Hit factor matches vs USPSA matches

[truespode]

3 minutes ago, Boomstick303 said:

I believe as many do we all need to maintain our membership to vote our conscious.  

 

 

Completely agree! That is the biggest thing everyone needs to do no matter their opinion on anything else.

[barry]

13 minutes ago, TaterHead said:

https://practicalshootinginsights.com
 

That doesn't really help. Maybe someone in pa will chime in with a club I could try out a hit factor match at. If it's not 4hrs away I might try it.

[ChuckS]

29 minutes ago, barry said:

In Pennsylvania I've yet to hear of a club going hit factor. I have only think of one person that mentioned not renewing membership because of uspsa politics. And he was a never lift a finger to help shooter so no big loss.

I shoot every weekend and talk to a lot of people. What areas of country are these clubs switching to hit factor?

Practiscore is showing 15 Hit Factor matches in PA just now.

[Chills1994]

2 hours ago, shred said:

Oh yeah, shenanigans happen at USPSA matches too, but there's a process where you can throw down $100 and get some (hopefully disinterested) parties to decide on it if you care that much, and there's (supposedly) a disciplinary process for misbehaving ROs.  

 

Try either of those at a local-rule match.

 

When I first became an MD, it was at a new IL DNR range.  At first, the majority of the shooters were from another now defunct club.  So, at first, we did things their way which was to have dedicated RO’s stay at their stages.  This one particular RO was a retired Illinois State Police trooper.

 

One of the shooters in my squad was the Missouri section coordinator.  He had also been a CRO at various nationals.  He got done shooting this stage, and this ISP trooper RO was scoring his targets….”Alpha-Charlie!”  “Wait?  Would you pull your overlays out for that?”  The trooper’s answer was a very stern “NO!”

 

The was the last match where RO’s stayed at their stages.  After that, I went with open squadding .  People could squad with whomever, and anybody could be the “ timer stand”.

 

A few months later when I was at my assistant MD’s house punching scores into EZWinScore, I brought up that incident.  My AMD goes,   “Oh, yeah!  I remember that.  That trooper guy was laughing and bragging to me how he screwed over the Missouri section coordinator.”

 

My point being shenanigans can and will happen….regardless if the rules are just one page long  or make up a book a half inch thick.

 

 

[Chills1994]

4 hours ago, rowdyb said:

Personal pride, honesty, fairness, sportsmanship, integrity are all worth more than a Denali.

 

It's about values and how humans treat each other, not comparative material goods.

I get it, man!  I really do.  Nobody wants to leave a match feeling like they got screwed over.

 

Not to go all “ Million Dollar Baby” on you, but the first rule is “to protect yourself at all times.”  (You will be at some match with complete strangers and you have zero knowledge about their proficiency or lack thereof with firearms and safety.)

 

Like I said, as a potential CYA maneuver, you can always email the MD ahead of time and ask “What is your process for handling X, Y, or Z?”

 

And of course, that can include asking what to do if you dispute one of the RO’s calls.

 

How thick was the USPSA rulebook about what?  8 to 12 years ago?

 

That didn’t stop an unscrupulous RO from +2’ing shooters he didn’t like.

 

And how long did that go on for before he finally got caught?

 

And to put an even  finer point on things, you can have all he rules in the world and a 1 inch thick rulebook.  That still “ ain’t “ gonna force people to be honorable and to have integrity, and to do the right thing.

 

I really don’t see these local club matches being much more than a “league” or a “league night”.  Much like bowling, or men’s softball, or a trap league.  It is supposed to be fun…. With friends, camaraderie, and like minded people.   
 

Nobody here is asking anybody else to sacrifice their integrity for anything.  A Denali, a $15 particle board plaque/trophy, or just simply bragging rights.

 

 

 

 

[barry]

51 minutes ago, ChuckS said:

Practiscore is showing 15 Hit Factor matches in PA just now.

I looked only found 2but I might be doing something wrong or have a setting wrong. Mostly interested in a club that stopped shooting uspsa and went hit factor. 

Thanks

[Blackstone45]

35 minutes ago, Chills1994 said:

-snip-

 

Are we also forgetting a certain GM who's had many allegations of cheating against him and suspicious Practiscore edits that always seem to be in his favour, and who is still unbanned.

[Chills1994]

23 minutes ago, Blackstone45 said:

Are we also forgetting a certain GM who's had many allegations of cheating against him and suspicious Practiscore edits that always seem to be in his favour, and who is still unbanned.

I wouldn’t know.

 

The last match I ever shot was on April 22, 2012 .  Yeah, you read that correctly.

