Plus, results from Area 4 and what’s coming up.

Where LE matches were

Law enforcement matches aren’t new. They’ve been around ever since I got into the profession over a decade ago, and long before that. What’s changed is the number of matches, the size of the fields, and the kind of shooting you’ll find at them.

I remember shooting my first LE-only match in 2021. It had three or four basic stages. One was a bullseye stage. One was an actual move-and-shoot stage. Another was a memory stage: you flipped colored cards on a table, and the cards told you what order to shoot the targets.

It was pretty janky. A lot of the LE matches I attended had some version of that format. A handful of stages, scenario-based, with extra tasks that could affect your score without telling you much about your shooting. I remember one stage that required a team selfie with a stage prop in frame, or you took a time penalty.

I guess we were testing selfie skills.

The turning point for me came in October 2024, when LASD hosted the David Wheeler Memorial Law Enforcement Charity Shoot. It was the first LE match I’d attended that was built around practical shooting stages and scored by hit factor: points divided by time.

That match set the bar for me for every LE match since. Huge shout-out to Shawn, the match director, who saw the need for something different and actually did something about it.

Bigger matches, bigger fields

Southeast Law Enforcement Handgun Classic. ORSA Action Pistol Events runs it at Oak Ridge Sportsmen’s Association in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, using USPSA scoring. It’s open to civilians too, with LE and Civilian divisions in Irons and Optics.

The May 31, 2025, match had 198 entries. By May 14, 2026, that had grown to 304. Erik Schall won LE Optics and finished first overall both years.

Southwest Handgun Classic. Shortly after Southeast was announced, my buddy Cole came to me with the idea for a West Coast version. We’d never put on a match and didn’t know what we were doing. But we’d been shooting USPSA regularly since 2023, had good relationships with the local match directors, and friends and companies stepped up to sponsor it.

Oh Shoot - PRG hosted it at Prado. Our first match, on August 16, 2025, had 143 entries. Morgan Gunnell took first overall and won the Striker Fired division. It worked, and we knew we’d run it again in 2026.

For August 15-16, 2026, the field grew to 230.

Full disclosure: I helped put together this match, and I won Single Action/Optics there both years and was first overall in 2026.

Put the two classics side by side and both grew by more than half in one year: about 54% for Southeast and 61% for Southwest.

Part of that was capacity. Southwest was a one-day match in 2025, and it sold out in about 15 minutes. For 2026, we made it two days so you could shoot Saturday or Sunday, which nearly doubled the available spots.

But I’ve also watched LE participation grow at the regular locals. When I started shooting consistently in 2023, a local match might have five to eight LE shooters, and it was rare to see one in the top 10. Now a standard local can easily have 20 or more, with quite a few finishing near the top consistently. The Holosun Zero In match had 41.

After Southwest, Howitzer put together its own LE-only match, Project Blue Lion. It was a huge production. The organization and marketing were a step up from what we’d done at Southwest, and Eric Foss from Howitzer did an incredible job.

They had pro shooters at every stage to demonstrate it and give the cops pointers. Kyle Litzie, Justine Williams, Max Michel, Isaac Lockwood, and more. Getting that kind of access to some of the best shooters in the world was a big part of what made the event stand out.

Oh Shoot - PRG hosted both Blue Lion matches. The November 22, 2025, event had about 103 entries, followed by about 93 on April 18, 2026.

There are other matches worth mentioning, too.

Phoenix PD Handgun Championships ran on January 3, 2025, and again on February 6, 2026, with EOTech sponsoring the 2026 event. That match had 117 entries across Competition, Patrol/Duty, and Non Sworn/Retired divisions. I haven’t shot this one myself, but you can find the 2026 results here.

Proforce Heroes Combat Challenge brought a team format. Proforce put it on November 21, 2025, with Firearms Training Associates hosting at Raahauge Shooting Enterprises. Thirty-five teams shot practical stages with hit-factor scoring. Full results here.

They’re all doing things a little differently, but there are a lot more opportunities for cops to shoot these matches now.

