Limited Major dying?

[whan]

26 minutes ago, barry said:

Thanks for looking up my  percentage of points shot at nationals.  Which one was it I shot both open and carry optics.  Carry optics only because it was an easy drive. Shot the gun in 1 match and 2 practice before the match. 80% of the points? Really ,I'm thrilled because I normally shoot like I'm watering the lawn.Spray some bullets over there some over here.

On trying to compare top shooters over the decades is pointless as they are not shooting the same stages at the same match. Pretty sure a Rob Leathem or Todd Jarret or Jerry  Barnheart or Max in their prime could Give Christian a run for his money. 

 

It was 2023 CO nats - sorry wasn't trying to rag on you but had mentioned you thought it was not a very difficult match. To me it seems given that a lot of shooters including top ones shot sub 90%, it means there was quite a bit of room to differentiate yourself in accuracy as well. If it was a technically easy match, most people should be shooting 90%+ and the differentiating factor would only be time.

 

On the comparison of modern vs past GMs, I agree it's not comparing prime against prime. But the match I had mentioned was 2021 Locap nationals where both Christian and Rob shot the same match in L10 and SS respectively, so in this case it was the same stages at the same matches with similar enough guns. Even excluding the time factor, Christian still shot better points than Leatham, and Nils shot more accurately as well (although he shot minor). That's as close as you can get to a comparison of the GMs of old (Rob being 62) and new (Christian being 22).

 

Don't get me wrong, I do think Rob, Todd or Jerry in their prime would still be upper GMs today, but the best GMs today are even better. Yes, quite a bit of it may come from efficiency of movement and cutting time on field courses. But I'd wholly disagree with any assertion that today's top GMs were any less accurate than top GMs in the past. Even in IDPA which is a more accuracy focused sport, at 2022 nats you have JJ shooting pretty much the same accuracy as Rob

Edited September 28, 2023 by whan

[barry]

9 hours ago, whan said:

 

It was 2023 CO nats - sorry wasn't trying to rag on you but had mentioned you thought it was not a very difficult match. To me it seems given that a lot of shooters including top ones shot sub 90%, it means there was quite a bit of room to differentiate yourself in accuracy as well. If it was a technically easy match, most people should be shooting 90%+ and the differentiating factor would only be time.

 

On the comparison of modern vs past GMs, I agree it's not comparing prime against prime. But the match I had mentioned was 2021 Locap nationals where both Christian and Rob shot the same match in L10 and SS respectively, so in this case it was the same stages at the same matches with similar enough guns. Even excluding the time factor, Christian still shot better points than Leatham, and Nils shot more accurately as well (although he shot minor). That's as close as you can get to a comparison of the GMs of old (Rob being 62) and new (Christian being 22).

 

Don't get me wrong, I do think Rob, Todd or Jerry in their prime would still be upper GMs today, but the best GMs today are even better. Yes, quite a bit of it may come from efficiency of movement and cutting time on field courses. But I'd wholly disagree with any assertion that today's top GMs were any less accurate than top GMs in the past. Even in IDPA which is a more accuracy focused sport, at 2022 nats you have JJ shooting pretty much the same accuracy as Rob

You can't possibly think comparing a 62 year old man that I'm sure needs special glasses with one eye set to focus on front sight and one for distance (I'm 60 so I know what I'm talking about) with 2 fake knees in a dynamic movement sport to a 22 year old kid proves anything.  

[Racinready300ex]

46 minutes ago, barry said:

You can't possibly think comparing a 62 year old man that I'm sure needs special glasses with one eye set to focus on front sight and one for distance (I'm 60 so I know what I'm talking about) with 2 fake knees in a dynamic movement sport to a 22 year old kid proves anything.  

 

Rob likely doesn't do the special glasses thing. I'd bet you someone at his level is shooting all target focus even with iron sights. Especially knowing his age. When I shoot irons or optics I have special glasses with only my distance prescription because there is no need to focus on the front sight. 

 

I think if we transplanted Rob and those guys in their prime to today, they'd still be fighting at the top. But, they'd also be benefitting from modern equipment, techniques and training. If they didn't have access to that stuff and we could magically shoot against them just like they were they wouldn't do as well.

 

If you transplanted Sailer as he is today into 1990 Nationals he'd mop the floor with them. Of course he's mopping the floor with everyone today too. But if he doesn't continue to work and improve he wont stay on top. 

 

I don't think it's a bad thing that the sport is progressing and people are getting better. 

[THS]

So,  Is limited major dead?

 

 

[Racinready300ex]

19 minutes ago, THS said:

So,  Is limited major dead?

 

 

 

Yes

[barry]

Was unaware that the modern way to shoot iron sights was not to look at them. I guess ltd is dead.  

[Racinready300ex]

2 minutes ago, barry said:

Was unaware that the modern way to shoot iron sights was not to look at them. I guess ltd is dead.  

 

You still have to see your sight, you just don't focus on it so it's blurry. 

