Mainly it's the rules which encompass the sport's seeming attitude of "you will shoot this stage in a prescribed manner rather than as you see fit." The requirement to pie corners, shoot targets near to far, and to retain partial (and as noted by @jetfire, sometimes even empty) mags are the big ones. I very much prefer the freedom USPSA allows where you're just presented with a problem and how you solve it is up to you as long as you stay within the fault lines while shooting and don't break the 180.
ETA: I also don't love the 18-round maximum for stage length, just from a fun perspective. I like shooting, and at least some of the time, more shooting = more fun. Short/medium stages like that can certainly be fun and challenging, but so can 32-round stages. Basically, as long as it doesn't take more than the 51 rounds I have on me at the start of a stage when shooting Production, I'm probably not unhappy about it.
Last edited by olstyn; 01-26-2021 at 05:36 PM.
I think the addition of "doing it for real" creates a level of stress equivalent to a major match that you care about. But of course for that to be true, the person has to care about winning a coin, but if someone's in an Ernest class they probably care about winning a coin.
So I definitely think that most GMs possess the technical skill to pull off two clean FASTs back to back, but what I question is whether or not they posses the match mentality to make it happen. There's still a lot of paper GMs on the planet who can only win Area matches if no one good shows up, and can't crack the top 16 at Nationals. Sure they can shoot a standard great, but when they're under pressure they get junked by a B-class shooter with a good mind.
Most likely.
The test was designed to be shot with guns that could be reasonably carried daily. Todd had people raise their arms to assess concealment. I remember the heartburn around here when people got coins with G34 and Roland. If someone decided to run it with a Shadow 2 or Atlas out of DAA hanger under SMF vest, their choice but I doubt many here would be impressed by that. I also doubt Ernest will give them a coin for that but I don't mean to speak for him.
Last edited by YVK; 01-26-2021 at 05:50 PM.
Doesn't read posts longer than two paragraphs.
Dunno. Life imitates art though. Lately been seeing a lot of trainers for self defense using guns that look straight out of a competition with large dots and big magwells. Have to define the parameters or else there’s creep.
I don’t know if this is his teaching gun or carry gun, but it looks like a race gun.
I would have no problem bringing a Shadow 2 to a class. It’s really no different than the “carry” CZ75B I bought tricked out from CZC.
And as to “carryable” would you be insane for carrying a 1911?
No, then why not a Shadow 2?
That's fair. I like the course of fire as a pallet cleanser, but understand. I would add I don't like the limits on steel and the mag reload is annoying. Also I don't like the belt rules. I like the ability to pull your equipment belt right off like in USPSA.
I do like the focus on more creative crap like one handed shooting, and get really annoyed with the extended walk throughs of USPSA. I also like IDPA scoring because I don't like hit factor calcs. It may be a thing but it feels like less USPSA shooters pitch in to reset, but thats me.
This thread has me all fired up about the FAST drill now. I'm going to start dry firing it today from both open and concealment and see how many months it takes to get to sub 5 back to back runs in live fire with a bone stock G19.
From there I'll see how much it longer it takes to get two back to back sub 5 runs on video. Video typically ads more stress and fumbles to me than full competition in most other sports. Obviously it's no $500 class with a famous instructor level of pressure but it should be an interesting study of sample size one.
I'm from the camp where I think Joe Average can just put the reps in. I'm posting that opinion in this context so I'll have to eat those words later if I'm wrong.
It is my guess that this is regional, and maybe even specific squad based rather than sport-based. I may simply be lucky, but most of the time at USPSA matches here in the Twin Cities area of MN, people are generally very good about helping reset, often to the point where there are more people trying to help reset than are needed, and on the rare occasion where that hasn't been the case, calling it out has usually resulted in near-instant changes of behavior.