How do you decide when you are being limited by your equipment?

[Irving]

How do you decided when you are being limited by your equipment?

I certainly don't feel like I'm in that position, but I thought it might be an interesting discussion topic. I only have experience with IDPA, which isn't real equipment focused in the first place, but I'd like to hear from people from all kinds of competitions. What have been your experiences?

[pickenup]

While IDPA limits both holster and magazine capacity, both can make quite a difference in other disciplines.
On some firearms, when you get to moving along on a stage, rather than having to remember to move your finger forward far enough, a "short reset trigger" can shave some time off the clock.

[TheBelly]

How do you decided when you are being limited by your equipment?

I certainly don't feel like I'm in that position, but I thought it might be an interesting discussion topic. I only have experience with IDPA, which isn't real equipment focused in the first place, but I'd like to hear from people from all kinds of competitions. What have been your experiences?


I use my end-goals to define how far into the equipment game I go. My goal has always been to be more 'thoughtful' when I shoot, and to use it as a sort of training when I can't get the range time in the military. The ROs I'm sure get tired of hearing me ask my two questions: did I hit all the bad guys? and did I hit any hostages? That's what I really concern myself with.

I still use a G34 in all pistol competitions. The only thing I've done is put different sights on it.

My goal has never been to be the fastest with the smallest groups.

ive done pretty well when cha-lee didn't show up and Hoser used a revolver.

id say use your goals to define whether or not its worth it to you to positively eliminate equipment as a possible point of friction. It can get expensive!

[ray1970]

You could give me all the best stuff and put me up against a great shooter running mediocre gear and I'm going to get my ass handed to me. Skill and practice will take you further than anything.

Find another shooter who's skills you admire and see if he'll let you use his gear. If you shoot better than you ever have then your equipment is probably holding you back. If you still shoot like you normally do then maybe you haven't reached the limits of your gear just yet.

[CHA-LEE]

Pick a gun game, poll the field of competitors performing well, then test drive the gear if possible. Doing this will get your gun and gear selection narrowed down to the most viable options.

After that its all about honing your skills so you can make the most of what you have chosen to use. In the practical pistol shooting sports like USPSA, IDPA, or Steel Challenge it's usually the Indian not the Arrow getting the job done. You also don't want to hobble yourself by choosing a gun or gear that goes against the grain of what is needed. It also has to function reliably 100% of the time. I have seen more match performances trashed because of unreliable equipment than using less than optimal gear.

[cstone]

You could give me all the best stuff and put me up against a great shooter running mediocre gear and I'm going to get my ass handed to me. Skill and practice will take you further than anything.

Find another shooter who's skills you admire and see if he'll let you use his gear. If you shoot better than you ever have then your equipment is probably holding you back. If you still shoot like you normally do then maybe you haven't reached the limits of your gear just yet.

^^^^This!

When my son wanted to get his second guitar, I told him that a great musician makes a mediocre instrument sound good. A mediocre musician can only get mediocrity out of the finest instrument.

I think there are two kinds of people running the latest and greatest gear; sponsored competitors who are given good equipment, and gear whores with lots of money. Since I will never be good enough to get sponsored, I guess I need to go whore some more gear with the little bit of coin I can afford [Flower]

[Irving]

You could give me all the best stuff and put me up against a great shooter running mediocre gear and I'm going to get my ass handed to me. Skill and practice will take you further than anything.



This is pretty much how I feel about gear. I occasionally wonder if I'm missing out on something just because I've never experienced it before. For example a lot of people talk about upgrading triggers. I don't feel like I need to , but maybe it's because I've never tried one. Good comments so far.

Any personal experiences where you were skeptical about a new piece of gear, but once you tried it out it was night and day?

[XC700116]

It really depends on the game, the only game I really play is long range rifle, and it's a gear whore's wet dream, but damn it gets spendy. Some of the least expensive items can give you huge strides. BUT there's certain items you just can't skimp on and none of those are cheap.

Best thing I can say for a guide, is see if you can test drive someone else's wiz-bang gear and if it works better for you, then it's an advantage you might consider, If you don't instantly feel it as an added benefit, it's probably not worth it. You'll know immediately.

[Limited GM]

Nothing is more limiting than gear that won't run. Period.

[Great-Kazoo]

The question is do you want to compete and have fun. OR compete till you're sponsored and doing nationals, so to speak?
Way back when IDPA was starting in CO (you know who you are) I watched and listened to those more experienced than me. Outside of a belt, the gear was what i carried daily. I honed what skills i had, using the tools before me to improve my overall performance. Could i have purchased the latest high tech holster of course. That's not how i ccw'd or was it a place i wanted to compete in.
Hone your skills then decide if you want to go to the next level of competition. YMWV

[bobbyfairbanks]

You will know when you your at the peak of your equipment.

