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Why USPSA is the best action shooting sport


RJH

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58 minutes ago, Bagellord said:

 

As far as I can tell there's no reason you can't have a 12 round course with more than 2 positions, you just can't call it a short course in the WSB. The distinction in the rules in USPSA is rather meaningless in my opinion.

 

While perhaps correct ... just call everything a long course and then it's all legal ... the higher echelons of NROI tend to frown on this much creative thought, in my experience!  It's time to simply fix the rule.

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48 minutes ago, Schutzenmeister said:

 

While perhaps correct ... just call everything a long course and then it's all legal ... the higher echelons of NROI tend to frown on this much creative thought, in my experience!  It's time to simply fix the rule.

I design and build a stage twice a month for our local matches. While I pay close attention to the important rules about stage design and target presentation, I can't say I pay any attention at all as to whether it's a short, medium or long course. I only am aware of that rule once a year when I recertify as a CRO. So far, the NROI people haven't taken away my birthday.

I may be wrong, but I think most shooters in the US like to shoot, and ammo is cheap here compared to elsewhere even now, so if I did a 12 round course with several positions and movement, people would say "we like it, but it needs more targets."

 

It's worth an experiment anyway. 

Edited by motosapiens
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56 minutes ago, motosapiens said:

 

It's worth an experiment anyway. 

 

 

I applaud your effort.  FWIW, a well designed short course with LOTS of movement can be devilishly difficult to shoot well.  There aren't enough points where one can sacrifice accuracy for speed and the shooter must squeeze every 1/10th of a second he can off his time.  I wish you well.

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Years ago in Panama I shot a really cool stage.  Started sitting in a little car roller-coaster style, pull the pin, grab your pistol from the shelf and the car blasted through a set of saloon doors to crash down a ramp past some steel.  9 rounds.  Short Course.  Way fun.   

 

There are plenty of lame short courses in the world, but most of them seem to look like USPSA classifiers.

 

Another short-medium (I forgot which, not more than 16 rounds) at that match had 3 prone ports and a couple movers.  Only stage I ever beat Eric Grauffel on heads-up at a major match.  

 

Sometimes short courses give the speedy kids or accurate geezers or people not shooting a hicap wundergun a chance to be a hero too.  Alphas are worth so much more when there's only a dozen possible.

 

All that said, I wouldn't want a hard 3-2-1 at all our club matches since we don't have enough bays and a bunch would be doubled up, which is sub-optimal for match flow and I think designing good short courses may be more difficult than designing any other type of stage.

 

Covid ammo panics finally got local MDs to do what I'd been saying for years and drop the round count so every stage isn't 30+ rounds anymore and the stages are as good as they've ever been.  The people that thought round-count-equals-quality either ran out of ammo or have shut up about it.

 

(Earlier I mentioned that IPSC rules don't seem to expect or cater to 40 people throwing a match on the ground Saturday morning, shooting it and putting it up that afternoon.  That sort of thing seems to be a lot less common in the rest of the world.)

 

 

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I thought the IPSC 3-2-1 ratio was for majors, and not club matches, there are exclusions for L1 matches for round count and freestyle etc. I think this basically allows for more freedom on stage designs and stage descriptions.

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Effectively correct.  An IPSC "sanctioned" match must comply with the 3/2/1 ratio but a level 1 or 2 match does not have to be sanctioned by IPSC.  The RD may require such compliance within his region, but it is not required by rule.  Similar to USPSA in that respect.

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2 hours ago, shred said:

Covid ammo panics finally got local MDs to do what I'd been saying for years and drop the round count so every stage isn't 30+ rounds anymore and the stages are as good as they've ever been.  The people that thought round-count-equals-quality either ran out of ammo or have shut up about it.

 

 

yeah, I feel like we have been able to just as fun and interesting stages with 18-25 rounds, in the same space we used to do 32. Often they are MORE interesting because fewer targets from a particular position means that even the lo-cap guys get to start thinking about when to reload, instead of having the reloads dictated to them by the stage.

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I think the 3/2/1 stage requirements in IPSC are a part of balancing the test of skills.  In my region the M and GM classifications can only be earned at higher level matches and these matches tend to have a bit of everything. 

