When I was involved many years ago, Our section was a geographical area where the clubs could get together for organizational purposes such as scheduling matches to prevent dates conflict. Our section consisted of clubs in 3 states and bled over to a second Area. I was SC for a few years. Thankless job. I don't know if there are any rules about it now or not. That section has since been broken up into different sections.
Hey I gotta question...I frequently see references to alternatives to USPSA such as PCSL and something called "Hit Factor" matches. I understand what PCSL is, but Hit Factor...I'm not clear?
Is a Hit Factor match as simple as whoever has the highest hit factor, overall, wins the match?
Hit factor is precisely how USPSA/IPSC is scored. If someone is calling a match a “hit factor” match, it’s likely that it’s a USPSA style event without it being sanctioned by USPSA.
PCSL also uses a hit factor scoring system. Points/second. Balancing speed and accuracy for the most part.
This is opposed to “time plus”, used by IDPA and ICORE. Biased towards accuracy to a degree.
So last night our club president, tribal leader, etc. convened those of us who have been the active members, match directors, etc for our USPSA club for dinner and he wanted to talk about all this. We have received no communication about this BS from our section leader or any other club.
Long discussion about what we should do, the value USPSA provides, etc. In the end we decided to just pay our affiliation fees and match fees, classifier fees, etc. in 2024 and just go on as if nothing has happened. Everybody just wants to shoot, our club matches and some other matches in our section. Same thing the vast majority of our attendees at every match.
In reflection on the larger picture, we could decide at some point in the future just to run the same match as a non-sanctioned match using the same scoring system and rules.
The two things of value USPSA provides us are a classification system, a standardized set of rules, and the other thing of value they provide some is the system in place for major matches. At this point in time we only have one member who cares at all or attends/competes in the majors, the rest of our folks who used to attend those got burned out on them at some point in the past and don't find them fun or interesting anymore. Several members of our team stated they hoped to shoot the AL section match this year. Nobody but one shooter plans to go deal with Area 6 or any of the majors, even when they are in our back yard at Talladega.
We talked about rules and the state of NROI. Everyone of us was trained by John Amidon, we all miss him. All but one of us have let our RO certification expire, including two former CRO's. None of us is going to work an area match or for that matter the state section match again even though all of us have dozens of those under our belt as RO/match staff. Nobody has any use for Troy or his rulings, clarifications or leadership. The rule base has become volatile and complex to the point where it begins to be baffling instead of enlightening sometimes.
PSCL reminds us all of the beginning of IDPA, where it was a private thing with one person at the top. Not an experience any of us want to repeat no matter how good a person this guy is. We started and ran an IDPA match at the club at the turn of the century and finally got fed up with the inconsistency of their rule base and the highly subjective nature of how the sport and matches were run. That plus Wilson's personal dictatorship and how he several times changed the rules with no notice just because something ticked him off (e.g. holster rules).
The discussion turned to the fact that the heart and soul of this sport is the club shooter. Literally +95% of the people who come to our club matches could give a shit about the board, the nationals, all the drama, etc. The number of dead trees consumed in their monthly publication about major matches is skipped by all of us so we can read the technical stuff at the end of the magazine where there is actually valuable information. The national organization is totally fixated on matters related to those major events and sponsorships, which 95% of the total membership could give two hairs off a rats ass about, they just want to go shoot their local club match and have fun. This seems to be completely lost on both the organizations "leadership" as well as the people like Stoeger who are obsessed with jousting with those people.
Nobody is truly focused on improving the value provided to clubs who pay the dues and provide 100% of the sport and its structure for 95% of the membership.
Final conclusion of our meeting, hell with the board, forgot Troy and his NROI rages, forget this so called leadership team and HQ staff, forget Stoeger and the rest of the celebrity shooters, or critics engaged in this back and forth trashing, lets just get on with our club shooting season and have fun. We will evaluate this time next year if anything has changed that is worthy of any change on our part.
Last edited by fatdog; 12-27-2023 at 09:17 AM.
Support the Second Amendment Foundation and the Firearms Policy Coalition, join and give!
I’ll also point out that a non-trivial proportion of USPSA member activities are Steel Challenge and there is no organized suitable alternative sport for that.