I remember showing up to my first USPSA match and being kind of intimidated by all of the folks that were there with their fancy shooting shirts, covered in sponsor logos. Patrick in Detroit sent in a question for the Q&A; podcast way back in about July of 2016. At the time I promised him that I'd do an episode about his question, and I set out looking for someone to interview who knows more about it than I do. What I found was a little surprising: most people don't really want to talk about the details. So, I've spent the last 9 months or so looking into the different sponsorships by talking to folks at matches, reading things on the internet, and observing. What I've ascertained is that there are 3 basic types of sponsorships in the shooting sports:  Free Stuff Contingency Program Team Shooters  There's a 4th type of sponsorship that people think exists, but it doesn't really, and that's the "paid professional shooter". Companies have paid spokesman who shoot, but I'm not aware of anyone who just get's paid to shoot matches and practice all the time. I don't think it exists. 

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Competitive shooting, mostly. Some concealed carry and gun rights stuff mixed in too. Most of all, I try not to take myself too seriously.

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This week I talk about cheating in the shooting sports, and what to do ab out it.

Cheating Cheaters who Cheat

I've become interested in hearing from people who are the best in the world in other sports recently, so I've been actively seeking out podcasts with people who are the best of the best in what they do.  I kept hearing references to an interview Joe Rogan did with an ultramarathoner named Courtney Dauwalter on his podcast. She won a race called the Moab 240, which is a 238 mile foot race through Moab Utah. She won the overall by something ridiculious like 11 hours or something. Later in the interview, Joe asks her about nutrition, and much to my surprise, she doesn't have a crazy diet, she said that she eats nachos, candy, and beer. She's a total outlier. It's amazing, but just because she does it, doesn't mean that I can keep eating nachos, candy, and beer and do what she does. The same goes for shooting. There might be someone who is REALLY good that doesn't practice like crazy, but they aren't you.

Outliers

This week I had a local Production Master Travis Beal come on the podcast. Travis and I used to be close to the same level, and then all the sudden he rocketed past me and started really killing it as a shooter. As it stands now, he's going to become a Grand Master any time, and it's all because of the change of mindset he had after getting disqualified at a major match.

How Travis Beal Got Good at Shooting

Chris asked on the Facebook group about competitive equity at matches: Ports - all ports being the same high or low height. Should they be mixed height? I'm taller than most shooters. Not the tallest guy on the range, but above average. Personally I don't have a problem with MD's mixing up the height of ports, as long as they aren't going too crazy with it. Tall shooters can get low, but short shooters can't get higher. I think there's a size and height of port that can work for every shooter, and then it's totally kosher to add in something like a low port here and there. I like low ports, mostly because I like to hear people grumble about them, and also because I like to see people really get tested on their prone handgun shooting skills, which is something that nobody practices, and a lot of people struggle with. Walking stages - should stages be open the day before for people that can travel? I had to ponder this one for a little bit, and while it's not completely fair that someone could walk the match the day before, and someone else couldn't, as long as the the range is open for everyone to have the opportunity to walk the match, I'm pretty much okay with it. Because if we close the stages off completely to everyone until match day, do the match staff that helped setup the match not have an advantage over everyone else? My thing is this: If the range is open to everyone to walk stages the day before, and you just can't get an early flight in to the match, that's not the concern of the match, that's your problem. What about Match Directors who setup stages that will be used at a future major match, at a local match ahead of time? Setting up exact stages seems shady. I haven't seen that before, at least that I can think of. However when the Carolina Cup was still the big IDPA match in my area every June, if you were to shoot at that range in the few months leading up to the match, you could definitely tell that the match director was working on different things to get ready for the match. Things like tweaking the speed of moving targets, engagement orders, different props, etc, but I don't think he really ever setup entire stages for everyone to shoot ahead of the match. Personally, the big competitive equity thing that I see is pepper poppers screwing people over. If I were king of the shooting sports, the first thing I would change would be to treat poppers the same as falling steel. If it's hit and doesn't fall, that should be a stage equipment malfunction, and the the shooter should get a re-shoot. Plug of the Week: Watch this episode of This Week Tonight, and tell me what you think about the messaging that they're countering. Is this the sort of messaging the pro-gun people should be putting out there?

