Which Division is the Most Difficult to Win at USPSA Nationals?

Open is the oldest division in USPSA history.

Open was the only division when USPSA first began. Sixteen years later, in 1993, Limited joined the competition. Limited 10, Production, Revolver, and Single Stack were introduced around the same time in the early 2000s. Carry Optics and PCC are the two newest divisions, each with less than a decade of history.

Participation: Open is still king of USPSA.

We first examine the number of shooters competing in each division. At the 2021 USPSA Nationals, Open and Carry Optics had the highest participation, followed by Production, Limited, PCC, and Single Stack. Limited 10 and Revolver were the two least popular divisions.

To evaluate the competitiveness of each division based on participation, we consider two factors: the total number of competitors and the number of higher-class shooters (GM, M, and A).

We use a point-based system to calculate the overall participation competitiveness ranking. For each metric, the division ranked first receives 5 points, while the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th places receive 4, 3, 2, and 1 point, respectively.

Based on this scoring system, Open (, 19 points) is the most competitive division in terms of participation, followed by Carry Optics(, 17 points), Production (, 11 points), Limited (4th, 7 points), and PCC (5th, 6 points).

[FunFact 1.] Almost 40% of Revolver shooters were Grand Masters (GM). However, because the Revolver division had a much smaller competitor pool than Open, Open still had three times as many GM shooters as Revolver.

[FunFact 2.] Somehow, one-third of Limited 10 competitors were unclassified.

We exclude Limited 10 and Revolver from the remaining sections due to their insufficient number of competitors.

Top competitors in Open, must train yet harder.

Next, we analyze the match performance of the top competitors in each division. We observe that the performance gap among the top competitors varies significantly across divisions.

The Open champion performed over 10% better than a top 3% Open shooter, while the gap between the champion and a top 3% shooter in Single Stack or Limited was less than 3%. This suggests that a top 3% shooter in Single Stack or Limited may have a realistic chance of becoming the Nationals champion. In contrast, even a top 3% Open shooter still needs to perform significantly better to win the Nationals.

In other words, if an Open shooter performs at around 90%, he is already among the top 3% of competitors. The same level of shooter might achieve around 93% in Production, Carry Optics, or PCC, and even over 97% in Single Stack or Limited. On the other hand, a shooter who performs at 90% in Single Stack or Limited would rank only around the top 10%. If that same shooter competed in Open, his performance might drop to approximately 82%.

A similar pattern can be observed when comparing the champion with the top 5% and top 10% shooters. In Single Stack and Limited, even a top 5% or 10% competitor is relatively close to the champion. In Open, however, the performance gap remains substantial, making it much more difficult for top competitors to reach the highest level—and even harder to become the champion.

[Fun Fact 3.] JJ (Echavez Racaza, Simon Joseph) competed in three divisions: Open, Production, and Carry Optics. His performances in all three matches align remarkably well, falling at roughly the same percentile (top 3%).

Winning a stage in Production is the most challenging, followed by Open.

Next, we analyze how difficult it is to win a stage in each division. To rank the difficulty, we consider two factors: the total number of stage winners and their overall performance in the match.

[Background Info.] Not all USPSA Nationals had the same number of stages. The LoCap Nationals (Production and Single Stack) had 20 stages, while the RaceGun Nationals (Open and Limited) and Carry Optics & PCC Nationals each had 18 stages.

Only five competitors won stages in Production, and all of them ranked within the top 3% overall. This indicates that a competitor who is not among the top 3% would have almost no chance of winning a stage in Production. A similar pattern can be observed in Open: only seven competitors won stages, and all but one were top 3% shooters.

On the other hand, only 35% of the stages in Single Stack were won by top 3% shooters. Even competitors outside the top 10% had a chance to win a stage, indicating a much wider range of competitors capable of winning individual stages.

Harder to win a class in Open & Production; for sandbaggers, it's always easier.

Next, we analyze how challenging it is to become a class winner in each division. We consider two questions: (1) How difficult is it to finish among the top three shooters in a class? and (2) How close are the performances of the top three shooters?

[Background Knowledge 1.] Match performance (%) and performance percentile (th%) are not equivalent. Match performance is the percentage of points a shooter earns compared with the match winner. Performance percentile is the percentage of competitors a shooter outperformed. For example, a shooter with a match performance of 90% earned 90% of the points achieved by the winner. A shooter at the 90th performance percentile, on the other hand, outperformed 90% of the competitors in the match.

