Overall Speed/Scoring Differences Between CO and Production

[Flea]

I'm just starting in USPSA and don't know all the ins and outs but I was wondering are there any big national matches that have lots of GMs and Ms shooting the same COF in Carry Optics and Production?

 

If so, has anyone looked at the overall speed/scoring differences for say the top 10 finishers in each division? Do CO folks shoot faster/more accurate on average than Production folks?

 

In my limited experience, I've read/heard some legit people suggest that shooting a dot will allow you to be faster and more accurate no question. No one really ever provides any data to support that claim. I'm trying to figure out if there is any "data" to support that claim, hence let's see how different the speed/scoring is between what should be somewhat similar guns...maybe.

 

Am I barking up the wrong tree looking for evidence? Yes, I know milage will vary for each person. But if you had a new shooter shoot 5,000 rounds with a striker gun with irons then shoot 5,000 rounds with a striker dot, on average would the person be faster and more accurate with a dot?

[robchavous]

When comparing CO and Prod it's not just an irons vs optics comparison so looking at match results likely will not provide any sort of conclusive data. When comparing those two divisions you also have to take into account 140mm mags vs 10 rd, which leads to different stage planning and how aggressive/conservative you shoot certain stages/arrays.

This year's Factory Gun Nationals may give you some idea of what you're looking for since it's going to be a Production & Carry Optics only match.



Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

[MemphisMechanic]

The capacity always makes a difference: one load per stage versus 3 or 4.

 

The optics can make no difference, if everything is within 3-7 yards on something close and fast. Or it can save you multiple seconds on a stage full of distant steel and tight partials.

[BARRYJ]

Mag capacity is huge

[reverse_edge]

To answer the second part of your question, of course a CO gun would allow a new shooter to progress faster. 

 

It's easy mode for teaching someone how to shoot. "Put the dot where you want the bullet to go and pull the trigger. Don't break 180. You have to reload maybe once. Have fun." 

 

 

 

 

[rowdyb]

Look at the overall of area matches, that will be the only place to see what you're after. And even that will be skewed a little.

[motosapiens]

If you look at area matches, you will see a pretty dramatic difference between CO and prod. CO actually ends up fairly even with limited, depending on the actual stages.

 

the question for me is why are you looking for evidence that a dot allows you to shoot faster? This has been proven for like 20 years. Are you also looking for evidence that gravity still works?

[rowdyb]

20 hours ago, Flea said:

I'm trying to figure out if there is any "data" to support that claim,

DATA-Every single person with a shot timer who has both an iron sighted gun and an optic mounted on a pistol.  Seriously, anyone who has these can find out for themselves empirically.

 

DATA-The HHF on classifiers for optics divisions versus iron sighted divisions.

 

DATA-The rule sets for multiple shooting sports both rifle and pistol  both implicitly and explicitly noting the advantage of optical sights over iron sights.

 

DATA-But I'll do some of the work for you. I'll show some Area matches from 2019 and list the times for the winner in both divisions.

 

Area 2 CO time 193.34 N Jonasson (12th overall) Prod time 215.06 J Heatherington (29th overall) CO wins by about 22 seconds

Area 4 CO time 189.70 L Li (10th overall)      Prod time 222.96 B Guillroy (27th overall) CO wins by about 33 seconds

Area 8 CO time 202.23 N Jonasson (13th overall)  Prod time 214.05 M Lane (14th overall) CO wins by about 11 seconds

Area 1 CO time 225.17 K Pavlock (4th overall)   Prod time 240.89 J Heatherington (16th overall) CO wins by about 14 seconds

Area 3 CO time 263.81 N Jonasson (7th overall)  Prod time 281.00 S Luna (21st overall) CO wins by about 18 seconds

Area 7 CO time 152.83 M Michel (2nd overall)    Prod time 193.99 P Strader (30th overall) CO wins by about 40 seconds

 

There you go, great shooters all shooting the same course and Prod isn't  faster. Nor does Prod ever finish in front of CO in the overall.

 

About the only time I shoot CO is to shoot it in nats, so I practice with that gun for maybe 4 weeks ahead of time, my main focus being in Prod. Within about 15 minutes I'm meeting my best Prod times on drills. By the second day I am faster everywhere vs my iron sighted gun.

 

2018 was my best Nats ever for USPSA. In CO I shot 79% of Max Michel and finished 22nd in the division. In Prod I shot 77% of Ben and finished 44th overall in Prod. Prod is my focus 90% of the time, but throw a dot on there and with just a little practice I'm "better".

Edited July 27, 2020 by rowdyb

[George16]

Quote

Area 6 CO time 184.73 H Kim (17th overall)   Prod time 184.27 J Heatherington (32nd overall) CO wins by 0.46 seconds

Looks like this is a typo or else Prod is faster.

[rowdyb]

9 hours ago, George16 said:

Looks like this is a typo or else Prod is faster.

I just deleted that line until I or someone else could go back and double check. I probably made a reading or transposition error.

 

EDIT-I made an error. At Area 6, Production was indeed half a second faster than CO but also did finish 15 places further back in the overall. So the only time Prod was faster it was less than a second......

Edited July 27, 2020 by rowdyb

[IHAVEGAS]

Look at IDPA scores on major matches to get a feel for CO versus iron sights perhaps? No mag capacity difference between CO and ESP and SSP. 

Edited July 27, 2020 by IHAVEGAS

[Flea]

Thanks for the info.

[SGT_Schultz]

3 hours ago, IHAVEGAS said:

Look at IDPA scores on major matches to get a feel for CO versus iron sights perhaps? No mag capacity difference between CO and ESP and SSP. 

 

That IS a good idea.  I was thinking of comparing results between Production and Production Optics in IPSC since the mag capacity limits are the same but that data is hard for us to get.