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9 hours ago, Schutzenmeister said:

Effectively correct.  An IPSC "sanctioned" match must comply with the 3/2/1 ratio but a level 1 or 2 match does not have to be sanctioned by IPSC.  The RD may require such compliance within his region, but it is not required by rule.  Similar to USPSA in that respect.

 

45 minutes ago, my00wrx1 said:

I think the 3/2/1 stage requirements in IPSC are a part of balancing the test of skills.  In my region the M and GM classifications can only be earned at higher level matches and these matches tend to have a bit of everything. 

 

I know very little about IPSC other than it exists.

 

Those two statements above imply that IPSC rules either can change or be interpreted differently by the different RD's.

 

To me that implies that IPSC RD's have a certain autonomy with respect to the rule book that doesn't exist for their USPSA counterparts. That doesn't seem like a good thing.

 

True? False? Just curious. 

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To clarify when I say ‘a bit of everything’ in relation to higher level matches I mean you are going to be tested on most if not all IPSC related skills/challenges.
 

The rules allow the RD some flexibility with applying the 3/2/1 to L1 and L2 matches in their region (country).  I think it works well, smaller local matches can have flexibility and at a L3 you know 3/2/1 rule is going to be applied.

 

 

1.1.5 Level I and Level II matches are not required to comply strictly with the freestyle requirements or round count limitations (see Section 1.2). 

 

1.2 Types of Courses 

 

IPSC matches may contain the following types of courses of fire: 

 

1.2.1 General Courses of Fire: 

 

1.2.1.1 Short Courses – Must not require more than 12 rounds to complete.  Course design and construction must not require more than 9 scoring hits from any single location or view. 

 

1.2.1.2 Medium Courses – Must not require more than 24 rounds to complete.  Course design and construction must not require more than 9 scoring hits from any single location or view, nor allow a competitor to shoot all targets in the course of fire from any single location or view. 

 

1.2.1.3 Long Courses – Must not require more than 32 rounds to complete.  Course design and construction must not require more than 9 scoring hits from any single location or view, nor allow a competitor to shoot all targets in the course of fire from any single location or view. 

 

1.2.1.4 The approved balance for an IPSC sanctioned match is a ratio of 3 Short Courses to 2 Medium Courses to 1 Long Course (see Approved Stage Ratios in Appendix A4). 

 

1.2.1.5. Empty chamber and/or empty magazine well/cylinder handgun ready conditions (see Chapter 8), should not be required for more than 25% of the courses of fire in a match. 

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I looked through my 2004 "Combined" USPSA/IPSC rulebook, which is IPSC rules with US 'exceptions' sprinkled throughout.  This is what precipitated the USPSA/IPSC fracas 20 years ago-- IPSC declared everyone needed to use the rules as-written without local exceptions like the US had.  As the US had the vast majority of shooters at the time and didn't want to do that, an agreement was reached that USPSA could keep doing it's own thing and still be a member of IPSC as long as they held at least one IPSC-rules match a year (which has been the IPSC Nationals for years).

 

Looking at them, most of the US exceptions are minor rewrites, mostly to skip over the IPSC warnings system, or add some clarification around this or that; eg Overtime shots are 0.30 past the time limit on a timer, still-photo evidence is allowed for Arbs in IPSC, but not USPSA, poppers hit below the circle and fall still count as a miss in USPSA calibration, etc..

 

IPSC: Sight pictures prohibited.  US: N/A

 

The biggest divergence at the time was the divisions-- IPSC had Open (160PF Major), Standard (170PF Major, fit the box, no scope or comp), Modified (170 PF major, fit the box), and Production (trigger pull requirement, 5" barrel max, factory-capacity mags).  US had Open, Limited, L10 and Prod-10 (I'm skipping over revo). 

 

Anyway, things have diverged more since then, but that's about where it started.

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3 hours ago, shred said:

[...], poppers hit below the circle and fall still count as a miss in USPSA calibration, etc..

???  Shred ... That's not what I read.  C1, 7d

 

Other things I noticed from 2004 and before ... Sometimes the change in the USPSA version was as simple as one word or just a comma placement.  I agree, it's gotten more complex since then.

