Rise and Fall of divisions in my area

[JGus]

I've noticed the significant rise of CO competitors in my area (Central IL) over the last year and the drop of PCC.  Last year PCC seemed to be really popular, but now I've noticed at the local matches I've shot this summer, PCC has really fallen off.  PCC has had 1 competitor on the low end to 6 on the high end, with an average turnout of 74 total shooters in the four local matches from this summer I reviewed.  I realize this is not anything close to being scientific.  Just a general observation.

 

Limited has definitely been the most popular (which was expected), followed closely by CO, with PRD and OPEN trading back and forth for third and 4th place.  SS and PCC are a distant 5th and 6th, with REV barely registering (which was expected).  At first it seemed as if competitors were really embracing PCC and sort of cool to CO, but that has really shifted, with CO taking off and PCC falling off.  SS has had a low turnout for a few years and REV has just the occasional competitor at our local matches.  At least this is what I notice in my area.

 

Just wondering if anyone else is seeing the rise of CO and the fall of PCC in their area local matches?

[ATLDave]

All dot-equipped divisions are up in my area, and all the iron-sighted divisions are down.  PCC and CO are both big and growing where I am, cannibalizing LTD and PROD.  

[HCH]

It is odd how certain areas have divisions that are more popular than others. I’m my area, Limited has always been dominant, followed by Open, and the rest being shared by Production and SS. 

 

Now Lim, Open, and CO are fairly equal, hardly anyone shoots PRO, L10, SS, or Rev, and we make fun of PCC shooters. 

[robchavous]

There's definitely been a shift. I find it more interesting to see who's actually shooting the divisions.

Around here most of the high end competition is still in Production even with some people leaving Prod for CO. CO is definitely growing and I think it fills an obvious demand for a hicap minor only division. I myself have been using it as a change of pace this year, but likely will go back to Production after shooting the next few lvl 2 matches.

PCC seems to mostly be populated by casual middle of the road type shooters who basically occupied the same place in Limited. For as long as I've been shooting uspsa Limited hasn't had any real competitors around here. It's mostly filled with people who only shoot club matches and aren't even necessarily uspsa members.

Anecdotal at best observations.



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[Dazhi]

Areas with 10 rnds limit probably won't see much rise in CO or PCC. Other areas have similar overall theme going on - that is CO cannibalizing PROD and PCC stealing from Open or 3-gun.

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[MemphisMechanic]

Handgun matches are more fun to shoot with a handgun. I liked shooting PCC long enough to learn to run & gun with the AR platform, but... (see first sentence.)

[HoMiE]

1 hour ago, ATLDave said:

All dot-equipped divisions are up in my area, and all the iron-sighted divisions are down.  PCC and CO are both big and growing where I am, cannibalizing LTD and PROD.  

Same thing happen here in Southern Oregon, I think there is one production shooter. 

[cheby]

9 minutes ago, HoMiE said:

Same thing happen here in Southern Oregon, I think there is one production shooter. 

there are two more in Northern Oregon. That's pretty much all, LOL

[waktasz]

There's 5-8 PCC shooters at any given match around here and seems they are all GMs, lol.

Lim and Production are the most popular but CO is pretty strong

[TeedOff]

It could be some PCC shooters escaping Illinois...


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[Joe4d]

2 hours ago, cheby said:

there are two more in Northern Oregon. That's pretty much all, LOL

That may be an alarm bell, sounds like you may have a recruiting issue. Could end up shooting alone.
My sport AERC Endurance racing is circling the drain. I was at the riders briefing, looked around and noticed in my late 40's I was youngest person there,

[Chuck Anderson]

52 minutes ago, Joe4d said:

That may be an alarm bell, sounds like you may have a recruiting issue. Could end up shooting alone.
My sport AERC Endurance racing is circling the drain. I was at the riders briefing, looked around and noticed in my late 40's I was youngest person there,

 

First off, he's way off on the numbers.  USPSA is about as healthy as it has been in Oregon.  We're pulling about 100 for monthly matches.  It floats up and down a bit depending, but it's been pretty consistent.  Division participation has changed though.  When I was AD one of the things they send is an activity report that shows how many competitors are shooting in each are and what division they are shooting.  Even within Area 1 it varied wildly.  One section in a state would have Limited as dominant and only a few Open shooters.  Next Section over had Open as dominant and only a couple Limited shooters.  I always figured it depended on whatever the high end guys were shooting.  If you had a guy who was crushing it in Open, people would shoot Open.  If the big competition was Production, people would shoot that.  Revo and L10 were always light, but even within that, every now and then there would be a Section where L10 was in the top 3 division wise.  When I took a break a couple years ago, Production was in a virtual tie with Lim/Open numberswise locally.  When I came back, there were only a few dudes in Production.  More than 2, but less than 10 for sure.  Some can be accounted for by two more divisions splitting the competitor pool, but not all.  CO is way more popular than it was previously.  Enough that I'm going to give it a try this year and see how it goes.  

[Whitefish]

2 hours ago, Chuck Anderson said:

CO is way more popular than it was previously.  Enough that I'm going to give it a try this year and see how it goes.  

