If the Club you attend announces the classifier in advance, maybe. If they do, classifier diagrams can be found under the club support tab at the USPSA website.

From C to B, it's less time more than more points. 90% of points, alpha/charlie on each target, is competitive. Time is removed through the draw stroke and through the reload on most classifiers. A 1.50 draw stroke and a 2 second reload will get you there. Setting a timer on a par time will assist.

Back to paragraph one. If the classifier requires a specific draw stroke, turn/strong hand/weak hand, heavy on the dry fire to the needed draw stroke. Same for the reload. I would also recommend dry firing the entire mechanics of the classifier in your living room. When it's smooth, not fast, you will do better.

If they do not announce the classifier, here is my daily dry fire/recoil management syllabus.

Draw, hands at side. Draw, wrists above shoulders. Draw, strong hand only. Draw, to weak hand. Mandatory reload. Turn, then draw, from wrists above shoulders. Bill Drill.

Take the opportunity to view Max Michel's videos on YouTube. Really good stuff.

TQM
Prod M/Lim M

 

Points will get you there, but not without some semblance of speed. Sight picture is #1, #2 is not getting out of control with speed.

As stated above, dry fire, dry fire, dry fire. Master the different start positions, master your draw, and master reloads. All of these you can do without a range. Just don't forget your sight picture when you go live and that first shot leaves the gun

 

Getting INTO B is fairly easy, if you shoot matches regularly, (even without practicing outside of matches.)

Getting OUT of B and into A or above is what is hard! THAT is what requires practice and dedication.

BTW - Assuming that you're shooting mostly Alpha/Charlie, the thing that's going to help you advance the most is MOVEMENT! Planning your movement, shooting on the move, etc. is going to shave time off your run, and raise your hit factor.

 

Is it reasonable as a decent shooter to expect I might make it this season if I keep shooting every weekend? Pretty much all matches so far I've been falling somewhere in the middle in overall standings shooting single stack but hit factors in general have been going up.

 

How much effort are you willing to put into dry fire? It doesn't take a lot of time each day, but it does help if you do it 3-5 days per week. 20 minutes at a time is enough.

 

I spent two years in each class, D through A, shooting a match almost every weekend, with a small window of opportunity to make Master that I didn't take advantage of.
I don't think I fired more than 1000 rounds of live fire practice in 15 years.
Dry-fire practice in my garage, with reduced-scale targets, maybe an hour a week, was all I did between matches.

I know people who fired 25,000 practice rounds a year, for many years, to make Master, and I know a guy who made GM, practicing little more than I did, in three or four years.
Of course, I know guys who shoot thousands of practice rounds a year and are lifelong C class shooters, too, so there's not necessarily a strong correlation between the amount of practice that you do, and the benefit that comes from it.

 

i shoot at least one match (uspsa, idpa, 3 gun) almost every weekend year-round, sometimes a match both sat and sun. other than that, i do zero practice, live or dry, and am a B shooter (open, ltd and prod). i'm around your age as well. could i benefit from practice, sure, but i'm fine where i am and since getting into competitive shooting have pretty much zero interest in hitting a square/static range.

 

As Vince Lombardi said, (also several on Gunny sgt.s), "Practice does not make perfect." Perfect practice make Perfect. Yes you can do it. Sorry, you may or not be able to do it, but it can be done.

 

That's cute, but throw that out the window. If you force yourself to make every rep in practice perfect, you'll never push yourself hard enough to get any faster.

 

Hey guys,

I live in Chicago and all the private clubs within reason are full so I have no real opportunity to practice outside of actually shooting matches.
.

I used to live there and shot, statically of course, at public ranges. I don't live there anymore but almost all of my shooting is still done the same way, public ranges and standing. I made a B class shooting my carry P30 LEM HK (read: probably the worst gun / trigger for USPSA) by dry-firing, shooting at those static public ranges, and shooting matches infrequently.

Dry fire gets will get you there but it is helpful to verify your dry fire by live fire periodically. Also, people who prioritize classification over match placement almost invariably end up placing in matches 1-2 levels below what their card letter says. The best approach, in my eyes, is to prioritize field courses skills over standards/classifier skills. I am personally still a B class, even though I ditched an HK, and I am pretty sure I can get into A by going to classifier matches etc but I have no desire to become an A until I can hang with As at the matches. Just a food for thought.