A really good good shooter is gonna perform well with everything. Spending a shit ton of money to buy an open gun won't make you better then some guy shooting a stock production gun.

[Alpha2]

I've shot with great triggers, decent triggers, and now finally with a total crap trigger. I just replaced the crap trigger.
But I think that the difference between a crap trigger and a decent enough trigger will net you a lot more than the difference between a decent one and an excellent one. Unless you shoot Bullseye Pistol. Then you need the best trigger you can get. Same goes for long-range precision rifle. Running-and-gunning, reliability is likely more important, except for the elite shooters. Then it's reliability and very finely tuned equipment all around.
I can't begin to compete with the elites, so I just have fun with "pretty good" stuff.
If you've got enough money for something fancy, or a bunch o' practice ammo...go for the ammo, and practice.

[muddywings]

How do you decided when you are being limited by your equipment?

I certainly don't feel like I'm in that position, but I thought it might be an interesting discussion topic. I only have experience with IDPA, which isn't real equipment focused in the first place, but I'd like to hear from people from all kinds of competitions. What have been your experiences?

Simple: when your wallet allows you to buy cooler stuff!

[Irving]

Simple: when your wallet allows you to buy cooler stuff!

I'm sponsored by American Express!

[ray1970]

I'm sponsored by American Express!
By that logic I must be sponsored by my company.

[Irving]

When I was newish to the site, I once asked Hoser if he was sponsored. He replied that he was indeed sponsored, by his wife.

[MarkCO]

With such a broad question, one could write on the subject for several days and not get anywhere meaningful. The topic of what and how you want to shoot combined with the mental aspect is important. I just got off the phone with a friend who is unhappy with a new pistol's accuracy. He has the skills to know he can out-shoot the pistol at all but the fastest speeds, and he wants better accuracy.

Use a laser in dryfire and actually measure YOUR accuracy potential with a variety of gear. When you do, you will notice one of three things. 1. Your trigger control is only affected by speed. 2. Your trigger control is affected by speed and a lighter trigger 3. Your trigger control is unaffected by speed or a lighter trigger. These are, in essence, the normal progressions in trigger control. When you have very good trigger control the weight and nature of the trigger control is not important if you have all the time you need. As the time pressure increases, the skill level has to increase a lot. But so too, better equipment does help to mask technique errors.

In pistol, when 20 MOA is considered to be acceptable accuracy, the separation between shooter input and equipment input is a multiplier rather than just additive, and most is technique. That said, there is a scant shooter who will have any meaningful difference between platforms provided the sights work for them and the ergonomics are at least workable. Kind of the 90/90 thing...90% of shooters can not outshoot 90% of the pistols in the marketplace. I know that when I shot IDPA exclusively, weather I was shooting 9mm, .40 or .45, SPP, ESP or CDP, I almost always scored about the same.

When you go to shotgun, the fit is so much more important and proper fit and technique with and 870 will always beat an ill-fitting Perazzi.

When you go to rifles, equipment and technique become less of an issue to actual MOA, but more of an issue if the target sized is shrunk. When you are talking 2MOA and under, especially at distances past about 300 yards, then equipment becomes even more important, largely because anyone who is invested has practiced enough to have at least moderately decent skill levels. If not, they quit and sell their gear pretty quick.

So, in general, I decide when I use two pieces of equipment, on the range with a quantifiable measure that can be proven on the clock or scoresheet. Most of the time, it becomes mental. If you think something is better, it can add some fuel to the fire and in essence, you perform better because you have more confidence in the gear. Double edged sword there for sure.

[Gravy Sandwich]

As I moved up the ranks of IDPA and USPSA it became increasingly clear that the best Indians shoot the best arrows, with few exceptions. Likewise, as my skills progressed I found small changes in my equipment became more noticable. Proper sight dimensions became more important as my shot calling skills improved, and trigger quality became crucial as accuracy and speed at longer distances became mandatory to advance to the next level. Only once in my early days did changing guns make a significant improvement. Since then, its been a game of a thousand cuts, constantly making small tweaks to improve my overall performance in small increments.

Next year will be devoted to USPSA Limited. Though I've had respectable finishes running what is essentially a polymer SSP gun, the shortcomings of the platform are apparent . Competing with inferior equipment against equally skilled shooters sometimes feels like going into a match with a built in excuse for mediocre performance. Though I don't expect massive improvements overnight with the new gun I'm contemplating, its a better tool for the job.

[Erni]

I think your goal dictates the equipment to a large degree. Is your goal winning the local matches, going to nationals or having fun or maybe consistently hitting a target of size X? In 3g my goal became to have fun, while hitting all my targets within the allowed time, so the mossberg 500 had to go as I could not run the pump fast in matches. And I hated timing out on the shotgun stage. Was I limited by equipment? Yes and no, as I have seen folks go amazingly fast with a pump but for me it was limiting. Is my gear still holding me back? Yes, I need some shell caddies and to practice the fancy 4 shell load technique. I had the same issue with the revolver reload, but once I moon cliped the gun my speed improved.
Skill is huge but running sub par gear just amplifies your weaknesses and is counter productive.

