I just shot my first real USPSA match, but I'm a little confused

[wdfwguy]

2 hours ago, MemphisMechanic said:

Next: What killed you wasn’t your shooting speed. It was your everything else speed. Have someone video you and them film the best guy on your squad too. Watch how much faster he gets to the next array after finishing off the last target. His draw. His reloads. That’s 80% of what is eating your lunch right now. Shooting slow is only 20%.

 

Agreed, completely.  I misunderstood the value of shooting As, and I'm trying to get the basics of the scoring and HF.

 

But I understand I did everything too slowly and I have to practice doing everything sooner.

Edited June 27, 2018 by wdfwguy

[jkrispies]

1 hour ago, Kilrb said:

I shot a couple of USPA matches locally and an Action Pistol, all fun but I am taking a class in a couple of weeks. This seems like the best approach for me instead of wasting ammo trying to learn.

This is wise:  never neglect or diminish fun time shooting, but know the difference between fun time spent on the trigger and productive time spent on the trigger.  In my mind, matches are fun— they allow me to let myself play with the skills that I’ve developed into natural movements due to the hours of productive practice I’ve logged in dry fire and live fire.  

 

Once I was at a Steel Challenge practice session in Piru, and the shooter in the next bay over was making a lot of BANGs with no PINGs. Mike Dalton (the originator of SC) was doing some range work and walked over and nudged me. He said, “You know what’s that’s called?  Turning money into noise.”   We chuckled about it, but I’ve taken that quip as sage advice, as I’ve done with pretty much all the inside information Mike has shared with me. What I learned from that statement is that there’s practice, and then there’s SMART PRACTICE.  Only smart practice counts; anything else is just a waste of time or money, and frankly I’d rather waste my money before my time.  

[Jake Di Vita]

1 hour ago, Gooldylocks said:

It doesn't matter what division you shoot. You always should shoot as many alphas as possible as quickly as possible. If you aren't shooting 93+% of the points regardless of division you are doing it wrong.

 

The percentage of points you should be shooting is going to depend on the match. If we're being specific, the goal isn't as many alphas as possible as quickly as possible....the goal is the highest points per second. Strategies for achieving the highest points per second are absolutely going to vary between people shooting minor and major. It does matter what division you shoot. Go ahead and shoot a match in production like you would in open and tell me how that works out for you.

[Gooldylocks]

Sure, I've done it. Won a state championship doing it. Beat a few top 20 at nats production shooters in the process.

 

Go really really fast and shoot good points. Do that consistently and you will win. It really isn't complicated.

 

 

[Gooldylocks]

 
Go ahead and shoot a match in production like you would in open and tell me how that works out for you.

[Jake Di Vita]

2 hours ago, Gooldylocks said:

Sure, I've done it. Won a state championship doing it. Beat a few top 20 at nats production shooters in the process.

 

Go really really fast and shoot good points. Do that consistently and you will win. It really isn't complicated.

 

 

 

Link? I'd like to look at the stats and see what there is to see.

 

Obviously shooting fast with good points is good. If you want to keep this as mind numbingly simple as humanly possible as if we were explaining it to a 4 year old that's fine I guess. In reality I'm going to make different decisions on how I shoot a stage if I'm shooting minor rather than major. One easy example of this is I'll shoot far more targets on the move shooting major.

[stick]

9 hours ago, jkrispies said:

This is wise:  never neglect or diminish fun time shooting, but know the difference between fun time spent on the trigger and productive time spent on the trigger.  In my mind, matches are fun— they allow me to let myself play with the skills that I’ve developed into natural movements due to the hours of productive practice I’ve logged in dry fire and live fire.  

