Just did the math

[BARRYJ]

I shoot Limited Major and shot a local match this past Sunday. I am a Class C shooter and scored 61.7 % match points. I re-scored the match as if I had shot minor and assumed the time would have been the same. My match percentage would have been 58.5%. I shot 92 A's and 28 not-A's. If I figured this right, it seems like I should be shooting minor. I should be able to shoot faster and make up for the minor scoring. Wouldn't take but a second or two per stage. Any input?

[LilBunniFuFu]

How were the stages set up, how quickly/accurately do you shoot. In limited it is very difficult to overcome the handicap you would be giving yourself by shooting minor. Yes it can be done but with somebodies given ability, as long as they aren't recoil sensitive, they should place higher with the added points of major. If your style of shooting can let you pick up the speed and still be accurate go for it. Try it out and let us know how you fair.

[kneelingatlas]

I don't think I shoot any faster shooting minor than major. Minor give a clear advantage in the lower capacity divisions like SS and revolver where minor gets a significant capacity advantage.

[Trent1k1]

Compare your times as well, not just the points. If you think your times will decrease dramatically by shooting minor, compare your major times against a comparable shooter in Production and see if you were faster or slower than them.

As others have stated, for Limited, L10 and Open, shooting minor usually will not put you at the top of the scoreboard against those shooting Major.

[lee blackman]

You have way to many alphas.... Go faster....

Here's the math....

One alpha per second at minor = 5.0 hf

vs

Two charlie per second at major = 8.0 hf

[CHA-LEE]

If you are Gripping the Gun properly you should be able to shoot Major PF ammo at the same speed and quality of hits as Minor PF ammo. If you do see an increase in shooting speed when shooting Minor, then you are not gripping the gun or managing the recoil properly.

In Limited Division there is very little mag capacity advantage to shooting 9mm vs .40, usually only 2 - 3 rounds difference. There are very few stages when you can actually take advantage of that minimal capacity advantage.

Lastly, you need to work the Major vs Minor target scoring math when the stages have a lot of partial targets where you are basically forced to shoot "At" the B/C zone of the target to avoid No Shoots or Hard Cover. When you shoot stages with a lot of partial targets you will get KILLED by all of the non-A Zone hits with minor scoring.

Lets use a 32 round field course as an example with half of the targets being partial shots that force you to aim at the B/C zone of the target. We will assume that the other half of the targets are unblocked "Full" targets that you can easily shoot A's on. As a base line lets assume that the stage time is 20 seconds. The below examples show that you would have to shoot Minor a grand total of 1.5 seconds faster than the Major to just barely beat the Major PF result. This equals an average of needing to shoot 0.05 hundreds faster shooting splits while shooting Minor. This in its self is a pretty unrealistic measurement because we all will take the same amount of time to aim hard for specific targets regardless of shooting Major or Minor the same goes for hosing down close targets as fast as our finger can row. So if we basically say that you really can only yield the reduced recoil fast shooting benefit on half of the targets, then you would have to shoot 0.10 second faster on half of the targets. For most shooters shooting minor vs major isn't going to yield a consistent 0.10 reduction in on target splits. Simply put, if you are shooting 0.25 splits with Major, you are not going to magically start shooting 0.15 splits with Minor on the few targets you can actually do it on.

Then there is the compounded loss of points risk factor. The more non-A zone hits you accumulate through the stages dramatically compounds the grand total points lost. Trying to shoot super fast with Minor ammo, because you actually have to shoot faster to make it worth it, usually yields lower quality on target hits. You can easily give away twice as many stage points by shooting minor if you go blast crazy on a stage and rack up a bunch of non-A zone hits. Verses doing the same thing shooting major and only giving away half of the points in non-A zone hits.

Major Power Factor

8 Full Open Targets = 16 A's which would be 80 points

8 Partial Targets = 6 A's and 10 B/C zone hits would be 70 points

150 Points Divided by 20 Seconds = 7.5 Hit Factor

Minor Power Factor

8 Full Open Targets = 16 A's which would be 80 points

8 Partial Targets = 6 A's and 10 B/C zone hits would be 60 points

140 Points Divided by 20 Seconds = 7.0 Hit Factor

Minor Power Factor

8 Full Open Targets = 16 A's which would be 80 points

8 Partial Targets = 6 A's and 10 B/C zone hits would be 60 points

140 Points Divided by 18.5 Seconds = 7.56 Hit Factor

Short Answer to the question is, Shooting Minor PF in Limited is NOT worth it.

Edited July 7, 2015 by CHA-LEE

[Graham Smith]

I shot 92 A's and 28 not-A's. If I figured this right, it seems like I should be shooting minor.

Charlie gave you an excelent analysis, so I'll just throw in this... Assuming you can shoot a bit faster and get the same points then your scores should go up. BUT that's also assuming that this match is fairly similar to other matches you will shoot and that's a really huge assumption.

[BARRYJ]

Everybody else did the math, too, and showed me why I am wrong. Guess I need to start shooting faster. More than one person has told me I shoot too many A's.

