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First USPSA Match


jschweg

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I shot in my first USPSA match this past Saturday and had a blast. I think I'm hooked already and I can't wait until next month. I could have gone faster, but I just wanted to get through the match, be safe, and not get DQ'd for something dumb. I finished 14th of 30 overall and I think I'm pretty happy with that for my first time out.
 
I also learned real quick that my accomplishments in other shooting disciplines basically translate to the participation award in USPSA lol. I was pretty humbled.
 
One of the stages in the match was a classifier. Looking at the match results which have been posted now, I understand where my hit factor comes from, and I understand that my stage percentage is my percentage of what the top guy in my class shot for that stage. I'm not really sure where the "Class Pct" comes from, which is the number that gets used for the actual classification. Can someone enlighten me on that?
 
Also curious about hearing from a few B and A class shooters. Just wondering what class you initially fell into when you first started and how long it took you to work up the ranks. By the looks of it, I think I'm going to end up in a high D, maybe a low C.
 
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I started, 20 years ago, in high D, low C - then I zoomed all the way up to

C ….

 

Where I remained for a LONG TIME.

 

Then I switched to OPEN (from Limited Minor), and ZOOMED up to B.

 

And, I've been a B for a long time.

 

With the help of BE and the OPEN gun, I think I might have made A

if I wasn't forced to cut Way Back on shooting about 4 years ago.

 

Two quick clues:

 

1.  save your brass

 

2.  dry fire, a LOT

 

Hope you continue to enjoy your journey    :) 

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I started, 20 years ago, in high D, low C - then I zoomed all the way up to
C ….
 
Where I remained for a LONG TIME.
 
Then I switched to OPEN (from Limited Minor), and ZOOMED up to B.
 
And, I've been a B for a long time.
 
With the help of BE and the OPEN gun, I think I might have made A
if I wasn't forced to cut Way Back on shooting about 4 years ago.
 
Two quick clues:
 
1.  save your brass
 
2.  dry fire, a LOT
 
Hope you continue to enjoy your journey    [emoji4] 
What was a bit of a wakeup call for me is that when you look at the classes face value without any experience, you might think to yourself, B class shooter, probably an average shooter. But in reality, a solid B class shooter is almost legendary in comparison with people who shoot in general.

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7 hours ago, jschweg said:

  a solid B class shooter is legendary in comparison with people who shoot in general.
 

 Yes, absolutely.    :cheers:

 

Took me a couple years to go from D to B.  Huge difference between the two.

 

And, it's funny to watch the  various types of D's:

 

 - Very Slow - just refuse to move or shoot or draw quickly

 - Very Fast - refuse to consider that "hitting the target"  is as important as speed

 - Poor Equipment - seem to shoot well, but frequent FTF's and inability to clear jams quickly

 - Poor Planning - trying to learn the COF  during  the stage, rather than beforehand.

 - Poor grip/stance - recoil is constantly knocking them off balance, for every shot

 - Shoot to slide lock constantly, and seem genuinely surprised that they ran out of ammo, and not quite sure what to do about it.

 - Frequently "making up shots", slowly and deliberately

 - Stopping at the end of the COF, slowly thinking about the stage, and then firing one or more shots much later, even running back to

                another position to make up possible shots

 - Waiting to evaluate the effectiveness of each shot (waiting for steel to fall, and the holes to appear in the targets).

 - Disregarding "no-shoots" and blazing away despite their impact on the score

 - Failing to shoot ALL the targets

 - Leaning heavily into every port and backing out very slowly

 - Failing to HIT and knock down all the steel, quickly, without firing multiple shots at a single plate of steel

 

 - And, MY  Personal Favorite  - turning to face uprange with a loaded gun in their hand.

 

Lot to learn.   Takes some people longer than others to learn these basics of shooting.

 

Reading BE Forums is a real great way to learn them much more quickly than it took me 20 years ago    :) 

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39 minutes ago, Hi-Power Jack said:

 Yes, absolutely.    :cheers:

 

Took me a couple years to go from D to B.  Huge difference between the two.