 

Once I was at a Steel Challenge practice session in Piru, and the shooter in the next bay over was making a lot of BANGs with no PINGs. Mike Dalton (the originator of SC) was doing some range work and walked over and nudged me. He said, “You know what’s that’s called?  Turning money into noise.”   We chuckled about it, but I’ve taken that quip as sage advice, as I’ve done with pretty much all the inside information Mike has shared with me. What I learned from that statement is that there’s practice, and then there’s SMART PRACTICE.  Only smart practice counts; anything else is just a waste of time or money, and frankly I’d rather waste my money before my time.  

In any sport you need to practice with a purpose.  anyone can shoot 200-300 rounds a day at a range by standing there and blasting away.  What did you learn? Nothing!  You need to have a plan to work on specific things.  (draws, splits, transitions, etc)

[wdfwguy]

16 hours ago, MemphisMechanic said:

Next: What killed you wasn’t your shooting speed. It was your everything else speed. Have someone video you and them film the best guy on your squad too. Watch how much faster he gets to the next array after finishing off the last target. His draw. His reloads. That’s 80% of what is eating your lunch right now. Shooting slow is only 20%.

 

 

I was thinking about what you said, and went back and looked at the stage scores.  On the two shortest stages, I finished like 25 and 35 out of 75.  On the longest stages, 53 and 62 out of 75.  So, my shooting wasn't really holding me back, it was probably 95% movement.

[Bkreutz]

The lowest hanging fruit in practical shooting is the movement between shooting positions and the movement between targets. Those are what you need to work on, you can only shoot as fast as you can see. If you are waiting to see where you hit your target while shooting, you're wasting a second or two per target multiply that by the  number of targets per match and you will find the difference between you and the winner.

[MemphisMechanic]

1 minute ago, Bkreutz said:

If you are waiting to see where you hit your target while shooting, you're wasting a second or two per target...

 

What he’s saying is: “don’t ever look for holes.”

 

put your sights in the A zone, fire your shot, stay on the sights through recoil, and fire a second one as soon as you see the sights return.

 

Then turn and engage your next target.

 

Do not look for holes in brown until you have finished the stage. This slows novices down tremendously.

 

Also: Do not ever fire a “double tap.” Always aim your second shot as hard as your first: it’s worth just as many points.

 

(Someday yeah, you’ll shoot doubletaps or hammers at close wide open targets. When that day comes you will have learned enough to knowi it’s okay to do so, without asking an interent forum.  )

[GeneBray]

I think one often overlooked aspect of USPSA shooting is the ability to estimate the time in which you can shoot a stage. At the pinnacle of our sport, the GMs are able to estimate their stage times very closely. And given their typical accuracy they can estimate the hit factor for the stage. 

 

Given that information, they are able to make educated decisions on shooting the stage. Which means, they can estimate the effect(s) of shooting more Cs on a stage at a faster pace as opposed to shooting slightly slower and getting more As. It also allows informed decisions on taking a shot or shots at a target which doesn’t allow good A zone hits but saves some time.

 

There is no way to make good decisions on a shooting plan without having some idea as to how fast you can shoot a stage and therefore than approximate hit factor.

 

For classifiers, standards, and many speed shoots, this skill may not come into play. Field courses are a whole different animal.

 

Many of us, and myself included, make and practice mistakes with regard to stage planning because we haven’t learned the skill.

[Kilrb]

12 hours ago, stick said:

In any sport you need to practice with a purpose.  anyone can shoot 200-300 rounds a day at a range by standing there and blasting away.  What did you learn? Nothing!  You need to have a plan to work on specific things.  (draws, splits, transitions, etc)

This is the big reason I am taking a class. I do drills but the shooters that know them will help me know what to focus on better than I can .

 

 

 

[Hi-Power Jack]

Are you dry firing ?

[GeneBray]

This is the big reason I am taking a class. I do drills but the shooters that know them will help me know what to focus on better than I can .
 
 
 

Mike Seeklander’s book, Your Competition Handgun Training Program, is book that adds structure and discipline to your training. Every time I really work hard using this book as a guide, scores always improve.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[d_striker]

Hit factor is a quotient.

