DME Presentation

[Bigzona]

I'm likely in the minority.  Started in CO. Achieved my goals. Moved to Open and now doing some cross training in Limited shooting 40. Learning both irons and the caliber for the first time. My sense is at a national level Limited is healthy enough (judging by participants at Nationals...production is a different story). My view is that the sport should have a place for iron sight shooters (new and old) to play without the 10rnd limit for Prod. Limited is fine as is. 

[IHAVEGAS]

On 7/17/2023 at 11:58 PM, HighSpeedFocusedFailure said:

I signed up for this elusive “Production” division and was alone. Oh and I got my ass handed to me by 4/6 stages that had 6 targets available from each “view”. Yeah. 
 

literally. One man match. It sucked. And I still lost. 

 

I never understood this way of thinking. I actually have more fun because I routinely squad with a revolver GM & an open GM and a good pcc shooter and a good ss shooter. It is interesting to see how different guns/shooters run the stages. 

 

Myself & the wheel gunner & the ss shooter never think of ourselves as having a bad match because we can't keep up with rifles or guns that have all of the special needs gadgets or greater round capacity. We also don't have an issue knowing whether or not we shot a good match. I would see the standing reload as a good opportunity to use a practiced skill. 

 

My way of thinking is no better than anyone else's, no umbrage intended, perhaps it is an age related thing.  

 

Edited July 21, 2023 by IHAVEGAS

[Racinready300ex]

26 minutes ago, IHAVEGAS said:

 

I never understood this way of thinking. I actually have more fun because I routinely squad with a revolver GM & an open GM and a good pcc shooter and a good ss shooter. It is interesting to see how different guns/shooters run the stages. 

 

Myself & the wheel gunner & the ss shooter never think of ourselves as having a bad match because we can't keep up with rifles or guns that have all of the special needs gadgets or greater round capacity. We also don't have an issue knowing whether or not we shot a good match. I would see the standing reload as a good opportunity to use a practiced skill. 

 

My way of thinking is no better than anyone else's, no umbrage intended, perhaps it is an age related thing.  

 

 

I think that type of thinking is a minority. That's likely why we've seen a shift to divisions that finish higher overall. I partially blame PS as this wasn't much of a thing before the scores started being shown primarily as a fantasy division. 

[IHAVEGAS]

2 minutes ago, Racinready300ex said:

I think that type of thinking is a minority.

 

It seems like you may very well be right based on forums & such. I don't know how well the forums tend to represent the average shooter though. 

[shred]

Yeah, IME the huge attractiveness of CO is not that people love it because CO, it's that they get to run around and blast lots of targets with cheap ammo and cheap(ish) guns without dicking with endless reloads or aligning iron sights.  PCC filled that role for a while before CO went hicap and it would be interesting to see the trends against each other.

 

The other thing to remember is USPSA has just about as many people join as leave every year.  Why are they leaving?  Who is leaving-- noobs or 5-year shooters?

 

 

 

 

[Bigzona]

15 minutes ago, Racinready300ex said:

 

I think that type of thinking is a minority. That's likely why we've seen a shift to divisions that finish higher overall. I partially blame PS as this wasn't much of a thing before the scores started being shown primarily as a fantasy division. 

 

I'm 19months into USPSA.  How long has Overall standings been a thing? I always assumed it was there, and must admit, when I first started overall standings were just as important to me as division standings, but that has since changed.

[RJH]

20 minutes ago, Bigzona said:

 

I'm 19months into USPSA.  How long has Overall standings been a thing? I always assumed it was there, and must admit, when I first started overall standings were just as important to me as division standings, but that has since changed.

 

I've been shooting for 18 years and we've been able to look at overalls all that time. But it did get more common once practicscore became the main go to. A lot of people don't realize that the old ez win score would do overalls as well, but it did. 