[Racinready300ex]

Here are the last three club matches I shot, these are pretty small about 40 shooters fills the match. 

Edited September 28, 2023 by Racinready300ex

[Racinready300ex]

Here is the state match coming up this weekend. 250 shooters and 12 are in Limited. 

[konkapot]

I was the shooter that THS was referencing for the nasty El Pres run. New gun, new load, bad knee. 

 

I referenced it indirectly in a different thread. The run felt smooth, but was not fast. I knew the hits were bad. 

 

When I heard the time, my 2002 brain said "Hmm better than I thought." My 2023 brain instantly corrected the 2002 brain with "That was a full second too slow dummy."

 

I think/hope that this is not a binary or either/or discussion. 

 

The sport does appear to focus less on shooting and accuracy. 

AND

Current shooters now are probably better than the state of shooters in 2002, just like shooters in 2033 will be better than the current crop. 

 

Both things can be true. 

[Racinready300ex]

1 minute ago, konkapot said:

Both things can be true. 

 

This for sure. 

 

There are no doubt a ton of hose fest club matches that I assume didn't exist back in the day. I've been shooting some indoor matches lately. They're basically hose fests. They make a lot of shots partials but due to the constraints of the bays it's still super fast shooting with really high HF's. I think it's probably good for me as being super aggressive on close to mid range partials is a skill you need these days. 

 

If you shoot Thurmont the shooting is challenging. Most of my training is on harder shooting as bigger matches typically still have some tough shots. But, it depends on the MD. 

 

Maryland state is for sure on my list to shoot again next year. Vary technical and tricky shooting. I also like the IPSC mix of stage sizes. 

[konkapot]

For me any field course higher than an 8 hf is still an odd experience for me. 

[THS]

Konkapot-  I wasn't going to even put that it was EP as I did not want single out any one person.    It was just a good example to show how focused on time the sport has become.

7 minutes ago, konkapot said:

The run felt smooth, but was not fast.

To me any EP under 6.00 would be smoking.  Probably mental, but I can do it on demand in training but never for a classifier.  Perfect example of how your mind EXPECTS to be faster and your perception of what is slow is based on that.

11 minutes ago, konkapot said:

Current shooters now are probably better than the state of shooters in 2002, just like shooters in 2033 will be better than the current crop. 

No doubt about this!  

[Fishbreath]

16 hours ago, whan said:

Particularly the stage [at '23 CO Nationals] with the 3 triangles - taking the shots from the rear must have been 40+ yards.

 

35. (I paced it out, and took them from the back after trying it out on one of the tiny poppers in the warmup bays.)

 

Maryland State had some 35-40-yard shots this year too, but the crew at that match always goes in for challenging shooting.

[whan]

12 minutes ago, konkapot said:

 

The sport does appear to focus less on shooting and accuracy. 

AND

Current shooters now are probably better than the state of shooters in 2002, just like shooters in 2033 will be better than the current crop. 

 

Both things can be true. 

That’s a fair point and I do agree. Perhaps some of it is due to modern stages vs stages of the past, but the game has evolved to where working on efficiency of movement really helps. To some extent it’d be like how basketball for an era had lots of big men (shaq, Yao Ming) that were very physical, which is not really a basketball technical skill.

 

I think today, for the more average shooter, one can more easily get away with not being super accurate, but being fast, and placing on the upper end at locals. But at the very top, they have both accuracy and movement speed. 
 

I fully agree with @Racinready300ex. My point is that modern techniques have continued to evolve and make people better. Yes, perhaps a lot of how the current top shooters are better than the past is more from movement and not accuracy, but it’s not like the top shooters are incapable or any less accurate than they were in the past. They can do it, while being faster as well

[konkapot]

If we take it out of the shooting arena, where we are all vested in emotionally, take it to.....olympic weightlifting. World records NOW are well beyond what they were "back in the day."

 

Or bodybuilding; Arnold at his best compared to whoever the giant du' jour is. 

 

Sports...competitive sports....evolve. 

[MHicks]

1 hour ago, Racinready300ex said:

 

You still have to see your sight, you just don't focus on it so it's blurry. 

 

Target focus. Shooter A has excellent vision  and without a prescription is capable of having a clear front sight focus but uses target focus so the front sight is a little blurry. This works well for him.

 

Shooter B has bad uncorrected eyesight and cannot see the front sight clearly.  When he uses target focus with only a distance prescription or no correction at all the front sight is extremely blurry. Wouldn't shooter B need to have prescription for front sight focus to get the same result as shooter A?. Otherwise they sre not getting the same view. This is with iron sights only.

[shred]

17 hours ago, whan said:

 

It was 2023 CO nats - sorry wasn't trying to rag on you but had mentioned you thought it was not a very difficult match. To me it seems given that a lot of shooters including top ones shot sub 90%, it means there was quite a bit of room to differentiate yourself in accuracy as well. If it was a technically easy match, most people should be shooting 90%+ and the differentiating factor would only be time.

 

I shot the 2023 CO Nats (and 2023 Open) and many 1990s Nationals.

