Made USPSA CO M

[weaverftw]

I got into USPSA because I heard some “automatic gunfire” next to the steel range I was at. At the time I didn’t know Action Pistol was a thing. Well I walked over to the range and saw a USPSA competition in progress. The MD saw me and explained what they were doing. He also showed me his weird looking gun called a “Infinity”. I thought it was weird-looking alien gun at first glance. Anyways, that club is now my home club.

Biggest thing that held me back was lack of Dryfire and practice at the range, but also not shooting the right platform. I started on the 320 X5 Legion,but didn’t really like it. Then moved to a HK VP9 Match, which was ok but the grip was too anemic and thin for me. I wasn’t able to get good purchase on the gun with my weak hand.

I wish I had gone straight to the Shadow 2 at first and saved myself the money and time. But it was a fun learning experience nonetheless.

The truth imo is you need to compete on a regular basis, as well as live-fire practice. Most of USPSA is a thinking game... think stage plans. BUT your execution (shooting skills) needs to be as perfect as you can be.

Competing regularly allows you to build experience, so when you’re walking a new stage, you’re already “seeing” the possibilities of stage plan. What’s the round count and number of targets? Where’s your reload? How many minimum shooting positions are necessary? What can you blend (shoot on the move)? Where are the high-risk targets? Where can I be aggressive, where do I need to be conservative? How many makeup shots do I have? What’s the average hit factor of this stage going to be? Stuff like this.

The two most important concepts I’ll close with…

1. Read the WSB. No seriously

2. Grip, sights, trigger. That’s your priority.

All good advice, thanks! I did the Mason Lane class recently and he gave the same advice for #2, but he said “vision” instead of “sights”. Not just sight alignment but target focus, leading with vision on transitions, vision’s impact on movement, etc

Congrats on the achievement!

 

[Brandon Breeze]

First time shooting a handgun for me was two years ago. Last week, I made Master class in Carry Optics with my Shadow 2.

All I can say - if you are not dry firing at least twice a day (doesn’t have to be long) you’re wasting time, money, and ammo.

And if you own a bunch of guns but don’t shoot competitions, you really should. Especially if you have a CCW. Stress inoculation is real.

Don't go trying to make sense to people now!

I noticed very quickly how few gun owners want to actually get dramatically better in handling and shooting their firearms after I started USPSA (7 matches in now). Only one of my long time friends has joined me so far and he loves it too. It's just about getting over that initial fear that you totally suck (at USPSA or other competition/sport) and will need a lot of work.

The best part though it that as long as you're safe out there, no one is going to be telling you to stop competing and it's solely up to you to dig in and get to the level that you want.

For me, I have a lot of lingering injuries from motorcycle and car crashes, so I won't be able to run around like a chicken with my head cut off like these twenty somethings, but I'm ok with it, having a ton of fun and see very clearly where I'm at and the things I need to improve on.

Congrats on getting to M Class!, that's a tall order in any division these days with the HHF's being what they are, and a lot of the possibillites of getting to be a Paper M/GM taken away with rule changes (from my understanding listening to the OG's).

I'm still shooting in Open like a dummy, lol. That's ok though it's an absolute blast. Once that S&W M&P 2.0 HD Metal Competitor gets on Roster, I'll have a dedicated LO/CO gun, where the HHF's are often barely any less than Open, lol. I've honestly been thinking about just shooting my 43X since that's my main EDC even though it would have to be in Open due to the Ramjet, just so I can get a ton of reps on it while moving and shooting. Been thinking about L10 honestly since Optics are allowed now. Would love to go run some stages with my TRP! So many fun options for sure.

I plan on shooting 3 matches a month and at least one practice (drills) or one practice match.

Without traveling too far I could shoot a match almost every weekend and two matches on two separate weekends if I really wanted to get deep into it, BUT gotta plan/budget wisely since I've now moved to shooting from around 1k rounds per month to 1.5k+ rounds per month.