 

And, it's funny to watch the  various types of D's:

 

 - Very Slow - just refuse to move or shoot or draw quickly

 - Very Fast - refuse to consider that "hitting the target"  is as important as speed

 - Poor Equipment - seem to shoot well, but frequent FTF's and inability to clear jams quickly

 - Poor Planning - trying to learn the COF  during  the stage, rather than beforehand.

 - Poor grip/stance - recoil is constantly knocking them off balance, for every shot

 - Shoot to slide lock constantly, and seem genuinely surprised that they ran out of ammo, and not quite sure what to do about it.

 - Frequently "making up shots", slowly and deliberately

 - Stopping at the end of the COF, slowly thinking about the stage, and then firing one or more shots much later, even running back to

                another position to make up possible shots

 - Waiting to evaluate the effectiveness of each shot (waiting for steel to fall, and the holes to appear in the targets).

 - Disregarding "no-shoots" and blazing away despite their impact on the score

 - Failing to shoot ALL the targets

 - Leaning heavily into every port and backing out very slowly

 - Failing to HIT and knock down all the steel, quickly, without firing multiple shots at a single plate of steel

 

 - And, MY  Personal Favorite  - turning to face uprange with a loaded gun in their hand.

 

Lot to learn.   Takes some people longer than others to learn these basics of shooting.

 

Reading BE Forums is a real great way to learn them much more quickly than it took me 20 years ago    :) 

 

You  might be tongue in cheek  on this one. But I'm taking the list seriously as constructive notes.

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You won't earn a classification from one stage, you need four stages.  Here's the classification system explanation from USPSA.

Earning A Classification
To become classified, a member must have at least four valid scores from different classifier courses in the USPSA database. If more than four scores are in the database when the averages are calculated, the best four of the most recent six valid scores will be used. Any scores in excess of the most recent six valid scores are not used for the initial classification. Those scores over the most recent six may be used at the next monthly reclassification if they are within the most recent eight scores.
It is important to note that for INITIAL classifications ALL scores greater than 2 percent will be used to determine a classification. These scores will be continued to be used until they are bumped from the most recent eight scores in use by higher VALID scores. What this means is that even if a higher score is entered, but is flagged with a B or a C, the lower score will be considered valid and be included in the member’s current percentage.

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Yup, I understand that part, was wondering where they get the class percentage that is used for the actual classification. I'm assuming now that this percentage is based off everyone who has shot this classifier stage in USPSA.

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Your class % is where you finished compared to other in your class only.  Example on the classifier the high overall was likely either shooting open or PCC.  If you are shooting production you only compare your results to the other production shooters not the overall results.  

 

The move from D to C is generally pretty quick if you practice.  The move from C to B is much tougher.  From B to A monumentally tougher.  Each move up has a smaller margin of error.  Each aspect of your game has to be precise.  

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As hard as it can be I recommend not worrying about what class you are.

A friend of mine (current top USPSA shooter) says that nobody (except yourself) really cares about whether you win D, C, B or even the match. So why put pressure on yourself. Just train & work on improving your skills.

I’d even say that your position in the match is largely unimportant as well. Let’s say that 70 other people were at your first match (all GM’s & M’s). The same guy won but they all beat you and your 14th became 84th. Would you feel worse? You didn’t shoot any worse so why would you?

What matters is your % against the winner (keeping in context who the winner is). Scoring 90% against the local heat and 50% against Stegger may actually represent the same skill level.


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8 hours ago, Matt1 said:

As hard as it can be I recommend not worrying about what class you are.

A friend of mine (current top USPSA shooter) says that nobody (except yourself) really cares about whether you win D, C, B or even the match. So why put pressure on yourself. Just train & work on improving your skills.

I’d even say that your position in the match is largely unimportant as well. Let’s say that 70 other people were at your first match (all GM’s & M’s). The same guy won but they all beat you and your 14th became 84th. Would you feel worse? You didn’t shoot any worse so why would you?

What matters is your % against the winner (keeping in context who the winner is). Scoring 90% against the local heat and 50% against Stegger may actually represent the same skill level.


