Sidearms & Scatterguns Any USPSA shooters here

[steve123]

LOLOLOL.........Probably a quarter of that number is true these days. And not because classifiers have become easier. Quite this opposite in fact.

Looking back at it this thread has a few posts that didn't age well.

Did you get to Master yet?

 

[308pirate]

Did you get to Master yet?

Yes. And along the way I learned several things

Pellet guns, 22 pistols, lasers, airsoft, and dry fire gimmicks that reset the trigger are a complete waste of time and money.

Accuracy and speed can absolutely be learned simultaneously even by someone who's never shot before. It's the absolute fastest path to mastering handguns.

Front sight focus is unnecessary about 95% of the time.

100% of Fudd pistol technique and concepts are wrong.

 

[steve123]

Yes. And along the way I learned several things

Pellet guns, 22 pistols, lasers, airsoft, and dry fire gimmicks that reset the trigger are a complete waste of time and money.

Accuracy and speed can absolutely be learned simultaneously even by someone who's never shot before. It's the absolute fastest path to mastering handguns.

Front sight focus is unnecessary about 95% of the time.

100% of Fudd pistol technique and concepts are wrong.

Congratulations. Obviously you've worked hard at it.

 

[joer308]

Congratulations. Obviously you've worked hard at it.

Along with several other things

 

[davere]

LOLOLOL.........Probably a quarter of that number is true these days.

I didn't keep super accurate track of round count... but I made "A" on about 20k rounds, "M" on about double that, and GM on about double that (so, 80k-ish to GM, for me, give or take), but that belies all the dry fire work, etc, between D->A/M, and just the time. And I wasn't a dry fire over achiever at all, I just did some consistently. I started shooting more bigger matches at A/M, which pushed up my round count - and live fire practice became quite a bit more important for progress once I hit M.

I could've accelerated that more by taking more training, TBH. Training resulted in my biggest leaps up until M. After you hit that point, it can be important, but you've just gotta figure some stuff out on your own in practice, too, at that point.

To your point, totally agree that A in 25k is a pretty easy goal - and yeah, M is probably do-able there, if you do it right.

 

[308pirate]

I didn't keep super accurate track of round count... but I made "A" on about 20k rounds, "M" on about double that, and GM on about double that (so, 80k-ish to GM, for me, give or take), but that belies all the dry fire work, etc, between D->A/M, and just the time. And I wasn't a dry fire over achiever at all, I just did some consistently. I started shooting more bigger matches at A/M, which pushed up my round count - and live fire practice became quite a bit more important for progress once I hit M.

I could've accelerated that more by taking more training, TBH. Training resulted in my biggest leaps up until M. After you hit that point, it can be important, but you've just gotta figure some stuff out on your own in practice, too, at that point.

To your point, totally agree that A in 25k is a pretty easy goal - and yeah, M is probably do-able there, if you do it right.

It took me somewhere between 30 and 35k rounds to make M last November just basing it on how many primers I've gone through since starting CO in 2020.

C and B in 2020, A in 2021, M in 2023.

Focused and frequent dry fire, especially working on movement and transitions, kept the round count reasonable.

It's been interesting to see the evolution in training and techniques of very high level pistol shooting evolve over the last 6 to 8 years.

 

[jrb06]

Ben Stoeger just released a video discussing how he became GM in less then 5,000 rounds.

 

[steve123]

I didn't keep super accurate track of round count... but I made "A" on about 20k rounds, "M" on about double that, and GM on about double that (so, 80k-ish to GM, for me, give or take), but that belies all the dry fire work, etc, between D->A/M, and just the time. And I wasn't a dry fire over achiever at all, I just did some consistently. I started shooting more bigger matches at A/M, which pushed up my round count - and live fire practice became quite a bit more important for progress once I hit M.

I could've accelerated that more by taking more training, TBH. Training resulted in my biggest leaps up until M. After you hit that point, it can be important, but you've just gotta figure some stuff out on your own in practice, too, at that point.

To your point, totally agree that A in 25k is a pretty easy goal - and yeah, M is probably do-able there, if you do it right.

It took me 20,000 or so to get to mid A but the commitment in, time, finances, and will power, made me tap out at that point.

I live in a city that at the time/20+years ago didn't have a club to shoot in, so once a month, if that, I'd travel.
Meanwhile I saw the shooters below my ability level from time to time when I'd visit those other cities, that had weekly leagues, advance way quicker than I did. Those guys also had M's and GM's in their clubs to help them.

One guy I'm thinking of in particular started a lead bullet making business in the Lake Havasu area. He finished low pack in B stock at the AHWS which was a man against man steel match one year,(before he started his business), then the next year won B stock. He said they shot a lot locally and traveled a lot as well. Honestly he was already a master level shooter and I wasn't sure how he hadn't been put in A at minimum.
The next year I won B stock.

Later on a young local guy would travel down to Phoenix and took classes from Rob Leatham and he outpaced me in a short while but I had pretty much stopped practicing by then. I remember going down to Phoenix to a match and I shot a long hard stage with lots of steel that could not have gone better for me. I hit all A's and all the steel then that other guy did the same thing about 2 seconds faster, LOL,?!

Then I started to get into precision rifles more so pistol shooting went to the side but I can still Fudd 9 for 10 of 1.5" steel rounds at 12Y with my Olympic air pistol and be near the top at our local steel challenge using a stock Canik, and usually the top "old guy" here. It'd take much more practice with new gear to get a win though. I don't know if I could even then.