are today's shooters better than ever before?

[Brooke]

On 10/26/2019 at 11:25 AM, Tango said:

The proper way of classification can be done by plotting the distribution of all HF's from a given period (which will typically be a log-normal distribution), assign top 5% of shooters GM, the next 10% M, and so on...in other words grade them on a curve. This is what I though was being done by USPSA, and I was shocked to learn about the nonsense method they currently use. It just doesnt make much sense.

 

Nevertheless, I do not think even in local matches people usually want to trash a match by going hero or zero. And it seems like there is consensus that today's shooters are better. And, come on people lets admit: the the way they shot that 2012 Nationals classifier look awfully slow

 

I agree to an extent but I think shooters above A  have little choice but go hero/zero and I see it all the time. Nevertheless using only successful attempts to get the HHF is wrong as hell. I totally agree with your statistical pot setting approach. I think the other overlooked fact is that equipment (mainly guns) is also getting better.

 

 

 

 

[shred]

There's been a ton of improvement in the 'average' shooters over the past 20 years.

 

At the very top level?  Skills creep up, but much much slower.  The top scores for the 2010 Steel Challenge are basically the same as 2019s, and by mostly the same people... 2007 (the oldest I could find quickly and most older ones won't have Accelerator) isn't very different.

 

[Flexmoney]

Funny...I happen to have the 2012 Nationals Staff knife in my pocket.

 

Where do we tend to see the turn and draw?  On classifiers. 

Who doesn't really work on classifier skills much?  Shooters who have already made GM.

 

To the OP's credit, he is right...quite a bit of non *Maximum Effort* in those video examples.  Examples of fumbled reloads, trigger freeze, not really snapping the head around...  

 

In general, I'd suggest that competition drives excellence and improvement.  And, greater access to resources and a larger population should help that.  

 

Then there is this, from 2007:

 

 

[bimmer1980]

All the reasons where already said, but there is one more i think:

 

To get some tenth in rapid fire, a draw and a reaload issn´t that easy once you are at a solid level.

 

A 1.0 Draw is much harder than a 1.2 Draw

.18 Splits in the Alpha are much harder than .22

1.0 Reload is much harder than 1.2

 

So to earn a second on this kind of stage (wich you can´t hero or zero at nationals) is a big thing

 

That means, that´s a stage where you can´t win huge % over the competition but the risk is very high at a major match (as said before)

Edited April 9, 2020 by bimmer1980
changed to more realistic times

[DyNo!]

On 10/25/2019 at 9:02 AM, Tango said:

 

I think today's shooters are better overall. This is similar to what happened to martial arts in the past decade with the proliferation of MMA and internet videos: inefficient techniques disappeared and overall skill levels increased dramatically. Better communication, cross-breeding of methods and techniques....in short better communication technology allowed shooters to learn from each other much faster than ever before.

 

Agreed - I wish I was just getting started today.

 

Lots of cheap quality equipment available too. 

 

There was no such thing as a good competition ready 2011 for $1000 when I got started. 

 

Same goes for PCC, I would have loved to have something like that 18 years ago.

[perttime]

If we look at a 40 or 50 year time span, a lot has happened.

- current guns are pretty good

- current holsters are pretty fast compared with what was there way back when

- competition ammo is optimized for easy shooting

-  more people train more

- People like Brian and Rob L. , and many others, have figured out efficient ways to shoot in competition.

 

It is a while since I read Jeff Cooper's 'To Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth', but I remember that he thought a 10 second El Presidente (all As) was pretty good.

[usmc1974]

It's been said many times in this post, equipment is better they trained better and the power factor is lower! so let's not forget that little thing. By comparison of the "old days" today's Major power factor shooter would be shooting minor power factor.

[shred]

Going back nearly 30 years that I've been playing, holsters haven't really changed speed since the 1990s when holster tests phased out.  They've gotten better (lots less dumping guns on the ground), but not faster.  There were even two plastic holsters at the first US Nationals in 1978.

 

Information and Population are the big reasons we have more better shooters now. 

 

It took 20 years of USPSA to get to 30K members.  More than that shot last year.  So if you have one or two TGOs and BE's when there were 2000 members, you'll likely have 20 of them when you have 20000 members.  Difficult to say if any of those 20 are better than TGO at his prime or by how much.

 

[TONY BARONE]

My take on it is todays shooters are more athletic on average but the top shooters from 80s and 90s would still be very competitive today at their prime. Check out the 93 World Shoot on youtube and watch TGO, Todd , Matt McClearn and Barnhart. 

[Seery]

On 10/25/2019 at 10:10 AM, igofast85 said:

For sure the uspsa population as a whole is getting better/faster. For a more exaggerated example check out the top guys shooting el prez back in the 70/80s.

 

This.