Edited by Schutzenmeister
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After '98 the amount of divergence began to increase, and the previous administration moved USPSA significantly further from the host organization, particularly in the division requirements.

 

I am still of the opinion that IPSC will one day pull USPSA's affiliation to allow for a new organization that follows the IPSC rules. In the past this would have been unthinkable as USA was by far the largest region. I don't think this is the case any longer.

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Does ipsc still have that gay "can't leave the shooting  area" rule? If so if it sucks. PS this thread's about what's great about USPSA, not let's whine about USPSA and try to act like ipsc is better. Next thing you know there be some IDPA goobs on here talking about "in the real world" LOL 

 

This next part is pointed at no one in general: maybe if you're bitter because you didn't win the USPSA presidency, or because you don't like the way carryops went and the fact that it's now a huge division even though it's very different than how you envisioned it, this thread isn't for you...

 

 

Edited by RJH
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1 hour ago, RJH said:

Does ipsc still have that gay "can't leave the shooting  area" rule? If so if it sucks. PS this thread's about what's great about USPSA, not let's whine about USPSA and try to act like ipsc is better.

 

 

+1. everything i know about ipsc suggests that all the rule differences are worse.

 

Otoh, it does appear that they often have some pretty cool stages at major matches, but then so does uspsa most of the time. anyway, that seems to be a local culture thing, not a rules thing. there’s really nothing stopping people from using their favorite ipsc stage in a uspsa match. with the rise of CO, i am seeing less full on hoser stages and more stages with longer or more challenging shots. i think thats a good thing. 

 

unfortunately, allowing rifles has made many people think we can no longer do fun stuff, like lean way out hanging from a rope. thats lame.

 

other than pandering to rifles, i think uspsa is in a great spot right now, and all we need to do is leave the rules alone for a bit and build some good stages and go shoot!

(ps, i have nothing against rifles, i just think they belong in a separate match, even if they are shooting the same stages.  a different wsb and possibly different start position and not included in the overall results of the handgun match. ideally, they would shoot on a different day so people could shoot both, and the stages could be tweaked if necessary to keep rifle shooters from crying).

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13 hours ago, BritinUSA said:

I am still of the opinion that IPSC will one day pull USPSA's affiliation to allow for a new organization that follows the IPSC rules.

Tumblr: Image

 

One more thing you'll be wrong about?

 

I'd bet money on it.

 

And even if you were right, most of us would not care at all.  US skeet and trap are different than those sports elsewhere in the world.  Ask American skeet and trap competitors how much they care or are affected by that.

 

 

Edited by Johnny_Chimpo
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12 hours ago, RJH said:

This next part is pointed at no one in general: maybe if you're bitter because you didn't win the USPSA presidency, or because you don't like the way carryops went and the fact that it's now a huge division even though it's very different than how you envisioned it, this thread isn't for you...

 

https://giffiles.alphacoders.com/251/251.gif

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13 hours ago, BritinUSA said:

 In the past this would have been unthinkable as USA was by far the largest region. I don't think this is the case any longer.

We have to be the largest region right?

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3 minutes ago, Johnny_Chimpo said:

 

Some say Russia is now, but in the end it doesn't matter.

 

We've gone our own way in other shooting sports before and we're big enough to not care.

Hard to imagine Russia having as many shooters as we do. Besides, Ukrainian forces are …

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1 minute ago, Schutzenmeister said:

Let's not conflate sports with geopolitical conflict.

 

4 minutes ago, Schutzenmeister said:

 

No ...

Where can I find a breakdown of regions with number of members/shooters

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3 hours ago, Johnny_Chimpo said:

 

Some say Russia is now, but in the end it doesn't matter.

 

We've gone our own way in other shooting sports before and we're big enough to not care.

The fly in the ointment here is that USPSA bylaws, along with our corporate nonprofit declaration with the IRS expressly state one our goals to be participation in and training people for competition internationally.

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3 minutes ago, Sarge said:

 

Where can I find a breakdown of regions with number of members/shooters

There is no auditable/provable set of stats on this point to my knowledge ... certainly not for ALL member regions.  It's somewhat of a quirk of how membership is tracked at IPSC.  Nevertheless it has been quite apparent for a number of years that Russia has significantly more active members than does the US.  Sad, but true.

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