The no more than 8 rounds per position rule is often not followed in my experience.Originally Posted by PPGMD
The no more than 8 rounds per position rule is often not followed in my experience.
In this area, I think the match designers are open shooters, or designing matches for the open shooters -- with high round counts and lots of moving stuff. I am certainly not complaining, because the more different and difficult shooting tasks someone else designed, the better.
On the way home from the match I was reflecting on this, and came to the conclusion, that if your gun is reliable, platform is almost irrelevant in USPSA, until at the highest levels of competition, because the shooting is so varied, and movement so significant to the outcome, that specific platform attributes that seem so important to me get averaged out.
Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.
Yup. That was one of the fascinating things I found out.. It was death by 1,000 cuts. .1 here, .15 here, .05 here ... and over a whole COF it added up to that 1.5-2 seconds I am always behind..
1. No. Movement/entries/etc have nothing to do with tactics. I suppose in a Michael Bay style run and gun battle setups might matter, but ... however those elements are some of the biggest factors in the action pistol games that incorporate movement.
2. One handed is rare in the sports. You will see it in classifiers or when match directors set up props that have to be held open. (See that a lot with ports that have a covering) One handed shooting is a good skill, but it is rarely used in tactical situations, IMO. It is used if you don't have a weapon mounted light, if you're using a shield, grasping a valuable item, or if you're injured. I don't dedicate more than 5-10% of my training time to that skill. It is part of our CQB qualification, with 6 SHO/6 WHO in one string of fire at 7 yards. It makes me stay proficient.
3. It definitely continues. It actually increases as you get better. You invest more time and effort into your training, you go further to matches, you want to succeed more and more. That pressure is self imposed and is difficult to deal with. The first year I shot Nationals I felt some pressure because I had invested a lot of time and money to go, but mostly I was having fun. The first time I shot with my entire team I felt a lot more because I wanted to prove myself. It was difficult to deal with..
If you are a contender to win there is definitely pressure. At that level (even in a state match) small mistakes can cost you the win. Often those matches are decided by 5-10 points.....
I've found stage design to be a localized issue. I've shot at a couple of clubs that had Area/Nationals quality stages at local club matches. Others, it looked like they backed up the truck and stopped real fast. Wherever the targets landed is where they stayed for the match.
GJM, you might load your mags all the way and shoot Limited Minor for fun.
I've shot competition for 30 plus years and I still have a small amount of match stress. Match stress increases for me when I shoot at places or types of shooting that are unfamiliar. That would include "the big match" as well as a different discipline.
I think stage design varies from club to club. There are 3 major clubs around Atlanta and each has its own quirks or charm.
I do agree that platform is largely irrelevant. If the gun is reasonably accurate and doesn't choke you are good to go.
Ben Stoegger has an excellent book worth reading on action pistol/uspsa. He as much says that position entry/exit and movement are what separate good shooters from great.
Its one thing to shoot all A's on a stage. Its another thing to do it without ever actually stopping your feet.
Seems to me that there is a lot of moving going on in the police shootings you see on YouTube.
I cannot tell you how happy I am to see people with both real LE experience and high level USPSA experience who recognize this. Far too often people try to justify setups, entries, footwork, etc. as "better combat" but it's all so specifically planned and, more to the point, very dependent on knowing in advance exactly where both you and the target will be when the moment to shoot comes.
I think the skills are "neat" and the few times I've got instruction on them were entertaining.
Thanks for the post, dude.
While my experience with USPSA is more limited, I've observed many of the same things. One of my proudest shooting moments took place in 2008 when I showed up at the Sacramento, CA USPSA match. There was a guy shooting who was just an ass. He was either a M or GM and nitpicked the courses and was just a horrible sportsman. I had shown up with my P220, cleared my carry ammo, and shot the match. The classifier at that match was really short and required something fast and then something precise. When I shot the classifier, I beat him. It hurt his feelings so bad, that he reshot the stage twice to be able to beat my time. In all of the stages, this guy clearly was a better competitor than me. When it came down to raw technical shooting skill, the difference between us was fairly small.
FWIW, I don't see a dimes worth of difference between USPSA and IDPA as a training value. They both have pluses and minuses and by the time you average everything out, they're both as useful - just in different ways.
Matches have value for training, primarily from a value point. In theory, if you had a huge range, thousands of dollars of props, and someone to help you setup, you could have a better match. Since most of us don't have those resources, you're better off showing up and shooting someone else's stages and props. The ability to draw, shoot while moving, shoot moving props, shoot targets exposed for short time frames, etc. are the real value of competition.
Match stress is a different matter. Most of the stress will come from the novelty of the situation so the first or second time has the maximum value. Your first local match will be more stressful than your twentieth. Your first national will be more stressful than your tenth. There will be some secondary stress benefit from the ego risk you are taking as well. I suspect that the amount of stress in the ego risk will vary from person to person.
Finally, there is some value of seeing where you stand in the world of shooting ability. The first time folks show up for a match, they think they are good - that's why their there, to show everyone how good they are. Shooting someone else objective standards can really give you a fair view of where you stand in relation to others.
Reitz related something similar to this about their experiences when competition based guys did training. When the competitive guys were told to clear the shoothouse, they'd ask how many threats, where are they, etc? His response, was "go find out." Once they didn't know how many and where, their speeds were no better than anyone else.
I would have to say that few competitor realize how much of their performance advantage comes from knowing the stage layout in advance and being able to develop a shooting plan in advance. When you start introducing shoot/no-shoot decisions into stages (blind stuff) everyone clusters together a lot more. I'm not saying there is no difference, those who shoot faster and accurate still do so, but the difference between first and last is a lot less.
The other ugly fact is that smarter people have more raw processing power than dumber people and processing on the fly will always go to the smarter person, all other things being equal.
If we're talking about guys who are really serious about competition, I'd have to disagree. Especially in USPSA where you can engage in a lot more decision making and planning, I think it's well understood that stage strategy is a huge factor and the folks who do it awesome have a serious advantage over the guys who don't. But then I'm a "don't" so it could just be an excuse I like to use.
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