[Background Knowledge 2.] We use performance percentile in this analysis because a shooter's match performance depends heavily on the winner's ability. If the winner is significantly better than the other competitors, the match performance of everyone else will be lower. Performance percentile, however, is based on a shooter's rank relative to all other competitors and is therefore less affected by differences in the winners' abilities across divisions. As shown in the previous Top Competitors section, the skill levels of division winners can vary significantly.

We use the same point-based system described in the participation section to rank divisions by the difficulty of becoming a class winner. When multiple divisions receive the same total score, the division with the higher average percentile rank is ranked higher.

Overall, winning a class is most challenging in Open, followed by Production. The results suggest that class competition in Open and Production is more intense: the 2nd- and 3rd-place shooters are closer to the 1st-place shooter, and winning requires outperforming a larger proportion of competitors.

The visualization also clearly reveals the presence of sandbaggers. Circles representing different classes overlap when lower-class winners perform nearly as well as—or even better than—higher-class winners. For example, the Limited C-class winner performed almost identically to the B-class 3rd-place shooter, creating a substantial gap between the C-class winner and the 2nd-place C shooter. As a result, sandbaggers can make it much easier to win a class while also distorting the competition. They artificially inflate the winning percentile, making it more difficult to fairly analyze and compare the difficulty of winning a class across divisions.

[Fun Fact 4. (Not Really Fun)] Sandbaggers exist in Production, Limited, and PCC, but are rarely seen in Open, Carry Optics, and Single Stack.

Don't compete in Open if you want to win your category! It's too competitive!

For the final analysis, we investigate which division is the most difficult in which to win a category title. We focus on the Lady and Senior categories because there were not enough competitors in other categories, such as Junior, Law, Military, and Foreign. To rank the difficulty of winning a category, we consider three factors: (1) the number of potential candidates, (2) the total number of competitors in the category, and (3) the class of the category winner.

We find that all category winners were A class or above. Therefore, we consider all higher-class shooters (GM, M, and A) as potential candidates for winning a category title. We prioritize the number of potential candidates when ranking divisions, followed by the total number of shooters in the category, and finally the class of the category champion.

Open is clearly the most challenging division in which to compete for both the Lady and Senior category titles, especially in the Senior category. Open Senior had the largest number of competitors, with more than 50% being higher-class shooters. In comparison, Limited had less than half as many Lady competitors and only about one-third as many Senior competitors.

[Fun Fact 5.] The performance gap between female and male shooters in PCC was much smaller than in other divisions. For example, the PCC Lady Champion, Justine Williams, outperformed approximately 90% of PCC competitors. However, as the Limited Lady Champion, she outperformed only around 80% of Limited competitors. This suggests that PCC, which uses rifles, may be relatively easier to operate and less dependent on the shooting skills required for pistol divisions.

[FunFact 6.] Rob Leatham, the Single Stack Senior Champion, also won the overall match. As a senior shooter, he outperformed many younger competitors. This suggests that practical shooting is a sport in which an athlete's competitive prime can last for a long time, as shooting skills and experience may be more important than age.

Conclusion: Open is the most difficult division to win at the 2021 USPSA Nationals.

This article analyzes the difficulty of winning across five aspects: (1) participation competitiveness, (2) top competitors, (3) stage winners, (4) class winners, and (5) category winners. For each aspect, we award 20 points to the most challenging division, while the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th places receive 80%, 60%, 40%, and 20% of the maximum score, respectively. For the category analysis, the 20 points are split evenly between the Lady and Senior categories, with 10 points awarded to each.

5 aspects × 20 points, maximum 100 points.

Based on the final calculation, Open (, 96 points) is the most challenging division to compete in the 2021 USPSA Nationals, followed by Production (, 76 points), Carry Optics (, 50 points), PCC (4th, 46 points), Limited (5th, 24 points) and Single Stack (6th, 16 points). We look forward to analyzing the data from the 2022 USPSA Nationals.

References:

1976 Columbia Conference: https://www.ipsc.org/1976-columbia-conference/

History of Practical Shooting: https://uspsa.org/pages/history