 

IDPA is the same situation as IPSC but much more readily available.

[Stdz]

I was talking to some guys and they were saying it would be easier to climb the classification ladder in CO than prod since it's a newer division and the classifiers aren't shot out. 

[rowdyb]

20 hours ago, SGT_Schultz said:

 

That IS a good idea.  I was thinking of comparing results between Production and Production Optics in IPSC since the mag capacity limits are the same but that data is hard for us to get.

 

IDPA is the same situation as IPSC but much more readily available.

The only problem with this is the extreme variability in who shows up at state level idpa matches. But I do agree it is much more a same same as far as gun division to gun division.

[Racinready300ex]

25 minutes ago, rowdyb said:

The only problem with this is the extreme variability in who shows up at state level idpa matches. But I do agree it is much more a same same as far as gun division to gun division.

 

I have a lot of friends that only IDPA, and the local club holds 6 matches a month so it's pretty easy to spot trends. At this club CO is slowly taking over and is already the biggest division for club matches. The trend has been the same, starting at the top and working to the bottom. Someone adds a Dot to their gun and jumps up in the OA. Any guys who normally were competitive or just a little behind that person notice. They then add Dots to there gun so they can keep up. It's slowly spreading like through the ranks.  The last match had 50 shooters, and only 1 of the top 10 had irons on his gun. Only 5 of the top 20 had irons. The bottom 30 where almost all using irons.

 

There are some acceptations, guys who just can't figure out the dot and do worse then give up and go back to irons. But most guys are jumping up on the leader board shortly after adding a Dot. 

[rowdyb]

1 hour ago, Racinready300ex said:

guys are jumping up on the leader board shortly after adding a Dot. 

I'm not the person disputing or questioning that. hahaha. That's the OP. I phrased it that way because their post specifically mentioned wanting to compare high level shooters versus high level shooters. To prevent things like looking at a local where say a M SSP shooter like me is always beating anyone in CO because no one is better than MM or SS.

[Racinready300ex]

1 hour ago, rowdyb said:

I'm not the person disputing or questioning that. hahaha. That's the OP. I phrased it that way because their post specifically mentioned wanting to compare high level shooters versus high level shooters. To prevent things like looking at a local where say a M SSP shooter like me is always beating anyone in CO because no one is better than MM or SS.

 

I know you're not disputing the dots. I thought you might find it interesting, and you mentioned the problem with IDPA scores. I think in IDPA you can't look at the top scores because one good USPSA shooter could show up and skew the results. In IDPA I think looking at the typical shooter can be more telling.  The guys at this club shoot against each other 72 times a year. It's extremely clear to everyone there the Dot's are helping people. 

 

I've talked to guys from other area's who are seeing the same thing happen at there club. Two guys are always neck and neck, one buys a dot and the other can no longer keep up. 

[motosapiens]

4 minutes ago, Racinready300ex said:

 

 

I've talked to guys from other area's who are seeing the same thing happen at there club. Two guys are always neck and neck, one buys a dot and the other can no longer keep up. 

 

 of course they're not in the same division anymore, but wutever.

[Racinready300ex]

53 minutes ago, motosapiens said:

 

 of course they're not in the same division anymore, but wutever.

 

I thought that was obvious maybe not. 

[rowdyb]

1 hour ago, Racinready300ex said:

one good USPSA shooter could show up and skew the results.

yeah, that's how I was looking at it. There is no idpa heat at the matches I attend in San Antonio or Bandera.

[MikeBurgess]

On 7/26/2020 at 9:03 AM, Flea said:

Am I barking up the wrong tree looking for evidence? Yes, I know milage will vary for each person. But if you had a new shooter shoot 5,000 rounds with a striker gun with irons then shoot 5,000 rounds with a striker dot, on average would the person be faster and more accurate with a dot?

Yes, and I have yet to see anyone that needed 5000 rounds to come to that conclusion, normally it takes about 1 magazine and a plate rack for most people to figure out one has a distinct advantage.

 

An easy Pseudo data way to look at it is to use the Competitor app and combine Co and Production at a bunch of matches and look at the trends, you will never get a data point like Co is 2.345% faster and 6.37 % more accurate but you can see that shooters of any given skill level finish ahead or behind others.  For example at our last match, top Production Master would have finished 8th place in CO at 83% behind a CO C and 3 As top A class Production was 13th behind all the B CO shooters.

 

I would also add that currently its "easier" to make any given class in CO than production because there is not the depth of heat in the division yet to drive the HHFs up (the classifier from this match had the same HHF for Prod and CO) 

 

 

 

 

[GJM]

I feel like I shoot higher hit factors with CO than Production, but aren’t the 100 percent hit factors for USPSA classifiers and Steel Challenge the same for Production and CO? 

[motosapiens]

3 hours ago, GJM said:

I feel like I shoot higher hit factors with CO than Production, but aren’t the 100 percent hit factors for USPSA classifiers and Steel Challenge the same for Production and CO? 

this seems like it would be something that would be easy to verify if one were interested in doing so. No, they aren't the same, and for good reasons, but imho the CO HFs are far too low compared to limited at least. Production is also probably too low but I haven't paid that much attention the last couple years. HQ applied some mathematically flawed thinking to the whole process and f**ed it up imho. In the long term, that has been a benefit to me, because I stopped worrying about classification, and just tried to learn how to shoot a pistol better.

[GJM]

I am not sure what you mean by “No, they aren’t the same”
 

Here are the Steel Challenge times, and with the exception of .5 second on Accelerator, the CO and Production 100 percent times are identical. Last USPSA Classifier match I went to this summer, all the co and Production 100 percent hit factors were identical.