Open vs CO

[Nathanb]

Carry optics has boomed this year at my match. Prod is down to single digits or low teens and carry optics is 20-30 of 80 shooters 

[Bakerjd]

CO should have stayed with the exact same rules as production with the addition of optic required.

[SGT_Schultz]

On 5/29/2021 at 11:16 PM, DIYguy said:

I'm curious. What kind of mags are you running that at 141.25mm you are managing to load 24 rounds of 9mm and get them to feed reliably? I have TT mag extensions at max length and I can only get 20 rounds in a mag for my CZ mags. Not arguing, just curious, am I shorting myself some how?

 

P-09 40 cal magazines with Henning extensions, Grams follower and spring, and feedlips bent inwards slightly to feed 9 mm = 23 rounds reloadable on a closed slide.  Barney mag with 1 more round = 24 in the gun for a loaded start.

 

Works in my P-09, needs additional tweaking to work in my P-10.

[SGT_Schultz]

On 5/24/2021 at 10:59 AM, usmc1974 said:

I was wondering,  how much of a hit open class is taking, now that they have carry Optics class?

 

The Ohio state match just finished yesterday and CO participation outstripped everything else and not by a little.  It's easily the most popular division in all the local matches in my area as well.

 

PCC is not that popular around here.  Most of those I see are a choke-fest.

Edited June 7, 2021 by SGT_Schultz

[RJH]

5 hours ago, Bakerjd said:

CO should have stayed with the exact same rules as production with the addition of optic required.

Why? According to the numbers it looks as though CO rules are close to perfect

[BillChunn]

6 hours ago, Bakerjd said:

CO should have stayed with the exact same rules as production with the addition of optic required.

Just build another gun and come join CO.... you know you want to..... 

 

As far as magazine capacity, the Sig P320 21 round magazines with a Taran Tactical Plus 2 basepad, Grams spring and follower will run 23 all day long.  Put one in the pipe at "Make Ready" and you have 24.

 

For consistent reloads, 22 are run as the one mag change gets you to 46 rounds and there are not that many stages over 32 rounds.

 

BC

[MarkS_A18138]

Our Tuesday, night owl shoots are moving more towards CO. Last Tue we had 7 Limited, 10 CO, 2 Open, 2 PCC and 3 SS...It's been a growing trend for a while and I know 2 of the three single stack guys got there new CO guns this weekend. I am one of the 2 ss guys, my eyes suck and I already shoot ss minor so moving to a dot was next. I have an open but, I am to lazy to pick up my Super Comp brass! 

[Racinready300ex]

2 hours ago, RJH said:

Why? According to the numbers it looks as though CO rules are close to perfect

 

It's interesting how we decide if rules are good or not. HQ has tweaked and tweaked CO until now in this area it's dominating all the other divisions. So it must be perfect.

 

At the same time we have discussion of "how do we save ____ division?" But in order to increase participation of one division then participation of another division must go down. So if for example we make Prod 140mm mags and suddenly half the CO people ditch their dot and go back to irons did we fix production or break CO? Or both?

 

[BritinUSA]

2 hours ago, RJH said:

Why? According to the numbers it looks as though CO rules are close to perfect

Sorry but the evidence to support that theory is shaky. Production grew over a period of TWO years to become the 3rd most popular division with a restricted rule-set and 10 round magazines. CO would have likely followed the same path if it had been left as originally intended. 

[BritinUSA]

2 minutes ago, Racinready300ex said:

 

It's interesting how we decide if rules are good or not. HQ has tweaked and tweaked CO until now in this area it's dominating all the other divisions. So it must be perfect.

 

At the same time we have discussion of "how do we save ____ division?" But in order to increase participation of one division then participation of another division must go down. So if for example we make Prod 140mm mags and suddenly half the CO people ditch their dot and go back to irons did we fix production or break CO? Or both?

 

This is because too many people focus on ONE division and try to fix/break it. The four main divisions should be looked at as a whole. As originally intended, there were clear distinctions between Open/Limited/Production/Production Optics. 
 

Competitors had real choice, find the division that they want to focus on and then try to master it. Now the goal is to just have fun, it’s not really a sport when it becomes easier to be competitive. If anyone thinks that CO is more fun than before, then it means that they are more relaxed when shooting because the risk/reward ration of the division has changed. 
 

Sport is not supposed to be easy, it’s supposed to be challenging.

[RJH]

33 minutes ago, BritinUSA said:

Sorry but the evidence to support that theory is shaky. Production grew over a period of TWO years to become the 3rd most popular division with a restricted rule-set and 10 round magazines. CO would have likely followed the same path if it had been left as originally intended. 