 

Overall is the only thing that really matters to me, at least at club matches. Winning your division could mean something or not depending on how many people are there. But with the overall I can always judge my scores against the better shooters and see if I've improved from month to month. Usually I don't LOL

[Bigzona]

Thanks for the history lesson. Always interesting to learn where things evolved from.

[ChuckS]

Jerry Mallard, the old Area 2 webmaster, used to post the overall scores for all our matches since at least 1998.  It was no big deal. 

[MikeBurgess]

14 hours ago, Ben3 said:

According to Jake's numbers, 8k new members joined in 2022. How many of them had a double stack, iron sighted 9mm that they might have been happy to compete with until they saw that everyone was shooting CO and they had to buy one of those or be irrelevant?

 

People say that the members who already have CO guns are unlikely to take the dots and mag extensions off and shoot Production with them. Perhaps. But new people join all the time. We might as well do them the service of at least having a double-stack, irons, 9mm division that doesn't have a capacity restriction straight outta 1994.

2 thoughts

 

1,  New shooters are not competitive regardless of division and the equipment they own (I've seen a grand total of 1 exception to this in 15 years)  I get its not nice to say and people want to believe if their equipment just fit a division to a T they would do better but sometimes the truth hurts and maybe we need to explain that better to said new shooters.

 

2,  Do you actually think having a division where said new shooters equipment is at less of a disadvantage will make any difference in them realizing they really want to shoot in the division with the other 60% of the shooters in the match? I think not, I think it would be like the AMA adding a Harley class to motocross, it wouldnt be getting bat by the actual motocross bikes but and a few masochists' would do it but really its the wrong tool for the job and everyone would continue to buy the appropriate machinery. 

 

PS, I shoot Revolver on a semi regular basis so I know quite a bit about being a masochist, I also understand that when I do that I am using the wrong tool for the sport as it exists today. 

[Ben3]

36 minutes ago, MikeBurgess said:

New shooters are not competitive regardless of division

 

Agreed with this. (As an aside, I don't agree with idea that Production was meant to be the beginners division. It was meant to be a place that you could shoot a stock gun if you chose not to modify it. Especially today, I think it's pretty common that the average gun owner has done something to their double stack 9mm gun that would render it ineligible for Production.)

 

I'm not focused specifically on how the new shooter/member will shoot their first few matches, but just the arc they will take if they decide to start practicing and get heavily into the sport. I would like them to have a valid choice between a 15 round limited-modification division and a 140mm anything-goes division. I agree that right now, people will go where the competition is. But that's not a reason to not try to create competition in other viable niches.

Edited July 21, 2023 by Ben3

[truespode]

On 7/19/2023 at 3:21 PM, Racinready300ex said:

I know we like to think irons are dead because of the circles we run in, but really in the outside world they're alive and well.

 

My .02 cents... In the outside world most guns get less than 1,000 rounds through it in it's lifetime

 

Maybe more but anecdotally most gun owners rarely shoot. I can throw a rock in my neighborhood and hit a gun owner and even have a guy with his FFL less than 1/2 mile from me. None of them even go to the range once a year. 

 

Those that do shoot and want to complete end up buying what they enjoy shooting the most after getting a taste which in USPSA seems to be hicap optic guns. 

 

I am not sure that what sells to the average consumer translates to what sells for competition. 

 

There should still be a division for off the shelf iron hicap new shooters and winder lickers but it's low turnout or lack of consistent participation shouldn't be seen as trend setting as it should be expected to go up and down or vary by location based on new shooters.

[Racinready300ex]

56 minutes ago, truespode said:

 

My .02 cents... In the outside world most guns get less than 1,000 rounds through it in it's lifetime

 

Here's the catch, where to new uspsa shooters come from? The outside world.

 

56 minutes ago, truespode said:

 

Those that do shoot and want to complete end up buying what they enjoy shooting the most after getting a taste which in USPSA seems to be hicap optic guns. 