Competitive Equity

I mentioned a theory on the podcast a couple weeks ago about how I expected that higher class shooters would probably pull away from lower class shooters on the shorter stages moreso than the longer stages, but gthat it was just a theory because I didn't want to do the math. Well, I got an email from Louis, and he pulled the data from the different stages at the 2017 Production Nationals and... I was totally wrong.  Louis broke down the stages from Nationals, then charted the median percentage by round count on a chart and it turns out that the median finish from each classification was about the same on all the different round count stages. Louis has been pulling the numbers on some other things with classifications and whatnot and if you want to see them, look in the shownotes for this episode and I'll have a link to his github page with the deets:  https://lstange.github.io/uspsa/classification_vs_performance.html (By the way, if you didn't know this, you *should* be able to access all the links and stuff from the podcast shownotes in whatever podcast app you're using. I always tell you to go to triangletactical.net/280 or whatever, that's unnecessary for most of you, all the links should be right in your podcast app in the shownotes for this episode). Why do people quit shooting? Trying to think of people who I know who have actually just quit, vs those who have just not been to a match in a while for one reason or another, but have every intention to shoot again. I've "quit" twice over the years. - Ammo crunch after the 2012 Obama Election - Hardcore burnout after ROing way too much So, I emailed everyone on the Triangle Tactical email list and asked them if they've ever quit shooting, and why. I got a bunch of answers that are pretty wide ranging. (BTW, this is what I like to use the email list for, so if you're not on it, get on it!) Interestingly, a bunch of people emailed me back and mentioned that cost probably makes some people quit, but nobody specifically emailed me back and said that they've quit because of cost. Joe mentioned that he's in Michigan and the winters shut down most of the matches up there. Jason and Khan mentioned time away from family. Some matches take a LONG time to get through, so I can see that. With a baby on the way, balancing matches and practice and family time is going to be something I need to put more emphasis on going forward. Several folks mentioned jobs. Either job loss, or new jobs, or jobs taking up way too much time on the weekends. Aaron actually said that he quit a job because his days off were only during the week and he had to work every weekend so he changed it up to get his weekends off. Quitting because the match near you isn't challenging. Aaron mentioned that quit because a local match jsut wasn't pushing him the way it needed to, took some time off and came back as a USPSA shooter where he's being challenged a lot more, and that's making things better for him. Boring clubs. James mentioned a "looks the same every month" match that was near him years ago that drove him away. A couple folks talked about physical injuries. Things that come from practice like tennis elbow, as well as other injuries that just keep them from shooting. Surgeries, etc. So, with all this said, the reasons that people have quit shooting, lets talk for a minute about what's brought people back:  Friends Needing a competitive outlet Something to do with kids as they've gotten older and need more man skills. Noticing that competition makes them want to be more athletic and get into better shape than they were previously.  Q&A;: "Why is there not a specific division for compact size firearms such as G19, CZ P01 or P07 etc?" Here's the thing: we don't need carve outs for every size of firearm. If we were to do that we wind up with way too many divisions, and things just get silly after a while.  In my opinion, the other reason for this is because most shooters don't want to shoot their little tiny guns in USPSA, at least not long term. 32rd stages with little guns that sometimes don't even hold 10 rounds doesn't really sound like a great time to me. I get that the guns mentioned all hold 10+ rounds, but if we're going to go down the tiny-gun rabbit hole, what about guns like the Shield, XDs, and others? So, with all this said, I think the reasoning here is that USPSA isn't really interested in doing what IDPA does. IDPA has a place for these little guns, and they work really well in that game, because of round count, and because of the concealed carry sort of design of that game.  All this isn't to day that USPSA doesn't have a place for the compact guns you mentioned though. All three guns you mentioned (Glock 19, CZ P01, and CZ P07) are specifically called out as legal on the USPSA Production list. There's nothing keeping these guns from being shot in Production, I see guys shoot Glock 19's in Production all the time.  "Should competitors be allowed to shoot two divisions in the same match? I'm starting to see this a lot locally where people are shooting both handgun and PCC during the match (and paying two entry fees)." No. We have a hard enough time getting shooters to help during the match, so letting someone shoot, then wander off to the safe area to bag a gun and un-bag another one, then come back to the stage, stuff mags full from the gun they just shot, check the gear for the gun that they're about to shoot, then shoot the second gun, then wander back to the safe area to switch back, stuff mags for the other gun, means that this person will NEVER run the timer or work the tablet. They'll NEVER paste target for more than a shooter or two per stage if we're lucky, and then they're taking up more time by shooting the second gun.  With that said, if there's a multi-day match and shooters can shoot different divisions on different days, no problem. There's also a local BUG match that allows multiple entries, and for that match it works really well. The stages are 5rds tops. No reloads, and no holster needed, so you can finish your first gun, bag it, and take your second gun out of it's bag when it's time to shoot. Easy peasy, and it works just fine because there isn't much pasting and resetting to do, so there is time for people to switch guns at that match. 

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