I don't think so, it looked like carrry optics was languishing for two or three years before they changed and allowed 140s, and then it exploded. 10 round divisions are less interesting now, since they're not required by law. The only reason production is a 10 round division is because the time of its adoption 10 round was the law of the land. And it could very well be argued that 10 rounds being the law of the land is why production took off so well. People didn't want to spend two to $3,000 on l10 guns, and finding good mags for limited and open guns was not easy at the time

[Racinready300ex]

11 minutes ago, BritinUSA said:

This is because too many people focus on ONE division and try to fix/break it. The four main divisions should be looked at as a whole. As originally intended, there were clear distinctions between Open/Limited/Production/Production Optics. 
 

Competitors had real choice, find the division that they want to focus on and then try to master it. Now the goal is to just have fun, it’s not really a sport when it becomes easier to be competitive. If anyone thinks that CO is more fun than before, then it means that they are more relaxed when shooting because the risk/reward ration of the division has changed. 
 

Sport is not supposed to be easy, it’s supposed to be challenging.

 

To me that's how it should be. Why have divisions if they're not distinctly different? 

 

As for CO being easy, I find it to be vary challenging as it is. Not really because of the equipment, but because of the popularity. It's not crazy for a state match or sectional to have 20+ M's and 6-8 G's. That makes for a tough match to do well at. 

 

 

[RJH]

29 minutes ago, BritinUSA said:

This is because too many people focus on ONE division and try to fix/break it. The four main divisions should be looked at as a whole. As originally intended, there were clear distinctions between Open/Limited/Production/Production Optics. 
 

Competitors had real choice, find the division that they want to focus on and then try to master it. Now the goal is to just have fun, it’s not really a sport when it becomes easier to be competitive. If anyone thinks that CO is more fun than before, then it means that they are more relaxed when shooting because the risk/reward ration of the division has changed. 
 

Sport is not supposed to be easy, it’s supposed to be challenging.

No, people want a shooting contest not a reloading contest. And the difficulty of the division is based solely on the competition in the division, not the manipulation of a gun. So in effect it's much harder to win carry optics at your local match then it is revolver. Most people would say it's harder to shoot a revolver well than a carry optics gun, but it's super easy to win revolver because no one shoots it. You will even notice that most people that shoot revolver say they do it "for fun." Competition is what makes things hard to win, not the equipment

[RJH]

42 minutes ago, Racinready300ex said:

 

It's interesting how we decide if rules are good or not. HQ has tweaked and tweaked CO until now in this area it's dominating all the other divisions. So it must be perfect.

 

At the same time we have discussion of "how do we save ____ division?" But in order to increase participation of one division then participation of another division must go down. So if for example we make Prod 140mm mags and suddenly half the CO people ditch their dot and go back to irons did we fix production or break CO? Or both?

 

This is a good question and I don't know the whole of the answer. I will say when one division draws a huge amount of shooters, those rules are probably correct. Some divisions are never going to draw large amounts of shooters regardless of the tweaking of the rules. I've often wondered what production would look like if people were allowed to shoot factory mags filled up, I don't know how it would all end up

Edited June 7, 2021 by RJH

[BritinUSA]

31 minutes ago, RJH said:

I don't think so, it looked like carrry optics was languishing for two or three years before they changed and allowed 140s, and then it exploded.

Carry Optics was launched as a provisional division in January 2015, magazine capacity was changed in January 2017.

Edited June 7, 2021 by BritinUSA

[Racinready300ex]

34 minutes ago, RJH said:

This is a good question and I don't know the whole of the answer. I will say when one division draws a huge amount of shooters, those rules are probably correct. Some divisions are never going to draw large amounts of shooters regardless of the tweaking of the rules. I've often wondered what production would look like if people were allowed to shoot factory mags filled up, I don't know how it would all end up

 

Hi cap production would likely do vary well. I think minor hi cap has as much to do with the current popularity of CO as the dot itself. Dot's break and are expensive. 

 

But if we did that and CO shooters switched back to prod did we really gain anything? Or are we just continuing the endless rule changes and just shuffling shooters around from division to division?

[zzt]

Rather than quote several on this thread to answer, I'll just opine.

 

First, 10 round mags:  this is not as difficult as I thought it would be.  I had to send my Open gun back for a warranty frame replacement.  While it was gone I shot the 1911 Open gun I built for SCSA.  Stage planning is different, because there are one or two mag changes instead of none or one.  In the two matches I shot like that I never had a standing reload.  Quick mag change was a bit of a problem in the 1911, because I didn't have a big mouth mag well on it.  You don't reload on the clock in SCSA.  I will say that reloading in a Production gun is much easier because they are double stack.