 

 

Those that want to compete will buy the gear they need to compete for sure. So you're right there. But, I think we can see low-cap is dead. 40 is dead, open is out of many peoples price range. The only logical choice is CO and that's why it's exploding in popularity. That doesn't mean that's really what they want to shoot. The rules have painted people into a corner and currently the only real division that makes any sense in this game is CO. 

 

A higher capacity in production would at least make a division that resembles the most widely used guns and give them a place to play. It makes zero sense for us to have a division like L10 but not have a division for high-cap iron sight 9mm's. 

[Racinready300ex]

5 hours ago, Bigzona said:

 

I'm 19months into USPSA.  How long has Overall standings been a thing? I always assumed it was there, and must admit, when I first started overall standings were just as important to me as division standings, but that has since changed.

 

When I started, I was shooting IDPA, the club scored on paper then put together the results and sent a pdf to everyone with the scores broke down by division. If you wanted to know where you were overall you had to figure it out yourself. 

 

Now go to PS it shows you the overall, if you want to see divisions you need to look for it. Locally, that same IDPA club I watched as slowly everyone (mostly) moved to CO. Due to the accuracy requirements in that game for many it was a instant boost in the overall. Then the guys they used to be close to in the standings could no longer keep up. So they had to either accept they weren't keeping up or get a optic to get back in the mix. This happened from MA down to MM. Sure there are a few of us who can finish at or near the top with irons, but for many the optic moved them up and now that's what they shoot. It's likely human nature to gravitate towards things that are easier to use. We're all lazy in our own way.

[Joe4d]

2 hours ago, Ben3 said:

 

Agreed with this. (As an aside, I don't agree with idea that Production was meant to be the beginners division. It was meant to be a place that you could shoot a stock gun if you chose not to modify it. Especially today, I think it's pretty common that the average gun owner has done something to their double stack 9mm gun that would render it ineligible for Production.)

 

I'm not focused specifically on how the new shooter/member will shoot their first few matches, but just the arc they will take if they decide to start practicing and get heavily into the sport. I would like them to have a valid choice between a 15 round limited-modification division and a 140mm anything-goes division. I agree that right now, people will go where the competition is. But that's not a reason to not try to create competition in other viable niches.

you must be new,,, Production has as much in common with a factory gun as NASCAR does with a stock car.... There are a few completely arbitrary things that dont matter stii not allowed but not much.
Production came about specifically because the general perception was you needed a space gun in odd ball caliber to shoot it. IDPA came about and boomed in popularity..
USPSA once again missed the boat by not doing away with the 10 round rule when national laws changed.

[twodownzero]

3 minutes ago, Joe4d said:

you must be new,,, Production has as much in common with a factory gun as NASCAR does with a stock car.... There are a few completely arbitrary things that dont matter stii not allowed but not much.
Production came about specifically because the general perception was you needed a space gun in odd ball caliber to shoot it. IDPA came about and boomed in popularity..
USPSA once again missed the boat by not doing away with the 10 round rule when national laws changed.

 

Production is like that now.  Production was not like that before some very recently rule changes.  There was a time when putting grip tape in the wrong spot would get you a bump to Open.

 

Production was not meant to be a beginner's division, but for a good long time it was one where you could win the nationals with a stock gun + sights and trigger.

[IHAVEGAS]

22 minutes ago, Joe4d said:

IDPA came about and boomed in popularity..
USPSA once again missed the boat by not doing away with the 10 round rule when national laws changed.

I don’t understand the comment. IDPA was a 10 round maximum game in all pistol divisions before their last rule change (2022?) and they are still 10 or fewer in all but pcc and ssp.

 

[HighSpeedFocusedFailure]

7 hours ago, IHAVEGAS said:

 

I never understood this way of thinking. I actually have more fun because I routinely squad with a revolver GM & an open GM and a good pcc shooter and a good ss shooter. It is interesting to see how different guns/shooters run the stages. 