 

Points are worth time....Time is worth points.

[Flyingpig]

Nobody mentioned yet that Hit Factor is simply points per second. How many points per second can you generate in a course of fire? Any time not shooting is wasted time. You definitely have to get faster but unfortunately its not as simple as just going faster. You are at the beginning of a long journey to get better/faster. Simply put youre just not as good as those guys yet. keep at it and welcome to USPSA.  The speed will come.

[wdfwguy]

The last couple of weeks I practiced almost exclusively on movement and efficiency.  I compared the results to my first match, and I realize I'm a lifelong overthinking, so this may only be interesting to me...

 

I compared my overall points, time and HF to the top 10 people also shooting minor from both matches

 

In June

+11% in points (in my favor)

-56.5% in time 

-46.2% in HF

 

In July

+.6% in points

-33.5 in time

-32.8% in HF

 

So, I sped up compared to the top 10 shooters, and shot a little sloppier.   Seeing where my points were compared to other shooters, I'm starting to get a feel for the speed and acceptable sight picture I need to be looking for.  Last month, I was almost in bullseye mode.  If I start falling behind the points of the higher ranked shooters I'll know I went too far.

 

My HF compared to the top 10 improved and I moved up 8 spots in placement.

 

I'd say movement and speed is still my biggest weakness and what I need to work on.  At the same time, I want to avoid *trying* to go fast in a match.  I'll continue practicing in speed mode and stay in match mode for matches.  And that speed and efficiency will become part of my match speed. 

 

 

[HoMiE]

Go check out this Rob Leatham video...

 

 

Edited August 4, 2018 by HoMiE
Speeling

[motosapiens]

On 6/26/2018 at 11:44 PM, Jake Di Vita said:

 

Link? I'd like to look at the stats and see what there is to see.

 

 

Late to the party, but I can vouch for gooldy. i was the CRO for his squad at last year's idaho state match. He blew my mind with the aggressive way he was shooting and moving. He was literally shooting production like an open shooter, and he beat down some pretty seriously good guys.

 

One of the disadvantages of running the high-cap divisions one day, and the low-cap divisions the next is you can't hide..... except maybe in L10.

[StuckinMS]

4 hours ago, HoMiE said:

Go check out this Rob Latham video...

 

 

Spoken by one of the greatest pistol shooters in the universe.  So true.

[Chills1994]

On 6/25/2018 at 12:02 PM, wdfwguy said:

I'm trying to understand the balance between shooting speed and accuracy.  I knew my movement was going to be slow, I was trying to be fairly cautious.  And I was trying to shoot in "match mode";  I certainly could have shot faster, albeit with less As.

 

But I clearly misunderstood the values of accuracy vs time.  I ended up with the highest number of As in the match, but I was in the bottom 20% in speed.  Which put me about 50/75 in the final standings.  Obviously i should have shot faster and accepted less As.

 

So, how do you find the shooting speed that will give you the highest hit factor, just experiment?

I didn't read all 3 pages of posts....so pardon me if it has already been covered.

 

Hit factor is like saying what your speed is out on the highway...like 65 miles per hour....or if you are flying or on a boat at say 65 knots.

 

It is points divided by time essentially.

 

So to get a higher hit factor you need to maximize your points and/or minimize your time.  yeah...yeah I know kinda like "well, duh!"

 

So a hit factor of 10 on a stage says you were collecting two alphas per second.

 

Switching gears here slightly...

 

the old IDPA classifier took 90 rounds to shoot.  If you were to look at where IDPA HQ set the time cutoff for Master class, it was right around the 80 to 90 second mark....if I recall correctly.

 

If you were to look at IDPA major match results, most top master class shooters have a final time/score that is real close to the minimum round count (MRC) for the entire match.

 

That is or used to be my general rule of thumb.

 

Of course, guys like Bob Vogel are probably finishing up a major IDPA match at something like 2/3rds to 3/4ths of the MRC.

