Eh - I'm not sure I buy that on the CO HF being out of line and "easy" (excepting the 18 series - where they adopted the PRD classifiers from that nationals since there wasn't enough G's shooting the classifiers). Generally the hitfactors for CO are the same as prod with the exception of the 19 series classifiers where they were mined from nationals. Example - Ticktock Prod HHF - 10.5911 CO HHF - 10.5911 El Prez Prod HHF - 11.6423 CO HHF - 11.6423 - Those aren't any easier or harder with irons vs. a dot gun because at those speeds you're shooting to an index effectively. you can make the argument on like Six in Six challenge the dot should have an advantage - sure.
What you really should be saying is production was the easiest division to make GM in pre-18 update to the classification system. in most cases the production hit factors came up to what the CO hit factors were. I got my M card the end of 17 and I wasn't as good as I am now and I just cracked M in CO recently. I don't say that as an ego defense mechanism either - objectively pre-18 production was easier to shoot good classifiers on.
Regarding heat in production - yes there are some very talented dudes still shooting it - but largely it's being overshadowed by CO in a significant way. Example - look how far down the list you have to get to drop below 80%. It's generally agreed above 80% at an area match or nationals match is pretty darn good - and in CO you make it all the way down to 43 before dropping that - and that's with an outlier highwater mark in Max Michel - even Ben is not as dominant in Irons at his national wins - when he stomps the competition are like 2-3% but Max is generally 5% from 1 to 2 with Max is at the top. Production drops below 80% at just 18 - and adjusting for participation - 21% of the CO field is finishing 80%+ while Prod is 12% of the field finishing above 80%. None of that is said to diminish anybody's achievement or division superiority or any of that - it's just throwing stats at opinions.
I wrote a post over on my blog when the new hit factors went live in 18 that I'll post here to give you a flavor. The summary - is production got harder and CO was made easier - to be in line with production. Limited and Open were not hammered near as hard as Production was with the classifier updates. I can't get the graphics to come through but the body of the text does a good enough job illustrating the point I think :
New High Hit Factors for Production and Carry Optics
At the last match I shot I had the distinct pleasure of watching a low M class score on Pucker factor drop to a high A score once the database roll went through on the USPSA website. I similarly heard some guys on the net have similar issues. So I picked 10 classifiers that seem pretty common and more popular to try and score well on and analyzed where the HHF is now versus where it was (lifted from the AZ Shooters app). I learned a few things in the process. The first is that USPSA will only let you use the classifier calculator 20 times in an hour, and that's lame. As for the Production hit factors...
Well - first I suppose I should explain my methodology. Using the almighty power of Excel and division - I took all the old HHFs off AZ shooters app (AZS) - punched them into USPSA Classifier Calc (USPSACC). Whatever percentage it spit out I would plug into my spreadsheet, divide the old score by the new to get the new HHF. If something came back at 100% I would divide the stated GM score by .95 to get the new HHF and then figure out that percentage if you shot the old HHF on the new classifier scoring - yes some classifiers were made easier - but generally only for Carry Optics - because those hit factors were cartoonishly hard in some cases (meaning why would Tick Tock have a higher hit factor in CO versus Prod? Doesn't make sense - so they fixed it).
https://www.patreon.com/file?h=19870022&i=2364642
So Production - the average HHF was coming in at approximately 93% - when taken across the sample. In a lot of ways - I agree with some of the changes. Melody Line was very easy to shoot 100% of (he says having never shot Melody Line live in a match). I was noticing that the HHF's in Carry optics were about 10% higher than Production - which didn't seem right on a lot of the classifiers, so lets talk about Carry Optics.
https://www.patreon.com/file?h=19870022&i=2364813
In Carry Optics - several of the "easy ones" were appropriately adjusted down - but several of the hoser ones were adjusted to make them easier. Specifically - Front Sight and Tick Tock had their hit factors relaxed. That makes sense - as both of those classifiers are shooting at ranges where the dot is potentially a liability more than an asset and both divisions are minor only.
https://www.patreon.com/file?h=19870022&i=2364823
What I found EXTREMELY interesting is Production and Carry Optics are now basically analogs - the exception being that classifiers that require shooting at partials CO has to go faster - which is fair since the dot makes shooting partials a little easier - emphasis on little. Largely - CO and Production have the same hit factors now.
