I saw tons of close targets, and big a zones. That plus steel everywhere made it easier to choose minor, which I really didn't want to.

Major 6 isn't dead, but the fact is that a 5" 625 is hard to acquire. None of the major shooters in my squad had one. 627s are everywhere, and I saw plenty of people shooting the 4" pro, to no disadvantage.

[Jaxshooter]

Carmoney's comment is correct. The Top 20 would basically be the same if they shot major. The 8 shots are an advantage shooting steel but the 6 shots have the scoring advantage. The best shooters are going to finish on top whether they shoot 6 or 8 shot revolvers. It is still the indian not the arrow.

[Flexmoney]

Don't know how much this adds but I took each class and calculated their average overall-match percentage by Major/Minor. Sort of interesting...

What do you see in those results? One take-away that I get is that the "more seasoned" competitors ran the new hotness. Whereas the average guy on the street tended to be a Joe Sixshooter.

[dcloudy777]

Carmoney's comment is correct. The Top 20 would basically be the same if they shot major. The 8 shots are an advantage shooting steel but the 6 shots have the scoring advantage. The best shooters are going to finish on top whether they shoot 6 or 8 shot revolvers. It is still the indian not the arrow.

The very fact that the top 20 all chose to shoot minor is itself very telling. I'd wager that every one of them had a major gun to shoot if they wanted, and every one of them chose the 8-shot. The major scoring advantage for this match was nowhere near enough to offset the minor scoring advantage. It wasn't even close. And this was at a revolver-only match. Major 6-shot revolver is done competitively.

[Flexmoney]

If we assume the match was this year was comparable to the match last year (big assumption?)...

Rob had an average HF* of 4.8593 in 2013, and 5.4608 in 2014. That is about a 10% difference.

Edit to add: ...on very similar amount of match points shot:

TGO, 2013
Pct Points shot (ignoring penalties): 93.42
Pct points shot (counting penalties): 93.42

TGO, 2014
Pct Points shot (ignoring penalties): 93.16
Pct points shot (counting penalties): 92.41

* minus the raw points stage,,,for easy math

[mcb]

Don't know how much this adds but I took each class and calculated their average overall-match percentage by Major/Minor. Sort of interesting...

What do you see in those results? One take-away that I get is that the "more seasoned" competitors ran the new hotness. Whereas the average guy on the street tended to be a Joe Sixshooter.

I agree all the top shooter went with the new hotness of 8-shot Minor but I don't know about average Joe. If I drop all the GM, M and U from the total averages and just do A, B, C, D. I get:

A, B, C, D

Minor: 60.4% (45)

Major: 53.9% (31)

Even if we drop the A shooters

B, C, D

Minor: 55.0% (31)

Major: 52.8% (27)

Minor wins in both score and participation for us average Joes. Only C-class had more Major guns and only D-class did Major average higher (all-be-it only one Major D-class shooter so that stat ain't really convincing).

Edited May 6, 2014 by mcb

[Keith]

Squad 3 was great fun! we had a lot of laughs, well maybe it was more guffawing ----

It's easy to have a lot of laughs when Koppi's shooting. But since he did beat everybody on our squad, except Dave, I guess our days of giving him a hard time are certainly coming to a middle.

Looking back I would have shot the 8 shooter. Then again, I did zero stage 4 so power factor's pretty irrelevant in that case.

[alecmc]

I brought both guns, and decided to shoot minor

I think the match could of been shot with a 6 shot, you would have a bunch of standing reloads as expected... But the main thing I think was with all the steel you can shoot a bit more aggressively and faster with the 8 shot gun... and there were plenty of times were the " easiest / best " plan was shooting an array with 7 or 8 shots.

There were alot of up close targets with little hard cover, in fact I think most the hard cover was those damn black hard cover poppers ( ggDddonnnnngggggg ).

I think if you shot a 6 gun, you had to shoot a near perfect stage plan, pull one shot here or there and you were done.

Edited May 6, 2014 by alecmc

[Carmoney]

I would have been shooting somewhat faster with my 625, since I would not have been as worried about getting A hits. Except on the all-steel stages.

I can hit my reloads slightly faster (on average) with my 625.

Edited May 6, 2014 by Carmoney

[Carmoney]

I brought both guns, and decided to shoot minor

I think the match could of been shot with a 6 shot, you would have a bunch of standing reloads as expected... But the main thing I think was with all the steel you can shoot a bit more aggressively and faster with the 8 shot gun... and there were plenty of times were the " easiest / best " plan was shooting an array with 7 or 8 shots.

There were alot of up close targets with little hard cover, in fact I think most the hard cover was those damn black hard cover poppers ( ggDddonnnnngggggg ).

I think if you shot a 6 gun, you had to shoot a near perfect stage plan, pull one shot here or there and you were done.

I agree with this post--and appreciate the fact that it was written by a shooter who was actually at the match.

I shot with Matt, and I think he was only forced by stage design to make one standing reload the entire time. Granted, that assumes near perfect execution, as Alec points out.

