GKB Posted July 18 Share Posted July 18 19 minutes ago, Hoops said: But again, what is the real rub against LO? It's a fragmentation of OPEN under the theory that there are a bunch of LO qualifying guns being forced to shoot in OPEN. Last AREA 6 match had 17 Open guns entered. If half of these switch to LO, that gives you 9 and 8 in each division, which is below the threshold for Division Recognition (10) at a Tier 3 (Regional/National) match. No matter how it splits up, at least one Division won't get a recognition award. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shred Posted July 18 Share Posted July 18 I've shot both pretty extensively. There's a difference, and it's mostly in makeup shots. Extremely rarely are makeup shots not a thing across a whole match. I think I had 6 extras scored on my best finish in Piru at the big match (in the shootoffs) and a few more than that for both my SC Area match wins. Having less dot movement is also marginally better for calling shots and faster transitions CO and LO shooters sometimes complain about "waiting for the slide" when shooting heavier bullets and light loads. Nobody ever does in Open. I can fling a CO or LO gun across the targets about as fast as I can with an Open gun... until I need to make up a shot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoops Posted July 18 Author Share Posted July 18 I suppose to put a pin in it, the membership will have a chance to express their view in the survey. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Racinready300ex Posted July 18 Share Posted July 18 30 minutes ago, shred said: I've shot both pretty extensively. There's a difference, and it's mostly in makeup shots. Extremely rarely are makeup shots not a thing across a whole match. I think I had 6 extras scored on my best finish in Piru at the big match (in the shootoffs) and a few more than that for both my SC Area match wins. Having less dot movement is also marginally better for calling shots and faster transitions CO and LO shooters sometimes complain about "waiting for the slide" when shooting heavier bullets and light loads. Nobody ever does in Open. I can fling a CO or LO gun across the targets about as fast as I can with an Open gun... until I need to make up a shot. That makes sense. What kind of numbers are you talking per make up shot? Do you feel that's enough to add a division, especially noting as GKB pointed out it may mean CO and Open don't get recognized due to drops in participation as LO likely steels a few from each. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrewM Posted July 18 Share Posted July 18 But are times the only things that should denote a division change? Especially here where the times are so incredibly close across all divisions, going down that road one can greatly simplify everything and probably come up with 3 or 4 classes in total. From a 'marketing' perspective, the guy who just bought his base Sig 320 with a budget optic is (generally) not going to want to shoot a match against the guy with a $20k+ open gun - even if the equipment has nothing to do with the differences between them (that's the silly extreme example of course, but highlights the issue). But given the info above about having so few shooters at a big match, it sounds like there may be bigger issues at hand? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shred Posted July 18 Share Posted July 18 With 14 or however many divisions now and with the direction that there should be a division for every possible gun, I doubt adding one more would be a big change, and it would give the LO people a "fair" (be it real or perceived) place to play. Does anyone know how many individual competitors there have been at recent SCSA majors? The only number I see is "guns", which is a different metric. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoops Posted July 18 Author Share Posted July 18 20 minutes ago, shred said: With 14 or however many divisions now and with the direction that there should be a division for every possible gun, I doubt adding one more would be a big change, and it would give the LO people a "fair" (be it real or perceived) place to play. Does anyone know how many individual competitors there have been at recent SCSA majors? The only number I see is "guns", which is a different metric. @ZackJones should be able to tell you how many people were at the recent WSSC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joseywales Posted July 18 Share Posted July 18 25 minutes ago, shred said: With 14 or however many divisions now and with the direction that there should be a division for every possible gun, I doubt adding one more would be a big change, and it would give the LO people a "fair" (be it real or perceived) place to play. Does anyone know how many individual competitors there have been at recent SCSA majors? The only number I see is "guns", which is a different metric. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoops Posted July 18 Author Share Posted July 18 8 minutes ago, joseywales said: Nice. Excellent info. Thank you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shred Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 Thanks. Some interesting data there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Racinready300ex Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 More divisions at the WSSC level could mean more gun entries and more income to the match with out needing to bring in more shooters. That's a positive in a way. That's assuming they'll just shoot another gun in the match and not drop one to shoot LO. Seems pretty consistent at 250-260 shooters per year. 2021 vs 2024 being almost the exact numbers is neat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Racinready300ex Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 I was considering shooting my area's SC Area Championship this year. If I did I'd shoot open with a LO gun. But, the match is pretty far away and there are only 2 shooters in my class and only 9 in Open all together. It's not worth the time or money for such a small match. If I was into Rimfire it'd be worth the trip. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzt Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 21 hours ago, Racinready300ex said: What am I missing? The fact that comps and poppels DO help. Less muzzle rise is a good thing, even if you are only shooting one shot. The transition to the next target is smoother. 155 PH with a slow powder is faster than the same gun with 132 PF and fast powder. Frame mounted dots are more stable under recoil. A properly tuned Open gun, even shooting minor, will ALWAYS be flatter and softer than a typical LO gun. Most people who will shoot LO in SCSA already shoot it in USPSA. So, the guns are tuned for 130-132 PF loads, not 100. You add 2+ oz. to the slide and it slows it down. It also results in increased muzzle rise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Racinready300ex Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 5 minutes ago, zzt said: The fact that comps and poppels DO help. Less muzzle rise is a good thing, even if you are only shooting one shot. The transition to the next target is smoother. 155 PH with a slow powder is faster than the same gun with 132 PF and fast powder. Frame mounted dots are more stable under recoil. A properly tuned Open gun, even shooting minor, will ALWAYS be flatter and softer than a typical LO gun. Most people who will shoot LO in SCSA already shoot it in USPSA. So, the guns are tuned for 130-132 PF loads, not 100. You add 2+ oz. to the slide and it slows it down. It also results in increased muzzle rise. People using guns from other games shouldn't really be a consideration. If someone is serious about this game they'll build a gun for it. So saying the guns wont be "tuned" doesn't make sense to me. If someone isn't serious enough to get a gun for the game, then that's even more reason not carve out a special division for them. I think these games would be way more interesting with a lot less divisions. But I realize for most people this isn't meant to be a match or competition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzt Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 1 hour ago, Racinready300ex said: People using guns from other games shouldn't really be a consideration. If someone is serious about this game they'll build a gun for it. So saying the guns wont be "tuned" doesn't make sense to me. If someone isn't serious enough to get a gun for the game, then that's even more reason not carve out a special division for them. Silly argument. I build guns. I can tell you it is harder to build a 2011 that runs 100% on 95-100 PF ammo with an additional 2+ oz. of weight on the slide than it is for 132 PF. It can be done but it buys you nothing for SCSA and makes it useless for USPSA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GKB Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 (edited) 3 hours ago, Racinready300ex said: More divisions at the WSSC level could mean more gun entries WSSC fills up all of it's slots as it is. Another division would mean fewer slots for the people shooting the current divisions as there are some automatically allocated slots at WSSC for the high performers in each division. Edited July 19 by GKB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Racinready300ex Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 1 hour ago, GKB said: WSSC fills up all of it's slots as it is. Another division would mean fewer slots for the people shooting the current divisions as there are some automatically allocated slots at WSSC for the high performers in each division. So that's why the year to year numbers look so similar. And adding a division just means other divisions get smaller and less competitive. Which would be my concern, it overall makes the sport less interesting. 