 

So over the past 12 years, only things like this latest dust up and that +2 fiasco have popped up on my radar.  

 

 

[shred]

4 hours ago, Boomstick303 said:

 

I do not think it has been suggested to ditch USPSA for good.  I think what people are trying to do is make USPSA understand the membership on the whole (at least those that run the level 1 matches) are not happy with current board, organizations and decisions they are making.  By running something other than USPSA matches for a spell and further hurting the organizations pocket book seems the only power Level 1 clubs have.  If they feel the crunch the first quarter of 2024, maybe they will understand that they need to change their behavior.  

 

This time of year I don't think anyone will notice if 20% of matches move to outlaw (a greater number than the % of local clubs doing it as-yet).  Too much variability in weather and club interest that Q1 comparisons are probably more noise than signal.  Q2 is when the rubber would meet the road.  Jake even said on the call that many clubs don't start up matches until around then.

 

 

[Boomstick303]

53 minutes ago, shred said:

Q2 is when the rubber would meet the road.  Jake even said on the call that many clubs don't start up matches until around then.

 

Agreed.  I had not given that thought.  

[aandabooks]

4 hours ago, Boomstick303 said:

 

I never measure the metrics of USPSA's economics on membership.   I do measure it on hundreds of clubs possibly holding back their USPSA fees.  

This is the strategy that the club I help manage has decided on.  We renewed our charter in December but have been running hit factor matches.  No real change in the structure of the match.  Just not advertising it as USPSA, not running classifier and not sending results/activity fee to USPSA.  All the people in charge are still USPSA members and are RO/CRO with enforcement of safety.

[Boomstick303]

2 hours ago, aandabooks said:

No real change in the structure of the match.  Just not advertising it as USPSA, not running classifier and not sending results/activity fee to USPSA.  All the people in charge are still USPSA members and are RO/CRO with enforcement of safety.

 

This is similar to the conversation amongst the dozen or so clubs in our section.  I imagine not all clubs are going to agree, and it seems most clubs are leaving this to a vote of their respective board members.  It will be interesting on what happens.  

[BritinUSA]

The longer the 'club sanctions' continue the less likely they will be to return as USPSA clubs in the future. The larger clubs may grow accustomed to the extra revenue they now get to keep.

 

USPSA may have to provide incentive for clubs/members to come back, any cost involved in those incentives will impact the org's bottom line. So its possible that revenue will never return to pre-sanction days.

 

The clock is ticking, as warmer weather begins so to will the impact.

[aandabooks]

17 minutes ago, BritinUSA said:

The longer the 'club sanctions' continue the less likely they will be to return as USPSA clubs in the future. The larger clubs may grow accustomed to the extra revenue they now get to keep.

 

USPSA may have to provide incentive for clubs/members to come back, any cost involved in those incentives will impact the org's bottom line. So its possible that revenue will never return to pre-sanction days.

 

The clock is ticking, as warmer weather begins so to will the impact.

You have a point here.  I didn't really think about the extra money to put back into the clubs.  It might not even be just the big clubs that like the extra revenue.  My club has run 2 hit factor matches in January.  We have more money to spend on targets than normal and took advantage by ordering extra with the money that would have gone to USPSA.

 

I think what will bring the demand back to USPSA is shooters wanting the classifications.  Especially the newer shooters and with the turnover that USPSA generates there are always new shooters coming to tryout USPSA and older shooters fade away.

[858]

9 hours ago, ddc said:

 

I think we all have a lot to lose if everybody goes to outlaw matches.

 

I'd suggest that one of the things that gives an outlaw match any legitimacy or consistency would be how many of the competitors regularly shoot USPSA matches also.

If there are a lot then the outlaw match may be at least half-way "normal" as far as rules and safety are concerned.

If not then who knows.

 

I for one feel very strongly that we should hang in there with USPSA and give it some time to work things out.

 

I'm hopeful that things have reached a tipping point and that the old guard will see some significant turn over.

 

Getting A7 back is a start. A6 is solid. Maybe A3 comes back. We should have new A1 before too long.

Isn't A2 stepping down also?

 

That's a significant amount of change in a relatively short period of time.

 

I'm more than OK with outlaw matches. Like I said, I've shot plenty of outlaw matches and they were fine. I've shot some totally screwed up USPSA matches too so I'm not swayed by the status quo argument. 

 

I suspect the three remaining legacy BoD and corporate staff will be gone before the end of the year. The status quo crowd got caught completely flat footed by the shifting popular opinion. 