A national stage

The regional matches have each developed their own rules. Southeast capped magazines at 15 rounds in its first year, then changed to a mandatory reload on every stage for 2026. We adopted that reload rule at Southwest in 2026, too. Phoenix separates Competition from Patrol/Duty.

Nationals has its own format. Max Michel is the match director, and the match runs November 13-15 at Staccato Ranch Vegas in Pahrump, Nevada.

Here are some of the key requirements from the official match page:

• USPSA-recognized, with hit-factor scoring and match-specific rules.

• Duty Irons and Duty Optics divisions.

• A strong-side, belt-mounted Level 2 retention holster.

• A minimum power factor of 125.

• Only factory-installed compensators and ported barrels allowed.

• No magazine capacity limit, but at least one reload on every stage.

• Active and retired sworn LE only, with valid credentials.

• SIG P320 pistols are not permitted.

Check the full rules before you go, especially if you’re bringing a setup you haven’t used at one of these matches.

Honestly, the gear doesn’t cause many problems. The holster is the biggest difference from what many of us use in USPSA, because most LE matches require a duty-rated holster with active retention. But most of those holsters today are still built for a fast draw. A lot of guys are running open-top Esstac-style mag pouches, too. The duty holster, belt, and mag pouch combo is about as close to a competition setup as it’s ever been.

My advice if you’re thinking about an LE match: practice your draw and reloads from the gear you’ll actually wear. Don’t show up and find out on Stage 1.

As for the field, there are some really good LE shooters at the top. Erik Schall, Morgan Gunnell, and Matt Tran, to name a few. In my experience, though, an LE field usually isn’t as deep as some local USPSA matches, let alone a major. I’m interested to see what the field looks like when more of those shooters come together at Nationals.

Why I want to see this keep growing

One thing I like about this is seeing the top LE shooters get some recognition. There are some very good shooters in this profession, and having a national-level match gives other cops something to strive toward and a way to see how they stack up.

I think practical shooting is extremely beneficial to LE, and more agencies have started incorporating practical shooting drills into their training and qualifications.

My good buddy Adrian, from a local agency, is one example. Through Sierra One Training Objectives, he developed the Dynamic Marksmanship Assessment Drills, or DMAD. He built these practical shooting exercises around firearms skills observed in actual officer-involved shootings captured on body camera. Agencies across the country have been using them. You can find a video on DMAD here.

I want to see more cops get into practical shooting, and I’d like to see that interest keep making its way into department training. It’s only going to help make cops better shooters.

If you carry a badge and you’ve been on the fence about shooting one, this is a good time to start. I’ll be in Pahrump for Nationals, and I’ll tell you how it went.

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Competition news

Area 4 Championship. The match brought 479 shooters to ETTS Gun Range in Waxahachie, Texas, October 21-25, for 13 stages. Dazhi Zhang won Open and High Overall. Alastair Steward won Carry Optics and finished second overall at 98.63%. Joey Sauerland won Limited Optics and finished fourth overall at 96.91%.

Limited Optics was the biggest division, with 194 entries compared with Carry Optics’ 151. Sauerland was listed as unclassified in LO when he won it.

Steward’s CO win was another standout. He finished 7.86 percentage points ahead of second, with GMs Cameron Templin and Nicholas Rucker rounding out the podium.

Top LE shooter was Jeff Kranz, shooting PCC and finishing 23rd overall.

Division podiums, with division percentages:

Full Area 4 results

The classifier board

Four new top runs on hitfactor.info this week. Kyle Anderson had the biggest jump, while Joe Moran took a record by just 0.0041.

• Kyle Anderson took the Single Stack record on 25-08, “We Lost Hero or Zero,” with a 9.4070 on October 24. Ian Meyers had held it at 8.6957 since January.

• Chris Tilley shot a 6.8241 in Production on 26-04, “Uprange? Seriously,” on October 23. The previous top was Terrence Tsang’s 6.6194 from July.

• Aaron Brekke took the Open record on 26-03, “Mike Who?” with a 9.3333 on October 24, passing Jacob Turner’s 9.2308 from October 6.

• Joe Moran edged out Gavin Farina in Limited 10 on 26-04, “Uprange? Seriously,” with a 6.6339 on October 24. Farina’s 6.6298 had stood since July. That one was close.