2 hours ago, zzt said: Silly argument. I build guns. I can tell you it is harder to build a 2011 that runs 100% on 95-100 PF ammo with an additional 2+ oz. of weight on the slide than it is for 132 PF. It can be done but it buys you nothing for SCSA and makes it useless for USPSA. It's interesting you don't think people will build guns to push the rules to the limits even if it means the gun can't be used in USPSA. I see guys do that in IDPA all the time, don't see why it'd be different for SC shooters. I can only assume the target audience is uspsa LO shooters. But TBH I doubt a LO division is going to entice them to take SC seriously. If they were interested they'd already be shooting it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzt Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 34 minutes ago, Racinready300ex said: So that's why the year to year numbers look so similar. And adding a division just means other divisions get smaller and less competitive. Which would be my concern, it overall makes the sport less interesting. It's interesting you don't think people will build guns to push the rules to the limits even if it means the gun can't be used in USPSA. I see guys do that in IDPA all the time, don't see why it'd be different for SC shooters. I can only assume the target audience is uspsa LO shooters. But TBH I doubt a LO division is going to entice them to take SC seriously. If they were interested they'd already be shooting it. I didn't say that. I build my Open guns to push the limit. They are full race. What I said was building a 2011 that ran 100% on 95-100 PF loads was possible, but pointless. It buys you nothing that counts. Muzzle rise will be virtually the same. It will make a little less noise and be a tad softer to shoot. Not enough IMO to spend $4k on a dedicated gun that is otherwise useless. You may have a point on drawing from USPSA. I know several who now shoot SCSA with their CO guns. I know a couple tried SCSA once shooting their Limited guns with major loads. Not the optimal choice. Many USPSA Limited shooters are converting to LO. Most are buying a new gun so they can shoot 9mm. Some might come over. I shoot USPSA 1st, 2nd and 3rd Saturdays. I shoot SCSA on the 4th and the occasional 5th. The USPSA match closest to me on the 4th Sat is far away, starts early and runs late. If there was a 6-7 stage match an hour away, I might be shooting that instead of SCSA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shred Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 When there was real money on the table, people would build special "steel guns" for SC. But the dudes that won it all (Max, JJ, KC, BJ) mostly all shot regular USPSA Open rigs, and sometimes Major PF ammo too. I'd prefer the old two divisions-- Optic Pistol and Iron Pistol with cash-modifiers for best time with say a revolver or IDPA or CO-legal gear. But I don't think that's going to fly anymore. People are too wrapped around classifications and being a big tent for every possible firearm versus "if you want to be competitive, get one of these:..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoops Posted July 19 Author Share Posted July 19 @shred I tend to agree on simplifying classes but that ship has sailed. Too many world records involved. The same resistance applies to adding new stages. There was going to be a survey on that too…..but it died also. So to that end, we are faced trying to rationalize the addition of a very popular Limited Optics division. The survey is far more than the handful of us here in Enos and thus far, the result appears to be overwhelmingly in favor of LO. It will happen based on popular vote…IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoops Posted July 19 Author Share Posted July 19 I have confirmed there are 704 slots initially setup for each WSSC. No one has ever been turned away. 637 this year left 63 open slots this year. This is a non-issue relative to anther division addition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
outerlimits Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 1 hour ago, shred said: I'd prefer the old two divisions-- Optic Pistol and Iron Pistol with cash-modifiers for best time with say a revolver or IDPA or CO-legal gear. But I don't think that's going to fly anymore. People are too wrapped around classifications and being a big tent for every possible firearm versus "if you want to be competitive, get one of these:..." ^^This... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrewM Posted July 20 Share Posted July 20 11 hours ago, shred said: I'd prefer the old two divisions-- Optic Pistol and Iron Pistol with cash-modifiers for best time with say a revolver or IDPA or CO-legal gear. But I don't think that's going to fly anymore. People are too wrapped around classifications and being a big tent for every possible firearm versus "if you want to be competitive, get one of these:..." I think that could work, do an open/optic/iron classes - especially outside of PCC and Rimfire. Build in enough separation between open and the others and then come back re-evaluate as numbers build up. My other thought was to just ditch the iron/optic differences by class, so you still had a limited/revolver/production division, but that was it - optics and irons playing together. No matter what you do somebodies baby is going to go away, which is going to lead to some hurt feelings for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoops Posted July 20 Author Share Posted July 20 Limited Optics will be added as the 14th division. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoops Posted July 20 Author Share Posted July 20 LO’s podcast thanks to @joseywales https://www.iheart.com/podcast/256-steeltargetpaint-31050921/episode/103-lo-survey-results-and-peak-197437973/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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