[PatJones]

Hmm.

92 A's + 28 not A's. By my count that's a 100 round, 500 point match.

You don't mention what your Not A's were, so I'll assume C's.

If you shot 28 C's you would have dropped 28 points shooting major, for a total of 472 points shot. That is 94.4% of the available points. It's likely you shot things besides C's, but you appear to have shot between 90-95% of the available points. I cannot see how this could be considered too many A's.

[gng4life]

You shot about 76% Alphas, I think that is pretty good or should even go up a little. You can start pushing it to see if you can get your times down while maintaining this ratio but I wouldn't go much lower than this on Alphas, if any.

[Corey]

Hmm.

92 A's + 28 not A's. By my count that's a 100 round, 500 point match.

You don't mention what your Not A's were, so I'll assume C's.

If you shot 28 C's you would have dropped 28 points shooting major, for a total of 472 points shot. That is 94.4% of the available points. It's likely you shot things besides C's, but you appear to have shot between 90-95% of the available points. I cannot see how this could be considered too many A's.

92 + 28 = 120, not 100. total match points would be 600 possible. drop the 28 points from assumed Cs and you are left with 572. 572/600 = 95.3% of possible points. Thats a good thing! Could probably afford to pick up the pace just a little as long as scores don't suffer too much.

[PatJones]

Hey look at that.... That's what I get for being in a hurry.

[BARRYJ]

92 A's 1B 22C'c 4D's 1M 120 total shots 600 points I have been told to shoot faster, a few C hits with a faster time will yield a better score.

[PatJones]

92 A's + 28 not A's. By Corey's count that's a 120 round, 600 point match.

You don't mention what your Not A's were, so I'll assume C's.

If you shot 28 C's you would have dropped 28 points shooting major, for a total of 572 points shot. That is 95.33% of the available points. It's likely you shot things besides C's, so you appear to have shot between 90-95% of the available points. I cannot see how this could be considered too many A's.

[PatJones]

Cool real numbers. I pulled up Excel, so I should be right at calculating that you shot 91.66% of your points after penalties.

This is about the number of points you should generally be shooting. Yes, we all need to shoot faster.

[BARRYJ]

Forgot to add, the M was also a no-shoot. Damn classifier.

[Trent1k1]

then the noshoot cost you 15 points. -10 for the NS, and -5 for the points you didn't get. Need to makeup Noshoots

[BARRYJ]

It was a Virginia Count classifier. -10 for the M and -10 for the NS

Edited July 7, 2015 by BARRYJ

[GrumpyOne]

The math of one match is not conclusive, nor does it make a trend.

[waktasz]

You can shoot faster at major because you don't have to aim quite as hard. Especially on longer targets, it's not worth it to take forever for a perfect sight picture. I've been shooting Production for a while and need to remind myself to "let go" sometimes when shooting Limited.

[JakeMartens]

You can shoot faster at major because you don't have to aim quite as hard. Especially on longer targets, it's not worth it to take forever for a perfect sight picture. I've been shooting Production for a while and need to remind myself to "let go" sometimes when shooting Limited.

And I am having to do just the opposite coming from shooting Limited to Production.

a bunch of C's will hurts....throw a D in there and you might as well have just call them no penalty mikes

If shooting minor in Limited actually was a smart thing to do, a lot of people would already be doing

Edited July 7, 2015 by JakeMartens

[LilBunniFuFu]

You can shoot faster at major because you don't have to aim quite as hard. Especially on longer targets, it's not worth it to take forever for a perfect sight picture. I've been shooting Production for a while and need to remind myself to "let go" sometimes when shooting Limited.

Just don't let go too much. Down here when the production guys shoot limited they just dump way to many bullets because, Hey we have bullets to spare!

[PatJones]

I've moved from 8-minor revolver to 8-major single stack. On the vast majority of targets, the time is the same. Shooting major on partial targets, or on very distant targets, you don't have to spend the time to shoot A's. It's not as big a difference as it is made out to be, but it is there.

[d_striker]

Everybody else did the math, too, and showed me why I am wrong. Guess I need to start shooting faster. More than one person has told me I shoot too many A's.

I don't think you can ever shoot too many A's. You can definitely shoot too slow, though.

I'm no GM but it's easy for me to start aiming at brown rather than the A zone when I'm trying to shoot faster. You've obviously got the accuracy so maybe try focusing on still seeing the sights in the A zone but breaking the shot sooner.

Go out and practice intentionally misaligning the sights at various distances and see exactly what your sights need to look like to still score A's and close C's. You might be surprised. Especially 7yards and in.

[Forrest Halley]

I don't think you can ever shoot too many A's. You can definitely shoot too slow, though.

Go out and practice intentionally misaligning the sights at various distances and see exactly what your sights need to look like to still score A's and close C's. You might be surprised. Especially 7yards and in.

You can shoot too many A's...when targets are available from multiple positions.

You are spot on with the seven yards and in statement about sights. I have been downright amused what sight pictures have come up 2 Alpha. It's even easier in ID....?