 

Myself & the wheel gunner & the ss shooter never think of ourselves as having a bad match because we can't keep up with rifles or guns that have all of the special needs gadgets or greater round capacity. We also don't have an issue knowing whether or not we shot a good match. I would see the standing reload as a good opportunity to use a practiced skill. 

 

My way of thinking is no better than anyone else's, no umbrage intended, perhaps it is an age related thing.  

 

No it’s not an age thing but my comment does read a little differently than I intended after I read it a second time. 
 

I could clarify. 
 

I shoot matches, especially production (which I’ve done more of than anything else) because I love the aspect you mention the most; how each person chose to solve the stage is something I always liked about prod. Yeah there’s usually 1-3 “better” ways to do it but you could choose the one that played to your skill set the best. It is a game after all, and gaming against others is literally the definition of gaming. 
 

The aspect of shooting alone in a division is not all important, I totally agree with you. 
 

But USPSA is a group sport as much as it is a solo sport, much like golf or baseball even. 
 

I could go run stages in a bay all by myself and still enjoy the internal competing aspect of pistol shooting and in fact I find that if I manage to keep myself in that internal zone I usually perform better at a match. 
 

All that being true, I don’t go to matches to just ignore the social aspect and the group aspect of the sport. Having an overall list of similar equipped shooters adds to the enjoyment. 
 

Stacking up on the overall as the one lonely Prod guy sucks because all the other divisions have a SIGNIFICANT equipment advantage, mainly capacity, and shooters that I can clearly out shoot get to run through without pause while I had to do 3 moving and 2 standing reloads to make it through the same course. Now back in the day I wouldn’t even care about the OA because there would be 52 other shooters in Prod with me, all embracing the suck if you will, and because I am C-B shooter the top of the list was never even a goal but stacking up against other C-B shooters was AWESOME. 
 

Old Prod was like a group of guys that all knew we were choosing sub-optimal equipment. Behind the hips. Lots of mags. Moving reloads. Low cap with even lower allowable make ups without severe penalty. No brass paperweight battleships. It was like a solidarity amongst pros guys that we all knew we would be lower OA than the chicken s#!t 22 round guys in other classes (shots fired!) but we were all cool with that because we were competing amongst ourselves. 
 

I just miss it being harder I guess, and having that group aspect. CO just doesn’t have the draw like prod did for me. Maybe one day it will, I hope so, but as of now I’m L-minor and I’ll be happy about it. 
 

#IRONS I guess. F it. I’m here to stay. 

[Ben3]

3 hours ago, HighSpeedFocusedFailure said:

Old Prod was like a group of guys that all knew we were choosing sub-optimal equipment

 

Agreed. It was a group of guys that agreed to all play by certain handicaps because the benefit was you knew whoever won did it by being the best shooter, not having the best gear. There was/is a humility required to shoot with less than the best money can buy. I'm not sure why that went away, but it has.

[truespode]

6 hours ago, Racinready300ex said:

The only logical choice is CO and that's why it's exploding in popularity. That doesn't mean that's really what they want to shoot. 

 

I understand your point but disagree, at least from my perspective and what I have discussed with others (even though that isn't a scientific survey).

 

I went to CO from Limited when Limited was the most popular and if it wasn't for CO I would have quit because I didn't enjoy it. I liked the optic and having just as many rounds. 

 

I never worried how competitive I was (and I'm not), I always have been in it for fun and when I wasn't having fun I wanted to quit. 

 

Since going CO I became an RO, help with my local club, helped at Sectionals and always look to help new shooters feel welcome and comfortable. I do 3-4 matches a month as much as I can even though it is difficult with my work and family to get out that often. 

 

I shot Limited last year once and then remembered I hate irons, even with Rx glasses.

 

I don't like the cost of 40 but never minded shooting it otherwise. If it wasn't for Limited I never would have owned a 40 though. It seems the rules favoring major in Limited force that choice more than CO rules force that. 