Thanks for the advance warning, Chuck! Come on over to the dark side, we have milk and cookies to share.

 

Just for grins, I checked the sign-up for the upcoming USPSA match at ARPC on the 14th and found that CO is currently the division with the most competitors (17) signed up and 9 of those are unclassified. Open is currently 2nd with 16 shooters and Limited is 3rd, with 13 shooters. Those will not be the final figures, but it sure shows how the competitor pool is changing. I think that might change again if USPSA removed the 10 round limit for production as they did belatedly with CO.

[mike4045]

Shot pcc and got bored with it. Moved to CO while my limited gun was rebuilt. Back to limited now. 

[jcc7x7]

On ‎9‎/‎5‎/‎2019 at 2:07 PM, Dazhi said:

Areas with 10 rnds limit probably won't see much rise in CO or PCC. Other areas have similar overall theme going on - that is CO cannibalizing PROD and PCC stealing from Open or 3-gun.

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Currently in a non free state, C/O is growing the fastest.  Usually has the highest number of shooters both young and older.

doing a casual survey, older folks like it cause it helps their eyes sigh problems, younger folks like it cause it's cheaper than an open gun.

 

There seems to be a heavy population of c and d class shooters in it, they believe the optic helps their shooting.  FWIW

[TrackCage]

At our most recent match there were 40-something Prod shooters and ~15 CO shooters. Granted this is California, but CO is still growing. Prod is definitely where a lot of the local heat spends their time. 

 

I'm young and can still see the sights, but I thoroughly enjoy CO. The only thing that would pull me out of this division is dot longevity. I've been lucky so far but it's way too early to tell.

[RJH]

1 hour ago, TrackCage said:

At our most recent match there were 40-something Prod shooters and ~15 CO shooters. Granted this is California, but CO is still growing. Prod is definitely where a lot of the local heat spends their time. 

 

I'm young and can still see the sights, but I thoroughly enjoy CO. The only thing that would pull me out of this division is dot longevity. I've been lucky so far but it's way too early to tell.

In California are any of the carry Ops guns able to have high cap mags? California magazine laws are very fuzzy to me

[mveto]

2 hours ago, RJH said:

In California are any of the carry Ops guns able to have high cap mags? California magazine laws are very fuzzy to me

Short answer is yes, it’s not illegal to own or use “standard cap” mags, you just can’t import/buy/make/sell them in the state.

[B21]

All the dot divisions are growing like crazy in my area at the expense of iron sight divisions.  It does seem like some of the PCC shooters have switched over to CO.  I think as the dots become more reliable for slide mounted pistols CO will see even more growth. 

[Bifurcate]

LOL, I wouldn't take a bunch of people switching around as an indication either way.

 

The truth is the new divisions (CO and PCC) will be popular with people who think "maybe I'll be better at that!" then realize they both take work and switch back to Limited or Open. I've seen enough unskilled shooters pick up PCCs thinking it'll be easy to know the real problem is people just don't want to put in the work in any division.

[ATLDave]

16 hours ago, Bifurcate said:

The truth is the new divisions (CO and PCC) will be popular with people who think "maybe I'll be better at that!" then realize they both take work and switch back to Limited or Open. I've seen enough unskilled shooters pick up PCCs thinking it'll be easy to know the real problem is people just don't want to put in the work in any division.

 

I'm not sure.  It's true that they all take work to be good/be competitive/win.  However, dots are a lot lower-stress for shooters who struggle with calling shots with iron sights.  With iron sights, some shots are stress-inducing in terms of whether the competitor will be able to make the shot at any kind of match pace.  Dots remove that stress. 

 

I really have not seen very many people come back from the land of dots, and I think this is why.  They're not any more competitive in their division with a dot than they were with irons, but they're not generally racking up mikes and no-shoots or going to war with mini-poppers.  They can make all the shots pretty much all the time.  For people with a relatively casual level of participation, this is a far more enjoyable way to shoot, as opposed to stressing about whether the equal-light-bars really were equal enough on that 20 yard partial.  

 

I do not think the iron-sight divisions are going to recover shooters lost to dots any time soon.

[Racinready300ex]

I find it kind of interesting that when we were talking about adding divisions there was concern over watering down the competition. Many seemed to not think that was a big deal and were more focused on how much it would grow the sport.  And here we are talking about what divisions are being cannibalized the most. And locally the turn out doesn't seem to have grown any more than normal.

 

It doesn't really matter now, but it's interesting to see how the sport is changing.

 

 

[waktasz]

All the matches I shoot are full so it's not like we could really attract more people. 

[Jim Watson]

A bit of the bloom is off the PCC fad around here, CO is doing well.

 

[StealthyBlagga]

I'm a seasonal shooter. This time of year I am 100% PCC in preparation for a major PCC match we run here in September, and then my Area match in November. Right after the Area match, I put the PCC away and run my handgun to get back up to speed in time for a major 3-Gun we run here in March. Rinse and repeat. For me, USPSA is second-tier... my first love is outlaw 3-Gun and I treat USPSA mostly as practice for that.