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words of wisdom for a new shooter.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I started in the low to mid C class and it took me about 11 matches to squeeze into B. A lot of reading and dry fire made that possible. 

You will probably find that you are going to be chasing the same bunch of guys at the local matches you shoot, they are the ones that always make it because their level of participation is high. Seeing how you rank against them will be a clue to your progress is going. 

Don't be surprised if you do worse you n your next couple matches, I sure did :)

 

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On 7/24/2018 at 6:31 PM, SilverBolt said:

The move from D to C is generally pretty quick if you practice.  The move from C to B is much tougher.  From B to A monumentally tougher.  Each move up has a smaller margin of error.  Each aspect of your game has to be precise.  

Some numbers from a sample of production shooters to support those observations. One year after entering a given class, the following percentage of shooters move up in classification:

 

From D to C+ 53%

From C to B+ 20%

From B to A+ 9%

From A to M+ 14%

From M to GM 6%

 

Among those who do move up (many remain in their current class for a long time), median time to move up is about one year, regardless of class.

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One more thing about class percentage. 

 

The % on your match isn’t the % used to determine your classification %.  

 

Your hit factor on that classifier with determine your % based on the HHF from the thousands of times that COF has been shot.  

 

USPSA has a good calculator now to check and see where you land.  

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One more thing about class percentage.    The % on your match isn’t the % used to determine your classification %.  

 

Your hit factor on that classifier with determine your % based on the HHF from the thousands of times that COF has been shot.  

 

USPSA has a good calculator now to check and see where you land.  

 

 

 

 

Haha, initially I had looked at the match percentage for the classifier before USPSA computed it and was like

 

I'm awesome at this!

 

USPSA calculates class pct.

 

Dude, I suck at this.

 

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I shot my first season (last year) without any dry fire and no real practice plan/schedule.  I got a little better (classified at the bottom on ‘C’ class) working up to the mid 50%.  

 

A few weeks before Area 7 this year I started dry firing and planning out my practices.  

 

My draw is down to ~1sec from about 1.7, my reloads are improving (still struggle with consistency) and things are starting to come together.  Shooting sooner, leaving sooner.  Have run a few classifiers in practice that would be ‘M’ on a cold run and many ‘A’ runs.  

 

Now I just need to transfer that to a match.  I have a mental block on classifiers like some others.  

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You’ll be surprised how much an impact dry fire makes. I was slow to start it but made the decision to do 10 to 15 minutes a day which quickly turned into 30 minutes because I didn’t feel ‘done’ in 15. I quickly developed a .7 draw with a good index, a quick reload and faster transitions. Dry fire helps make these actions natural and subconscious and allows your mind to take care of other more important tasks like ensuring you are in the right spot to engage targets etc...

Kind of fell off topic but dry fire will definitely help lay the groundwork for improvement 

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  • 2 weeks later...

For anyone still looking at this, I shot my second USPSA match, a full classifier match.

I shot 49A, 10B, 11C, 0D, 0M, 0NS
I shot them all right around 45% after calculating the HF on USPSA

I'm super happy with myself, but it's obvious that I'm going to have learn to shoot WAY faster to get any better.

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12 hours ago, jschweg said:

that I'm going to have learn to shoot WAY faster to get any better.
 

That has always been my problem (Yes, I'm an "old bullseye shooter") - God I hate that phrase,

especially uttered by an attractive young woman.    :eatdrink:

 

The trick, I'm starting to realize since reading BE constantly, is NOT to "shoot faster", but

to do everything else faster.

 

AND, shooting faster is also a good strategy - but that requires a rock hard grip and a

thorough understanding of how refined your sight picture should be for that one

particular target, among other things.

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For anyone still looking at this, I shot my second USPSA match, a full classifier match.

 

I shot 49A, 10B, 11C, 0D, 0M, 0NS

I shot them all right around 45% after calculating the HF on USPSA

 

I'm super happy with myself, but it's obvious that I'm going to have learn to shoot WAY faster to get any better.

 

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

 

 

 

This scoring system favors speed. From your numbers it looks like you shot well, but getting faster will increase those percentages quicker.

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  • 2 months later...

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