 

[ddc]

2 minutes ago, 858 said:

 

I'm more than OK with outlaw matches. Like I said, I've shot plenty of outlaw matches and they were fine. I've shot some totally screwed up USPSA matches too so I'm not swayed by the status quo argument. 

 

I suspect the three remaining legacy BoD and corporate staff will be gone before the end of the year. The status quo crowd got caught completely flat footed by the shifting popular opinion. 

 

 

I'm just concerned that if there is no underlying USPSA based sense of how things should be run then things will descend into chaos. Sort of like IDPA .... bada-boom! (just trying to inject some humor here...)

 

As far as the "status quo crowd" being caught flat footed... it kind of reminds my of Jack Ryan, season 2, where the Venezuelan "president" is stunned when the population finally has enough and the mob storms the palace.

[RJH]

I think that whether or not clubs that choose to "sanction" completely reaffiliate will depend solely on their members. If you have a large group of members that are wanting classification and want to shoot majors, the clubs will probably reaffiliate fairly quickly. If you have a club where three or four guys shoot majors and they are already classified, they can simply pay their yearly fee and shoot the majors. The rest of the club will be able to put money back in their coffers

 

 

In reality after shooting USPSA for many years, I have come to believe if you're not shooting majors, a USPSA membership or classification is pretty much worthless. But I do understand noobs wanting a classification

[shred]

Informal survey of matches around here says Status-Quo is still firmly in the majority, for whatever that's worth.  Bunch of shooters care more about classifications than political screwjobs going on in some distant HQ I guess.

 

 

[Chills1994]

35 minutes ago, shred said:

Informal survey of matches around here says Status-Quo is still firmly in the majority, for whatever that's worth.  Bunch of shooters care more about classifications than political screwjobs going on in some distant HQ I guess.

 

 

There is an old saying….it tries to make a joke about the current level or status of anything:

 

”I used to be apathetic.  Now, I just don’t care any more.”

 

 

[858]

1 hour ago, shred said:

Informal survey of matches around here says Status-Quo is still firmly in the majority, for whatever that's worth.  Bunch of shooters care more about classifications than political screwjobs going on in some distant HQ I guess.

 

 

 

If you guys believed that you'd still be pruning posts and locking threads. The USPSA corporate staff is hedging against the legacy BoD losing too. The longer this goes on, the worse it gets. Old people aren't the future of USPSA and the young members do not care about the legacy status quo. 

[ltdmstr]

28 minutes ago, 858 said:

If you guys believed that you'd still be pruning posts and locking threads. The USPSA corporate staff is hedging against the legacy BoD losing too. The longer this goes on, the worse it gets. Old people aren't the future of USPSA and the young members do not care about the legacy status quo. 

 

Seems most young members like to complain, but aren't willing to sacrifice the time and energy needed to make meaningful changes.  So, this will probably continue until it's run into the ground, which is where it's headed.

[RJH]

My section, which is not very far from shreds, seems to have the same plan as his.

 

The one issue with "sanctioning" USPSA through club dues and fees is that many of the people that run the clubs are interested in shooting bigger matches. So their classifiers and activity fees matter for Nationals slots.

 

To the many of us that are just club shooters and part-time volunteers, being affiliated with anything doesn't really matter. But to the people that are more serious and want to shoot higher level matches it does.

 

I don't have any correct answer, just my observations of why some clubs will continue to pay USPSA

[dmshozer1]

22 hours ago, barry said:

That doesn't really help. Maybe someone in pa will chime in with a club I could try out a hit factor match at. If it's not 4hrs away I might try it.

Double Eagle Club,

Newfoundland Pa

East of Scranton

Had some sort of Championship last year.

[ltdmstr]

12 minutes ago, RJH said:

The one issue with "sanctioning" USPSA through club dues and fees is that many of the people that run the clubs are interested in shooting bigger matches. So their classifiers and activity fees matter for Nationals slots.

 

To the many of us that are just club shooters and part-time volunteers, being affiliated with anything doesn't really matter. But to the people that are more serious and want to shoot higher level matches it does.

 

Very good point.

[Maximis228]

32 minutes ago, RJH said:

The one issue with "sanctioning" USPSA through club dues and fees is that many of the people that run the clubs are interested in shooting bigger matches. So their classifiers and activity fees matter for Nationals slots.

 

Here in Northern IL, no club has received nationals slots for over 5 years. The Northern IL SC coordinator doesn't respond to emails and USPSA wont allow us to replace this person. Rick Steele (A5D) has been deaf on this issue both in person and via email. 

 

As time went on, more national matches were created. This should have meant more slots being sent to clubs... yet still nothing for anyone in the Northern IL Section.