 

Second, CO:  Co languished for some time in my area.  It may be that the lack of acceptable dot mounting methods was part of the problem.  It may be that Open minor shooters hated the 10 round limit.  When the went to 140 mags with no limit, all the Open minor shooters went to CO.  Most of them already were using Prod legal guns with a dot, because they could not see iron sights.  That is precisely why I went to Open from Limited.

 

Third, rules change:  CO rules changed to allow heavy guns.  Immediately all the top shooters added brass magwells and grips  That really tames recoil.  My buddies CZ weighs as much as my Open gun.  Had the current CO rules plus applied at the time I'd have gone to CO rather than Open.  As it is, I'm staying where I am because I have two nice custom 2011 Open guns

[usmc1974]

4 hours ago, RJH said:

Why? According to the numbers it looks as though CO rules are close to perfect

+1

[MarkS_A18138]

If they increased production to a 140 mag no limits, I could see limited being hit next...Government agency have moved from 40S&W to 9mm and our big 55 gallon drum of 40 at our range is gone and now filling up with 9mm brass! 40S&W will soon be the new 38 Comp brass "good luck finding it"

[RJH]

24 minutes ago, BritinUSA said:

Carry Optics was launched as a provisional division in January 2015, magazine capacity was changed in January 2017.

So it languished for 2 years then. I can't remember, but wasn't production a provisional division for 2 years as well, I know SS was. I was thinking all new divisions start as provisional, so I don't know what that matters in this context

[ima45dv8]

1 hour ago, RJH said:

The only reason production is a 10 round division is because the time of its adoption 10 round was the law of the land.

That's not entirely correct. A big consideration for the 10-round limit in Production was to allow people to grab whatever carry/bedside gun they had and come out to try the sport. Capping the capacity at 10 rounds instead of as-designed capacity meant a 12-round .45 would not be at a significant disadvantage to say, a 17-round Glock G17.

 

OTOH, Limited10 was introduced as a work-around for the legal restrictions at the time, and to allow those shooting Limited with single stack guns a more level playing field. 

[RJH]

4 minutes ago, ima45dv8 said:

That's not entirely correct. A big consideration for the 10-round limit in Production was to allow people to grab whatever carry/bedside gun they had and come out to try the sport. Capping the capacity at 10 rounds instead of as-designed capacity meant a 12-round .45 would not be at a significant disadvantage to say, a 17-round Glock G17.

 

OTOH, Limited10 was introduced as a work-around for the legal restrictions at the time, and to allow those shooting Limited with single stack guns a more level playing field. 

Production was adopted in about 99 in  the middle of the Brady Bill so if you went out and bought a brand new glock 17 or any other gun it was only going to have 10 round magazines max regardless of caliber. Making a new division that required more than 10 round mags would have fallen flat from the get-go. If you look back every division created during the Brady Bill years was created as a limited capacity division because low cap mags is all you could get, it had nothing to do with competitive equity of nine versus 45. It had everything to do with the maximum mags anybody could get with a reasonable price were 10 rounders.

 

[Racinready300ex]

Does anyone know the order of the changes to CO rules I can't remember.

 

It was 10 rounds and 35 oz I think, then at some point

140mm mags

45 oz

Slide lightening

small parts (hammers, mag releases, thumb rests etc)

59 oz

flash lights/frame weights, magnets and holster location

 

Am I forgetting anything? Prod has seen all those same changes minus the 140mm mags, which makes me thing that's the part that made the difference.

[vtecpaoche]

5 hours ago, RJH said:

Why? According to the numbers it looks as though CO rules are close to perfect

 

Well, there can be a couple of rules to make it more perfect like magwells and bumping the weight limit now that some CO guns are above the 59 ounce limit.  I'm sure some would advocate for allowing single action guns into CO even though some triggers on DA/SA guns are even better than SA only guns.

[Racinready300ex]

49 minutes ago, MarkS_A18138 said:

If they increased production to a 140 mag no limits, I could see limited being hit next...Government agency have moved from 40S&W to 9mm and our big 55 gallon drum of 40 at our range is gone and now filling up with 9mm brass! 40S&W will soon be the new 38 Comp brass "good luck finding it"

 

Starline has 38 super, SC and TJ in stock. Not that hard to find. 

 

9mm is out of stock no backorder.