 

Now, I haven't looked at major USPSA match results in a while... and it takes a bit of calc-u-lating and head scratching from the results posted at USPSA.org's website to figure out the MRC for the entire match....and I think you would have to add up all the stage times together...

 

but I would be curious how the top USPSA'ers final cumulative match time compares to the MRC.

 

Sooooo...try that at the next local match you go to... read the written stage briefing (WSB)... get the MRC for that stage, say like 16 rounds, and as you are doing your walk through be thinking to yourself "This should a 16 second stage".

 

Then when you shoot it see if your time jives up with the MRC ...ASSuming you are getting 75% + of the max points available.

 

EDIT:  and that would be for your typical field course stage.  I think there was one USPSA sectional I shot in where one stage was on a bay that was like half a football field it seemed like.  That was probably 20 seconds of  just running right there.

 

Edited August 4, 2018 by Chills1994

[Jake Di Vita]

22 hours ago, motosapiens said:

 

Late to the party, but I can vouch for gooldy. i was the CRO for his squad at last year's idaho state match. He blew my mind with the aggressive way he was shooting and moving. He was literally shooting production like an open shooter, and he beat down some pretty seriously good guys.

 

One of the disadvantages of running the high-cap divisions one day, and the low-cap divisions the next is you can't hide..... except maybe in L10.

 

He and I talked in PMs after I made that post. He did do very well, however he did also only shoot 88% of the points at the match he was referring to.

 

I'm guessing the match you're referring to is the Hawktech Arms low cap match? If so, he shot 87% of the points at that match as well. Again, it worked out well for him and he had a strong finish. I still think if you're shooting matches with a strategy that yields significantly fewer than 90% of the possible points, you are playing with fire. So while shooting an iron sight division like you would shoot open can work out depending on the match, it's probably not the best strategy over the long haul for most people.

 

It seems like he should agree with me since his last post in the 2nd page of this thread read, "If you aren't shooting 93+% of the points regardless of division you are doing it wrong."

[flamatrix99]

I've only shot a handful of matches and I also shot in a Level 2 match. I also had a huge number of A's but I was slow as molasses. So my score was not very good. I sucked a USPSA and I don't shoot in matches anymore.

[N3WWN]

Sooooo...try that at the next local match you go to... read the written stage briefing (WSB)... get the MRC for that stage, say like 16 rounds, and as you are doing your walk through be thinking to yourself "This should a 16 second stage".
 
Then when you shoot it see if your time jives up with the MRC ...ASSuming you are getting 75% + of the max points available.
 
EDIT:  and that would be for your typical field course stage.  I think there was one USPSA sectional I shot in where one stage was on a bay that was like half a football field it seemed like.  That was probably 20 seconds of  just running right there.
 

This idea caught my attention, so I thought about it for a little but and looked up some scores from recent local USPSA matches that I shot.

1 round per second (assuming a 5 point alpha for every round) is a 5 HF. Few stages are won with only a 5 HF, at least around me. Most stages are won with an average nearing 8 HF, which is closer to the 2/3 MRC estimation.

Division is also going to come into play. Gun weight, compensator, sights, etc all affect how fast the average competitive shooter is probably shooting.

If you're shooting major, you lose fewer points for charlies, so the size of the acceptable sight picture is larger compared to shooting minor. This makes shooting faster (less refined sight picture on each target) less detrimental to your HF... provided that you're still shooting those 90%+ points already discussed.

At some matches (likely locals without much heat), aiming for a time around the MRC per stage may get you in the top 1/3, but I'm not sure how useful that goal really is before shooting the CoF. It's a fun fact to realize in post-match analysis, but if you're choosing how fast to shoot before you shoot, you're not shooting as fast as you are seeing your sights, which will be either too fast or too slow, depending upon your current level of skill.

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[wdfwguy]

Percentage of max points available, you're dividing the total number of points you shot by total available points?  With or without penalties?