Starting in open

[rupture]

Has anyone here started open division as there first choice, no production or limited, just right to the "Dark Side"? If so, How has it worked out for you. Thanks

[joecichlid]

That is pretty much how I started. For the life of me I have a heck of a time picking up and focusing on iron sights so when I got into USPSA it was Open for me. When I started about 2003 I was running a single stack open gun in .45 which got me to C Class but around 2005 I got an STI and now I am in the high B range and the way things are going now I am headed to A Class before the end of the year. Mind you I never practice outside of the weekly matches I shoot with a local club. Usually I run 100 to 200 rounds a week and over the last year I have seen little improvments from week to week so I feel it has been going well for me. YMMV

Joe W.

[Will Abrahams]

I started with Open and never looked back just make sure you get a good/reliable open gun built and you wont regret it.

[Chris Keen]

I started with an Open Glock 24 with a slide-ride J-Point dot, back in 2004. I wasnt reloading my own ammo at the time, and it seemed an easy way to make major. I only got 23 rounds in a "big stick" but with a magwell and with Glock mags being super cheap (even with a 170mm extension they only cost about $50) I was able to keep up with other open shooters in my class.

It took me from C class to A class in about a year or two. For me I've always wanted to race, whether it was driving a car, motorcycle, etc. I just wanted to go FAST! So this seemed like the perfect way to get involved in Practical Shooting.

Now I shoot Limited with an STI Edge, and probably still will up until my vision gets so bad that I HAVE to go back to open.

[G-ManBart]

Has anyone here started open division as there first choice, no production or limited, just right to the "Dark Side"? If so, How has it worked out for you. Thanks

Sorta kinda. Back before there were divisions, I shot some matches with a stock Smith 4566 and some with my Gold Cup (it's a MK1V, Series 70 so I went with minor changes that can be reversed like a drop in beavertail, guide rod etc). After a couple of months I bought what was then a competitive single stack Open gun in .38 Super (iron sights with a full profile 3-port comp). I added a scope and carbon Huenig mount to it about a year after the first scope guns became common. I ran that until everybody had high cap guns that I couldn't compete with or afford (active duty 2lt) and mostly quit shooting except a match or two a year. So I'd pretty much say I started out, seriously, in Open.

In 2007 I came back to the sport, actively, by going with a Limited rig and managed to be our club Limited champion that year....all the basics still applied and I went from U to A in Limited in six months or so. I'm still more of an Open shooter, but also shoot Limited, SS and now a little Production (which I'm pretty jazzed about). I'm far from the worlds best, but I spent maybe six weeks getting ready for the Western States Single Stack Classic two years ago and wound up something like 26th with one nearly zero'd stage....guess the Open gun hasn't hurt anything.

I will say that I've also shot a little bit of many of the other shooting sports out there....PPC, bullseye pistol, high power rifle, sillhouette pistol, skeet, trap, etc and qualify with my carry guns at least quarterly (shoot them more often), so it's not like I can get away with forgetting what a front sight is, or how a perfect trigger press needs to be with a smallbore rifle.

In short, if you're aware of the differences between the different types of guns I don't think it makes a whole lot of difference. R,

[quade]

almost, i started shooting last sept. after ordering my open pistol in august. i just always wanted to shoot competitively and it came that time in my life after several other stints in other sports. so i started shooting some idpa and then uspsa with a glock 34 until my blaster was ready.i guess i shot 10 matches in limited before i went to open.

you may run into the same downtime waiting for one to be built. either way there are a-lot of things to learn. you may not not want to try to learn an open pistol and rules of a new sport at the same time. both will take time. and open pistols and limited for that matter go off real easy. assuming your totally new to shooting sports. i don't ever get nervous around anyone but sometimes they assume i should know more, i think. i had one GM get on me about mag changes one match. he finally asked me how long i have been shooting. when i told him 8 months total 2 in open he was like, it should still be better, no excuses. thats really the only issues i've had is that everyone assumes you should know everything.