 

A lot of people just love the dot and hicap. Shooting cheap 9mm makes it easier to shoot more often. It isn't what we feel we have to shoot. I felt I had to shoot 40 in limited. 

 

I do agree the rules seem to favor CO and LO now but I don't think people were pushed to CO because of that. 

 

YMMV

[konkapot]

Lots of great comments here. 

 

My question has been/continues to be: Why are we trying to get MORE shooters? Matches fill up quickly, and some places within seconds.

 

And if we are trying to get new shooters....who are they?

 

As referenced before, the Tactical Timmies show up with their staccatos and tourniquets and rarely come back. LE? That ship sailed...or sunk...a long time ago. 

 

I say this because maybe the focus could be on what current members want. 

 

In all candor, I don't pay that much attention to what new shooters are shooting. I can't refute the statement that many of them show up with guns that would be perfect for Production 15, but, again...whatever is going to happen to them during their one match isn't based on what they're shooting, but rather how they're shooting. 

[BritinUSA]

I've said this before but it bears repeating; There are a finite number of shooters that can be served by a finite number of ranges/berms. Once that limit is reached then competitors are turned away as matches up. 
 

It's a regional issue, some regions have a higher number of available slots at club matches and so can absorb more shooters.

 

For some this is a sport, for others it is a hobby. For many years USPSA ran it as a SPORT, it was exclusionary in nature, rigid divisions dissuaded the hobbyist. That all changed with 'Grow the Sport' which turned the concept on its head and it is now run as a hobby. They weakened the divisions and this encouraged more hobbyists, more than the facilities can handle in some regions.

 

[HighSpeedFocusedFailure]

On 7/21/2023 at 6:45 PM, Ben3 said:

 

Agreed. It was a group of guys that agreed to all play by certain handicaps because the benefit was you knew whoever won did it by being the best shooter, not having the best gear. There was/is a humility required to shoot with less than the best money can buy. I'm not sure why that went away, but it has.

You nailed exactly, with precision, the heart of my opinion. 
 

I would like to bring up a sort of elephant in the room also. 
 

Has anyone seen stage design advance to increase the difficulty given that aiming is significantly easier now that the sport is dominated by easy two-eye aiming? Let’s all be real and admit that the Bindon concept is far easier to achieve with a dot than it is with irons. 
 

Are your local stages actually putting dot guys to the test? Or is it just a foot race with some shooting mixed in?? 
 

The stages I shot 10 years ago on irons are shockingly similar to the stages I see now, except that everyone has far superior equipment. 
 

I dunno. Maybe I’m wrong. It just feels like something is out of alignment, to me. Very possible I am the flyer in this group though. I’ll admit that openly. 

[Dazhi]

Are dots far superior than irons for a typical USPSA major match, if the mags have the same cap?

If we ask Nils, Ben or Mason shoot the same area match using 140mm mags in 9mm minor, once using CO and once using production gun, how much score difference will there be? 3%? 5%? 10%?  I have set up small stages in 25yard bays and practices above scenarios, and found that the scores are not far apart at all.  I am in the camp of high-cap mags are the deterministic factor, not the aiming device, at least for a typical USPSA major match.  Sure, some scenarios the dots will be so much easier but those are by no means common in USPSA.  For non pro shooters, some great iron shooters shoot dots way slower than irons due to the fact that they tend to stare at the dot as the dot just draws so much attention. 

[shred]

Last time they went head to head, Limited Major beat (by a few %) Minor CO (hicap, but old holster & weight rules) at Nationals in Utah.  There was a fair amount of heat in both.  What's the major-minor delta usually?

 

Locally our stages follow the gear.  More partials further away than when everyone was shooting locap irons and way less care to break up arrays and positions.  The amount of random sprinting from place to place with nothing to do seems to have increased with the prevalence of Minor where shooting on the move rarely works out, but maybe I'm just getting old.