 

No question 1990s nationals had more difficult shooting challenges.  There was much more single-handed shooting, longer distances, more props to deal with (and none of the walls transparent). 

 

There was more running uprange in 2023.  I guess that's a thing.

 

There are more very good shooters now than there were then... there are a lot more shooters too, so it makes sense just from volume if nothing else.  There's also a lot better availability of good feedback.  Todd Jarrett used to work on his draw with three VHS videotape camcorders running and play them back slo-mo and rewind over and over to analyze.  Who would do that much work today?

 

As far as mythical who-vs-who matchups and who is the current outlier from the bell curve, I was around a few years ago when somebody asked Rob L if he wished he'd gone up against Grauffel in his 20s.  He thought about it for a second and said "I wished I'd gone up against him at 30.  I was a better shooter at 30 than 20".

 

[whan]

39 minutes ago, shred said:

I shot the 2023 CO Nats (and 2023 Open) and many 1990s Nationals.

 

No question 1990s nationals had more difficult shooting challenges.  

 

 

Interesting - what would you say were the key areas where it was more difficult? Was it relative to having lo-cap irons, or more broadly difficult?

 

NVM - see you had examples

Edited September 28, 2023 by whan

[Racinready300ex]

5 hours ago, MHicks said:

 

Target focus. Shooter A has excellent vision  and without a prescription is capable of having a clear front sight focus but uses target focus so the front sight is a little blurry. This works well for him.

 

Shooter B has bad uncorrected eyesight and cannot see the front sight clearly.  When he uses target focus with only a distance prescription or no correction at all the front sight is extremely blurry. Wouldn't shooter B need to have prescription for front sight focus to get the same result as shooter A?. Otherwise they sre not getting the same view. This is with iron sights only.

 

If you're prescription is for the front sight the targets will always look blurry. You can shoot like that, but I don't think I'd like everything being blurry all the time. 

 

That's still not going to give you what shooter A see's. Shooter A sees a clear target and blurry sights, wouldn't you see the opposite if you correct your vision to the front sight? If I look through my up close script at distance things are blurry. So I couldn't target focus at all like that. I'd be forced into full time front sight focus. 

 

With my distance script I see a clear target and blurry sights, is it more blurry than what someone else sees? I have no idea. 

 

I only have one eye I can really see out of, so the two different lens option isn't really even a option for me. 

[Racinready300ex]

35 minutes ago, shred said:

No question 1990s nationals had more difficult shooting challenges.  There was much more single-handed shooting, longer distances, more props to deal with (and none of the walls transparent). 

 

 

 

Props like activated targets? I have noticed USPSA seems to of moved away from activators. Not entirely, but I've been to area matches with like 2 swingers. Mean while I've shot IDPA matches that averaged 2 per stage. I've assumed uspsa MD's have done this in the name of speeding up reset and moving more shooters through in a day. 

 

I think the move to transparent walls is probably a good thing from a safety standpoint. But, you're right they do also make the shooting easier. 

[barry]

1 hour ago, whan said:

 

Interesting - what would you say were the key areas where it was more difficult? Was it relative to having lo-cap irons, or more broadly difficult?

 

NVM - see you had examples

All large matches had standards. Often at 50 yards with hard cover.

[shred]

 

2 hours ago, Racinready300ex said:

 

Props like activated targets? I have noticed USPSA seems to of moved away from activators. Not entirely, but I've been to area matches with like 2 swingers. Mean while I've shot IDPA matches that averaged 2 per stage. I've assumed uspsa MD's have done this in the name of speeding up reset and moving more shooters through in a day. 

 

I think the move to transparent walls is probably a good thing from a safety standpoint. But, you're right they do also make the shooting easier. 

Yeah, not saying that was better.  Many things weren't.  Plywood with a spray paint job doesn't look very "professional sport".  All the 'from box A do this, from Box B engage that' wasn't great although it did force some shooting positions and made setup easy (Mike Voigt used to joke "we took the shooting boxes off the ground and hung them on the walls as ports")

 

Activators, doors and hatches and things to carry from place to place or things you had to do while shooting.  Much wider variation in start positions.  Clay 'land mines' you couldn't step on (I don't miss those at all), shooting from Cooper Tunnels and awkward positions (these days you very rarely need knee pads at majors, but they were an automatic thing to pack back then).  After a while it did get a bit over the top-- see the BIPSC "prop tossing and monkey-motions" discussions from way back in the day if you care, but being able to land hits at 50 yards was expected and a headshot-only target at 25 was nothing remarkable.  Some of that got sacrificed to the idols of "more round count", "noob-friendly" and "cram through the match" and the rest went when "nothing would change" when they added PCC.

 

[BritinUSA]

Toughest match I ever shot was World Shoot X in 1993. That it rained for several days was just the icing on the cake.

 

[whan]

Re: Limited waning popularity, this upcoming weekend is one of our largest ever locals at 172 shooters. Limited is pretty much second to last (excluding Revo/L10 which no one shoots in general)