How will all of this affect the sport? I think grand masters under the new system are less likely to be as "papery" as the old ones. I think for someone, like me, attempting to make GM - the bar has been raised and that's a little frustrating - but at the same time - I knew a lot of those classifiers were "too easy". I'll keep doing what I do - Carry Optics was already "hard" to make GM - I think Production has made it appropriately hard.
Last edited by THeHumbleMarksman; 10-26-2020 at 03:13 PM. Reason: wasn't done.
Yep. Same boat, dude. Production HHFs are doable, but most are way harder now. It’s made making G a major achievement, and it will take some more work and more rolls of the dice, at least for me.
“There is no growth in the comfort zone.”--Jocko Willink
"You can never have too many knives." --Joe Ambercrombie
Going balls to the wall is something that makes sense to me, and something that I do at times as evidenced
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bee8YOXTTAc
The stage required 3 per target, those were metric / IPSC targets, some no shoots, and I went pretty much as fast as I could for each target difficulty without point shooting or shooting in a general direction. The result was 4 mikes, trigger freeze, and my expected place in that match lost just on this stage. Point is, I thinks it has merits and I do this.
Three main things / concerns that I have are:
- You have to be able see your mistakes, identify them correctly, prioritize them correctly, and come up with right solutions. If your analysis is wrong, you're going to waste a lot of time and ammo for nothing.
- To do that ^^^ you have to be past some level of proficiency. When I sucked terribly in shooting and tried "just go fast", everything fell apart, literally everything. It was impossible to come up with any meaningful output from this and I had to go back to "let's see if I can hit 2 As in a match". Once I started to call my shots more or less most of the time and be a little more confident in my fundamentals, then going above my abilities started to yield decent info.
- You have to do this for a decent stretches of time, not just once in a while. You want to ID the patterns of your mistakes, and for patterns you need to look at multiple reps.
- He says that drills have near zero utility for him. It is absolutely not the case for me. I also get a huge benefit from setting up mini-stages or fragments of stages but certain drills are my cornerstones. My analogy are my other sports. If I want to get my forehand to be a weapon, I need hit a metric ton of them in practice so it is nearly automatic in a match. If I don't want to get 4 mikes on a stage, I need to shoot a ton of doubles and maybe triples in practice. If I don't want to overswing on transitions in a match, more of the same in practice. Etc. That's my take on it.
Doesn't read posts longer than two paragraphs.
Me too. That is a fascinating read. With a G26, too. Geez.
One thing I noted was the mention of fitness, and being ready for the challenge from a physical perspective. That really resonated with me, as one of the cornerstones of my approach to finally get going this year was realizing I need to make progress on diet and exercise. I think a lot of me doing (relatively) better in matches this season is that I feel much better conditioned for match conditions.
Another was mention of footwear, Nike cleats. Might be a small thing, but this past weekend I switched to a pair of boots with much more aggressive soles (not cleats tho), and it seemed to help a lot with providing a more stable shooting platform.
But yeah. C class to GM in less than a year. Wowsers.
Last edited by RJ; 10-27-2020 at 11:17 AM.
Ben Stoeger initial classification was GM after his 1st match. It was a classifier match.
More importantly, he was already a very good shooter before coming to USPSA. That is the whole point. There are some guys who progressed very quickly in USPSA. There are many reasons for that but the one is they were already very good. I have met quite a few people like that who came to the sport from different but related disciplines. If Ben was really new, he'd not make it in 6 months.