 

I think the point is, there's good practice and bad practice, and even a whole lot of the latter isn't going to result in much improvement.

When I did practice, I found that I could not maintain my focus beyond about 150-200 rounds, so decided to not shoot more than that, when it would result only in being able to claim that I'd fired more practice rounds, rather than an improvement proportional to the additional shooting.

 

Maybe the takeaway from that is to work on the heavy focus items at the early part of practice, and the not so heavy focus ones at the end of practice. My routine is typically a few mags from the holster into two targets at 10 yards just to get the hands and trigger finger moving, then long distance partials, then movement drills, and then some bill drills. I usually go through 250-300 rounds in a practice, but you're right, at that point I'm spent.

 

Waktasz that is not what was meant by the perfect practice comment. It is more like only working half way in practice just makes you a half-way player.

Let me put it another way. As having been said, driving counter-clockwise around the freeway loop of a city twice a day for the last 10 years does not make you any better prepared to drive in the Indy 500.

 

So true. That's what I say to the "speed will come" crowd.

 

The answer to the OP's original question can be found here.*

 

That was a crazy good read. And very demoralizing for me. But thanks for the post.

 

Yes. I just made B with an hour or so of dryfire once per month. Its all time will allow with our new baby, old baby, work, etc.If you shoot more than one match per month you will advance much more quickly.

 

USPSA and advancing up the ranks.....

I shot USPSA exclusively for about eleven years, and have had the opportunity to see some very good shooters devleop to become Grand Masters in a very short amount of time. Now I shoot more IDPA than USPSA, but I still shoot USPSA and once in a while....three gun matches.

How fast a shooter moves up the ranks is a variable, since not everyone has the same shooting and physical abilities.....and yes, not everyone may become a GM.

Rob Leatham was once asked why he excelled at USPSA to be able to win two back to back USPSA National Championships.....his reply was that he felt he had "faster eye focus" than most shooters, so his ability to shoot fast on multiple targets gave him an edge due to his fast eye focus when using iron sights on a handgun. When Jerry Barnhart started winning with his Aimpoint mounted optics, this reduced the need for super fast eye focus, since the shooter simply had to follow the red dot onto the target with no more aligning the front and rear sight...........the majority of the Open division competitors moved to optical sights.

The ability of a shooter to move up the ranks depends on the physical ability and the visual acuity of the shooter. A shooter with a good sense of figuring out the fastest way to shoot a stage will often excel.....once the basics of proper pistol marksmanship are developed. A shooter that is fast and agile getting into and out of shooting positions will usually excel at USPSA. Things to work on at home would be to develop a fast presentation of the gun from the draw, and practicing "speed reloads." When a person has the time to shoot drills at the range, shooting as fast as possible with good control is needed......the shots may not be the best hits at first, but as a person learns to shoot fast with good control, they will develop better hits on the targets.

When I first started doing Vice Presidente drills, I wasn't very fast. A Vice Presidente drill is an El Presidente without having to start with the back to the targets to make a turn and draw to the first target....You simply face the targets 10 yards away, hands relaxed at sides.....then six shots, reload, six shots..... The more I pushed myself to shoot for speed and control...... with a good speed reload, I began shooting Vice Presidente drills under 5 seconds with good hits with my .38 super race gun.....

 

Practicing with an air-soft gun for USPSA

Speed shooting on steel targets is challenging, but there is very little shooter movement. Shooting steel is good for learning to make a good and consistent draw from the holster to shoot the first target, and learning how to move and stop the gun fast from target to target.

Mr. Sakai is an exceptional shooter to break the world record with his Open gun while competing against the top shooters of the action shooting world...... I am sure if he had the time and opportunity to practice USPSA, he may become a world champion in that sport as well...... Unfortunately, not being allowed to own a handgun in Japan is not conducive to the optimal training needed for USPSA!!!!

 

A Japanese guy WON the Steel Challenge practicing with airsoft, and then just a month of live fire after he got here. So the answer to your question depends a lot upon the level of competition where you are, your level of discipline, the types of matches being shot, and the type of gun/load you are using. If it's very fast, up close stuff, and you're using a heavy 9mm govt model the difference in recoil between an airsoft and the 9 wont be enough to keep you out of B class. Neither will somewhat slow stuff at longer ranges, assuming that you learn to always get a proper grip and trigger control. Shooting in the upper 20% of entrants is often not that tough. I've done so, using just one hand.