Dear USPSA

I would love to see some changes made to USPSA formats for 2010.  While there are many things I’d like to see changed, there is none greater than fixing the revolver division.

Right now, there is no reason whatsoever to limit Revolver division to 6 rounds in the gun.  What I’d like to see would be a simple rule change that would make Revolver division mirror Single Stack in terms of ammo capacity.  In Single Stack, if you’re shooting Major power factor, you’re limited to a maximum of 8 rounds in the magazine, but if you’re shooting Minor PF you can have up to 10 rounds in the mag.  For Revolver division, you could change the rule so that if you’re shooting Major PF, you’re limited to 6 round revolvers, such as the S&W 610 or 625, but if you shoot Minor PF, you could be allowed to use 7 and 8 shot revolvers such as the S&W 627 (8-shot) or the Taurus 66 (7-shot, cut for moonclips of course).

I think that making this kind of divisional change would really enhance the competition in the Revolver division, as the strategy of Minor vs. Major would enter in, as well as how to best count your rounds before your reload.

I’d like to see a similar change for IDPA, but I’m not quite as sure how we’d go about enacting it, since they break moonclip and speedloader revolvers into two different divisions.  Thoughts on that are welcome in the comments.

9 Comments

  1. Given the commonness of 8 round target arrays in USPSA stages, it seems the 8 rounder would be a huge advantage, even with minor scoring. Has this idea been discussed on the brianenos forum at all? I did a quick search but couldn’t find anything.

  2. Hell, if were dumping on USPSA revo. rules, I’ll add my thoughts:

    Why not do what ICORE does and make a “retro” division – no moon clips, 6 shots only, minor scoring only.

    A lot of folks with old Mod. 10’s, 19’s, 15’s, 686’s, etc just plain don’t shoot USPSA with revo. because there is no way you’re going to come out ahead against guys with 25’s/625’s, etc.

    IDPA did it right with the ESR and SSR, but the rules are still not as free flowing (tactical reloads with a revolver? C’mon…) as USPSA.

  3. MCA:
    Your section may be different, but based on what I see here, 2 revolver divisions in USPSA would be ridiculous. A typical club match here with 80 shooters has 4 shooting revolver. Should we now split them in to two divisions of two?

    ICORE can do it because they only have revo shooters. The divisions make sense in IDPA to allow people to shoot their carry gear, but even there they’re usually tiny relative to the auto divisions.

  4. I’ll agree with Jeff on this one. I shoot a lot of matches in Colorado. And it’s VERY unusual to see even one wheel gun. I hate to say it, but revolvers are disappearing here. (There is only one ICORE match per month that I can find)

    You know what we really need?
    A “major” class for production.

    In Colo, production is always very popular, but there are a lot of guys who shoot Limited 10 because they have 45 cal Glocks or Sigs.
    I think that should be the next split for USPSA.

  5. Yeah, sadly I have to agree with Jeff. Usually at our USPSA matches I’m the only one shooting a wheelgun. Although, the flipside is that maybe if USPSA did that, you’d open up the division to more revolver shooters.

    Maybe you could a sub division of production with wheelguns, ala the ICORE Retro division. Call it Revo-Production, or something.

    As far as a Major-Production division, that’s kind of what Limited 10 is turning into anyway. The last three years it’s been won by a “Production” shooter running a .40 S&W version of their 9mm Production gun.

  6. I think more divisions is rarely the answer. At the matches I’ve seen, Open, Limited and Production are pretty close in participation (20-30), revo and L10 each have about 5, and SS has 2 or 3.

    If I were to cut a division, it would be either L10 or SS. I’d rather keep SS as it’s kinda a retro division like revolver. L10 seems to be pretty much an artifact of the AWB. I live in a state still stuck with the ban and I still wouldn’t want to shoot L10 now that we have production. If you want major and lots of reloading, shoot SS.

  7. I guess really what we need to think about is this:

    What would be good for the sport?
    I would answer “More people”

    If adding a revolver “major/minor” distinction gets more people out, that’s a good thing.
    The less specialized equipment you need, the easier it is to get people out there shooting.

  8. If there was equipment that wasn’t legal for any division, I’d agree with you. I shot my first match with a Browning Hi-power in limited minor with 13 round mags. Was it optimal to be competitive in the division, hell no. Did that affect how much fun I had, another hell no. You don’t need specialized equipment to come out and try it. Any safe serviceable handgun will do.

    Also, there are very few guns that aren’t competitive somewhere. The Hi-Power is one, though with 17 round mags it’s not *that* bad in limited. 8 shot revolvers is another, but they don’t give up that much in production.

  9. I think there are couple of topics floating around in this comments thread…

    1.) Major Production
    I’ve got to agree with Caleb about his assessment of L10. It is either people running big-stick single stacks or downloaded production .40s.

    2.) Increasing The Amount of Shooters.
    Lee said that getting more people out is a good thing. Currently you have a lot of folks who own .38’s that just aren’t going to shoot USPSA no matter how fun it is because they’re just at such a disadvantage.

    If we stop to think about it, IDPA started because people got sick of the race guns. Same goes for ICORE (http://www.icore.org/About_ICORE.html)

    If I’m not mistaken, USPSA, for fear of losing membership, decided to get on the ball and make a production division. Think of the potential there – how many folks are told by the NRA during a basic safety course that a revolver is a good gun?

    3.) Fun vs Serious
    People don’t like to suck. That is why we’ve got divisions, classes, etc… Sure, I’ve shot my *HiPower/snubbie/raven/P38* for fun at a match, but not on classifier night…

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