Gun Nuts Media

Sometimes more is better. Despite my concerns about the future of USPSA in the post below this, there was a very interesting note from the USPSA Revolver Nationals. As many of you know, USPSA changed the rules for revolver division recently to allow for 8-shot revolvers scoring minor powerfactor in revolver division. That makes Revo somewhat mirror Single Stack. In Single Stack, you can run a 10-shot minor gun, and in revo an 8-shot minor gun. The difference is that most Single Stack shooters usually opt for the 8 round major PF guns. However, this year at revolver nationals, all 10 of the top 10 shooters were using minor PF guns.

In fact, only three of the shooters in the top 25 used Major PF guns. I actually wondered how this would turn out, because the Single Stack Nationals are set up in a way to encourage using an 8-shot major gun; I wanted to see if the stage design would push shooters one way or the other. It looks like I have my answer on that topic.

Of course, what this really makes me want to do is get my 929 all tuned up by Apex and go shoot a bunch of USPSA revolver now. Because shooting a six shot gun in USPSA is pretty much the definition of misery (hooray for standing reloads) but an 8-shot gun can be a lot of fun. No standing reloads? Sign me up for some of that. It also makes me want to get a 1911 in .38 Super and shoot Single Stack in Minor, because I do actually believe that’s the way to go for Area matches with a SS gun. More bullets = more better, in my opinion.

Of course, what I really want is for Single Stack to allow the Browning Hi-Power as well, so I can finally have a really good reason to buy a Browning Hi-Power Practical. Which I need. Because of reasons. But back to the point, I’d like to see more of this from USPSA: options. In Limited, the capacity advantage for Minor doesn’t really make it worth the points tradeoff, and the same applies to Open. Could USPSA change it to make things more interesting? Would you like to see USPSA expand the Production rules to allow 15 rounds in the magazine to match up to IPSC?

Yes, you read that headline correctly, it says “Rob Leatham wins USPSA Revolver Nationals.” You’re probably wondering “wow, how did he do it? I bet the showdown between TGO and Jerry was amazing!”

You’d be wrong. Jerry Miculek, the greatest revolver shooter in the history of ever, didn’t shoot the USPSA Revolver Nationals. He shot a 3-Gun Nation Pro Series match instead. Roll that one around in your head for a minute, because it actually has pretty significant implications. The greatest revolver shooter in the world didn’t really feel like defending his USPSA title, so he shot a 3-Gun match. That he didn’t win. But he probably did better at the prize table for his 3-Gun finish than he would have winning Revolver Nationals.

We’ve been saying for a while that 3-Gun is the ascendant sport when it comes to “high-profile” shooting sports. IDPA has become the dominant handgun sport, with larger membership and more media coverage; Bianchi Cup is clearly the most prestigious sport with its huge prize tables and proper drama; meanwhile USPSA can’t even attract the king of revolvers to their own revolver championship? Additionally, the Steel Challenge reboot is 2.5 months away, and rumor has it that there are less than 30 entrants so far. 30 entrants…for what used to be one of the crown jewels of the shooting sports.

So what’s going on with USPSA? I’m asking because I deeply love the shooting sports – I want to see all the handgun sports succeed. It’s not a zero-sum game, where a successful IDPA takes shooters away from USPSA; there are plenty of shooters to go around and plenty of people with different sporting interests. But it seems like more and more, the shooters who want to really “race” their guns are turning to 3-Gun for their action fix. It makes me worry, because I personally don’t want to live in a world where USPSA isn’t around; we need the sport, because we need a handgun only sport to provide options for people who don’t want to shoot IDPA. NRA AP doesn’t have the club level presence or the fun factor to replace USPSA.

Maybe I’m just overthinking it and USPSA will be fine. But it’s not hard to look at the trajectory of the shooting sports five or six years down the road, and see USPSA relegated to the 2nd tier of shooting sports. I don’t mean this as a knock to ICORE, but USPSA could end up there – an organization with one big match a year, and a few regional matches, but not something at the top of people’s minds when they think “shooting sports.”

I categorically do not want that to happen. Like I said when discussing how USPSA has mistreated Steel Challenge, I don’t want any of the shooting sports to go away. I don’t want to see them poorly administered, either. I want us, all of shooters to have a thriving, vibrant shooting culture where we’re spoiled for choices on what matches we want to shoot. I worry that if things don’t change with USPSA, if they don’t do something to step their marketing game up, we could lose one of those choices. That would be a loss for all of us, regardless of whether or not you shoot USPSA.

To draw a final comparison, I remember a time when IDPA was struggling. Then they made the decision to go hard in the paint and market directly towards newer shooters and CCW holders, in an aggressive way they’d not done before. Suddenly their facebook page bloomed, they had major (firearms) media covering their national level events, and recruiting expanded. They made a conscious marketing choice about the shooters they wanted to pursue, and went after them with a vengeance. I worry that USPSA doesn’t know what kind of shooters it wants to pursue, and has no real effective marketing plan to pursue them.

Maybe I’m just talking crazy, and everything is going to be fine with USPSA. I can honestly say I’ve never hoped to be wrong more than I do when I write this.