Edited May 6, 2014 by Carmoney

[alecmc]

I brought both guns, and decided to shoot minor

I think the match could of been shot with a 6 shot, you would have a bunch of standing reloads as expected... But the main thing I think was with all the steel you can shoot a bit more aggressively and faster with the 8 shot gun... and there were plenty of times were the " easiest / best " plan was shooting an array with 7 or 8 shots.

There were alot of up close targets with little hard cover, in fact I think most the hard cover was those damn black hard cover poppers ( ggDddonnnnngggggg ).

I think if you shot a 6 gun, you had to shoot a near perfect stage plan, pull one shot here or there and you were done.

I agree with this post--and appreciate the fact that it was written by a shooter who was actually at the match.

To elaborate, the smaller speed shoots at the top of the hill , and standards would of been fine with a major, alot of it was 6 reload 6, or even less.

SOME of the field courses could of been done with a 6 shot and came out pretty good I think, looking back at my video footage there were alot of times were I did shoot 4 to 6 rounds and then reload, other times I shot 6 rounds and then carried 2 over to my next shooting position.

I think for SOME spots 6 major would of been fine because alot of your reloads would of been on the move, though - on the move may of been 1 step to the side, or 10 feet over, or 30 feet over. It really depended on the stage.

And then you had a bunch of field courses where it was 7 shot array - 8 shot array - 4 shot array - 7 shot array, etc etc - where shooting major would of suffered greatly.

In the end , I think minor was the true way to go with this match because even though the stages did have options, the BEST / EASIEST / MOST EFFICIENT option was of that utilizing a 8 shot gun. Hence why ALL of the top finishers shot minor.

Edited May 6, 2014 by alecmc

[conrad]

Stage 3 was 25 rounds and "if " you were perfect on the first 18 rounds which was 3 paper then 3 paper then 2 paper and 2 steel...don't miss on the 2 steel. Then you went down range and there was 7 rounds left and that was the only place I saw to shoot them from. I know tjere was more but I can't remember the stage #s. I think with better stage layout this could have fixed to make it more neutral. Just my 2 cents.

[sperman]

Julie golob is a 6 time national champion

With a big asterisk next to her revolver championship.

[S391]

Edit.

Edited May 6, 2014 by S391

[Blueridge]

It occurs to me that the Revolver Nationals was one of the few times where the 6 shot vs 8 shot could be tested with 100+ revolver shooter participating. If the top 20 would have had other opportunities to try 6 shot then 8 shot, then some might have made a different choice. With the limited opportunity to compete against such a large number of revolver shooters, the best decision of what to use was made by those that finished in the top 20 (along with everyone else).

Is the 6 round capacity revolver dead for competition? I don't know, but don't believe so. Most of those that used an 8 round capacity would have beaten me using a 6 round capacity revolver. That does not mean that I (or anyone else) should hang up their 6 round capacity revolvers for competition. It has always been "the indian and not the arrow" from what I can tell. Better arrows help, but the competitors skill can still overcome anothers lesser (or equal) skill with better equipment.

I suggest that we all do what we can to help Revolver Division flourish in those ways that we can.

[sjs]

The results are very obvious that 8 shot minor is the way to go as validated by the top twenty. Having said that, the way to save major is to sanction a major and a minor class. The number of competitors has increased enough to support both. I agree that the best shooters will always win the match, however, at the "lower" levels 8 vs 6 is a big advantage. Lets see next year how many 627s shooters go back to a 625 based on this years results.

[mmauk]

Julie golob is a 6 time national champion

With a big asterisk next to her revolver championship.

[mmauk]

Why is that?

[varminter22]

Again, I don't mean to be argumentative; I suspect you're correct.

The results are obvious - all but one of the top twenty CHOSE to shoot Minor. Perhaps they chose Minor because of all the reasons everyone has mentioned here.

But the nationals results are hardly conclusive proof of how Major vs Minor would have broke out within GM and M classes.

Of nine GM shooters, only one chose to shoot Major. And his finishing place is rather meaningless as he reported had gun problems.

Of 14 M shooters, only two chose to shoot Major. One of them placed in the top twenty overall (at 13th). The other placed 25th overall (hardly a "poor" finish.)

Within M class, one Major shooter placed 5th and one placed 10th out of 14 M class shooters. Again, hardly a poor finish, and definitely not conclusive proof that Minor was better than Major; a very small sampling from which to draw conclusions.

Had that one lone GM 625 Major shooter won the match, would we conclude the M625 Major is the best?

Again, I suspect you're correct. But I sure would have rather seen a more equitable number of Major vs Minor shooters in order to draw a conclusion simply from one set of results.

[bdpaz]

I have looked at the results and what others have failed to mention is that of the bottom 10 finishers 7 were shooting Minor. So obviously if you choose to shoot 8 shot Minor you have a 70% chance of finishing in the bottom 10 at any given match.

I think my conclusion is only slightly sillier than making any other sweeping declarations based on a single Revolver Nationals held just three months after 8 shot Minor was introduced.