Practical Competition Shooting League (2023)

[RJ]

I first stumbled on PCSL in the USPSA Special Election thread in June, IIRC @Les Pepperoni said it was an alternative he was looking at. @JCN and @YVK mentioned it as well in follow on posts, before the discussion got back to the run off.

At the time, there were no PCSL matches in Florida I could find. But I just checked Practiscore, and there is a one-gun match in Defuniak Springs (2 hours from our new place, a bit far for a single match, but still).

In case you weren’t aware:

https://www.pcsleague.com/

Founded by multi-time consecutive national champion Max Leograndis in 2021, the PCSL is a vision of what the world’s premiere practical shooting sport should be.

For those with competition shooting experience already, whether from Multigun, USPSA, IDPA, IPSC, or other events, PCSL will feel comfortably familiar but at the same time refreshing, exciting, and new. We’ve taken the best aspects from many disciplines of practical shooting and modernized them, creating the best match type yet. Events of every size - from the most humble club matches to the biggest championships - will be the best in class experiences you can find at any event.

Stoeger just dropped a video talking about how it might appeal to those looking for alternatives, so this was on my mind:



Are any of you seeing PCSL get any traction here in 2023 at your local club?

[YVK]

Some activity at my local ranges but one that I don't care for. Guys are running PCSL Multigun matches and I have no interest in a shotgun. I would have definitely tried 1-gun or 2-gun.

[Zincwarrior]

so its more focus on head shots? Looks like Production and CO. What else is different?

[Flamingo]

Rule Book.

It seems like some of the recent USPSA drama with the ADs could have been avoided with some of PCSL rules.

[bofe954]

I like the pay for targets model to pay fees model.

I think a lot of people really like the classification system and would miss it.

The way 2/3 of the clubs I've been involved with work, the entire club is just a big pool of money. If the USPSA match makes more money, it just goes into the gun club's budget anyway. I'm not sure there is that much of an incentive to save the money that USPSA charges.

My guess is that they won't make enough to support the bureaucracy necessary to have big matches, but who knows.

[Zincwarrior]

Rule Book.

It seems like some of the recent USPSA drama with the ADs could have been avoided with some of PCSL rules.

Sorry, but like? I am not up on the latest AD drama except for one being DQ'd over switching pistols.

[JCN]

Are any of you seeing PCSL get any traction here in 2023 at your local club?

It’s starting to have more local events but I still haven’t checked it out yet.

The barriers to me are: USPSA is a known quantity across the nation like @ECK said. I can travel 8 hours or 1 hour away and know I’ll get the same experience with people I know and like.

When we were doing national autocross, it was great, because we would travel across the nation and see our same friends at every big event. It made it feel very comfortable and enjoyable to have a community.

Right now, I don’t have the extra mental bandwidth to learn a new sport. Every shooting sport has its own set of skills to develop and techniques that require optimization. I like my local USPSA clubs and the nationwide universality and infrastructure are the big draws, despite administrative shenanigans.

So I think between USPSA, IDPA and Steel Challenge I’m pretty happy with my shooting sports.

I could potentially spend time and money on PCSL and the the end of five years if it goes belly up, it would’ve been somewhat of a waste of focus.

I might change my mind later on, but the people and community matter more to me than the actual competition sport itself. Right now I know the people in the community of USPSA and really like them. Again, just talking about the members and not the administration.

[ECK]

Where I live there’s a pretty robust shooting schedule between the three clubs in the valley. Every weekend there is some sort of match to shoot, including some weekdays from mid-April thru Sept. Some weekends you have to choose between IDPA vs PRS22 vs 3-gun, other weekends you have to choose between PRS vs USPSA or a Varmint rifle match vs USPSA vs 2-gun. Some of those matches are hosted by the same club on the same Saturday. Most of the time the different disciplines have their own niche of people who stick with that match, but there are some cross-overs that shoot multiple disciplines. As mentioned in another post, one club is offering an outlaw “action steel” format match for pistols that plays off their 3-gun format, only with just a pistol. Most of the attendees appear to be the ones that shoot the club’s 3-gun/2-gun matches, and has drawn very few USPSA shooters if any.

It’s a first world problem to have so many options…

But I think my point is the main USPSA clubs have tried hosting an outlaw match on 5th Saturday weekends, such as a CCW match where the emphasis is to compete with your actual EDC gun and gear. But invariably the demand from the shooters is for USPSA format matches. Not sure if it is because they are chasing a higher classification and want to shoot more USPSA classifier stages, or if it is because they just want the USPSA format and all that it entails. So I’m not seeing a demand for PCSL, at least not yet.

Not many people at the local club level give two sh!ts about what is going on with USPSA at the org level, tho quite a few of them have embraced the equipment changes including the provisional LO division. They just like shooting the 3-4 USPSA matches per month that are offered between the three clubs, shoot a few majors when we host either the Area or Section match, or drive a 4-6 hours to adjacent states to shoot their lvl 2 or the Area match. And ever since ammo started becoming available again we keep getting new shooters showing up at USPSA matches, many of whom are not new to shooting based on their timmy gear.

[JCS]

I hope it catches on. More shooting sports is good.

1 shot to the k zone makes it way different than uspsa and would take some adjusting. No PF is also interesting. I can see people gaming it big time.

I’d shoot one locally to try it out.

[MVS]

I heard the USPSA MD from the local club talking about trying it. Not sure if it was in addition to USPSA or dropping USPSA. I would try it if it is offered though nothing jumps out to me as a big improvement. No interested in the multi gun part. As for Stoeger talking about it, that doesn't really mean much as it is just a way for him to get his digs in at USPSA. (justified or not)