[CHA-LEE]

One thing to keep in mind is that when you do have the best equipment available it is still only half of the equation. The Indian still needs to command the Arrow properly. Through multiple competitive "racing" type of hobbies, I have seen competitors come in and buy the top of the line everything and then get frustrated and quit because having the best gear simply put more focus on their lack in skills. When you can't blame a poor performance on not having the "best" gear, that is a humble pie not many people like to eat. Those are the flash in the pan type of competitors that usually come and go quickly.

[Irving]

The responses have been fantastic so far. We need more discussions about competing around here.

I usually just do things to have fun, but I've recently improved to the point where I'm beginning to feel competitive. When I first started IDPA, my goal was to hit the bad guys and not hit the good guys. At the time it was a pretty significant challenge for me.

[Hoser]

When I was newish to the site, I once asked Hoser if he was sponsored. He replied that he was indeed sponsored, by his wife.

Still am. She isnt getting shit for a return on her investment thats for sure.

[Hoser]

A small but huge change you can make are sights and a trigger job.

A bigger change is getting some training from a skilled instructor. Notice I said skilled instructor and not just some shooter that is pretty good.

[cstone]

It is amazing to me how many people who are really good at a skill, but lack the ability to teach that skill to others. It is a rare gift to find someone who actually knows how to shoot but more importantly, they know how to teach others how to shoot better.

[Irving]

A small but huge change you can make are sights and a trigger job.

A bigger change is getting some training from a skilled instructor. Notice I said skilled instructor and not just some shooter that is pretty good.

I often wonder about this. I've never had formal instruction before. I'm excited to start shooting rifle because I haven't shot enough to develop any habits and would like some formal instruction to start.


It is amazing to me how many people who are really good at a skill, but lack the ability to teach that skill to others. It is a rare gift to find someone who actually knows how to shoot but more importantly, they know how to teach others how to shoot better.

This is me all day long. I've found that I'm very poor at trying to teach others things.

[thermobollocks]

It took me 20k rounds to notice that maybe I didn't get along with the trigger on my Beretta.

It took me 10k rounds on my M&P to notice how chunky the front sight was at speed, then another 10k rounds to notice the 4" slide cycles faster than the 5" slide.

Maybe in another 20k rounds I'll even be able to do something with those observations.

[Irving]

It took me 20k rounds to notice that maybe I didn't get along with the trigger on my Beretta.

It took me 10k rounds on my M&P to notice how chunky the front sight was at speed, then another 10k rounds to notice the 4" slide cycles faster than the 5" slide.

Maybe in another 20k rounds I'll even be able to do something with those observations.

You and I sound a lot a like.

[TheBelly]

It is amazing to me how many people who are really good at a skill, but lack the ability to teach that skill to others. It is a rare gift to find someone who actually knows how to shoot but more importantly, they know how to teach others how to shoot better.


I saw some incredibly horrible folks graduate from the ABI/SGI courses.

I think I have a gift for teaching. I have no discernible skills to teach to others, but I can teach, dammit!

[XC700116]

One thing to keep in mind is that when you do have the best equipment available it is still only half of the equation. The Indian still needs to command the Arrow properly. Through multiple competitive "racing" type of hobbies, I have seen competitors come in and buy the top of the line everything and then get frustrated and quit because having the best gear simply put more focus on their lack in skills. When you can't blame a poor performance on not having the "best" gear, that is a humble pie not many people like to eat. Those are the flash in the pan type of competitors that usually come and go quickly.

Extremely true, there's a lot of people that think they can buy their way to the top, and you'll see them in nearly every sport. That said, there's also something to be said for knowing damn well it's NOT the gear that's your problem, when you are learning, especially early on. Those guys also typically end up dumping their rigs and it helps some of the less financially endowed of us upgrade a bit [Flower]

I've competed in several things throughout my life, shooting, while expensive is actually one of the cheapest that I've taken on. I remember when I used to race snowmobiles, every 1/10th of a MPH you could squeeze out of the machine was an advantage, and it was HUGELY expensive.

However in Long Range shooting, while I don't have "the best" possible gear out there, I have damn good equipment that has been run hard and has yet to truly let me down. That single aspect for me let/lets me concentrate on MY issues, I've found a lot of tweaks to the gear along the way that help, but fundamentally I always knew my gear wasn't the issue so it allowed me to take that question out of the equation. It's helped me progress a LOT faster. I've witnessed guys that tried to cut major corners on their rifles and gear and it typically doesn't turn out well. It also distracts from the learning experience that every time you get behind the rifle can and should be.