No new top runs in Carry Optics, Limited Optics, PCC, Limited, or Revolver this week.

These are hitfactor.info leaderboard records, separate from USPSA’s official High Hit Factors.

Coming up

• Glizzy Goblins Halloween Championship: October 29-November 1 at Richmond Rod & Gun Club in Richmond, California.

• Area 2 Desert Classic: November 11-15 at Rio Salado in Mesa, Arizona.

• Staccato LE Nationals: November 13-15 at Staccato Ranch Vegas in Pahrump, Nevada. I’ll be at this one, and I’ll write it up afterward.

USPSA match calendar | Area 2 Desert Classic | Staccato LE Nationals

If you’ve shot any of these LE matches, let me know how it went in the comments. And share this with someone who shoots duty gear.

Zero In Championship 2026 results

Oh Shoot hosted it October 17-18 at Prado. Seven stages, but only six counted. Stage 2 was the squad shoot-off and didn’t count toward the overall results. Good thing, too. I got knocked out in round 1.

Based on what I knew right before the match, I thought Open gave me the best shot at a top-three finish. I basically shot my Springfield Prodigy LO gun with a 170mm mag in Open Minor.

My game plan was the same one I use at majors, with a little extra push. Shoot to my ability, stay consistent, but get aggressive where the stage allowed it. I knew how good the field was, and cash was on the line. Since this wasn’t a major, I was okay with a rougher match if I pushed too hard.

I finished 6th in Open at 85.93% and 7th combined at 85.72%. Cash only went three deep in each division, and I was about 25.5 match points behind 3rd, the last cash spot.

The match ran three divisions (Carry Optics, Limited Optics, and Open), with 230 entries in the combined results. Ashton Hammond won Open and the match at 100%, with a total time of 85.63 seconds. Jericho Salvador took 2nd in Open at 91.53%, and Matt Haygood took 3rd at 89.69%.

Adam Grimm won Carry Optics and finished 4th combined at 88.55%. Jon Bautista took 2nd in the division and Steven Guo 3rd.

Joon Kim won Limited Optics ahead of Cody Nabong and Isaac McLearn.

You’ll find the top 10 in each division below the match breakdown.

Stage-by-stage breakdown in Open

Stage 1 was my best, 3rd in Open at 97.40%. Honestly, it didn’t feel special. I stuck to my plan, got the small steel while moving up, and tried not to send a bunch of makeups on the far partials.

he stage started in a car, and I took my time getting out so I wouldn’t cut myself on the windshield glass. That cost a little time. I watched Joe Farewell, who took 4th in Limited Optics, stand up through the windshield and jump the hood. Not me. Check out his IG for the video. It’s pretty cool.

I was also extra careful on the back array making sure my hits were there, and I threw in one makeup I didn’t need because I miscalled a shot. Two charlies on the low last target came as I was falling out of position. Those should’ve been alphas. Still, I was happy with it.

Stage 3 was my next best. I shot the whole back array, mini poppers included, on the move. Most people set up static and leaned out to get the targets. I doubt my way was any faster. I had two makeups, one paper and one steel, and ended up off the pace.

Stage 4 felt decent, but I finished about 26.2 match points behind the Open stage winner, my biggest gap of the match. I rushed my vision on the last three steel targets and ended up needing three makeups.

Stage 5 was my lowest percentage at 71.42%, but it was a short stage worth 55 match points. It was the quadruple swinger stage, with three steel activators and four swinging targets. I was just happy to escape without any misses.

I should’ve changed the initial two-activator sequence, though. I shot the double swinger activator first, then the left-side “monkey” swinger activator. By the time I got into position for the left-side swinger, I was waiting too long for the target to present itself.

Stage 6 was very well designed. You started in the middle with your hands on the marks and could go either left or right first, so there were different ways to run it based on your strengths. I went right and tried to shoot most of the targets on the move. It wasn’t the fastest time, and I dropped six charlies, but it felt good overall.

On Stage 7, I had trigger freeze and transitioned off my second-to-last target in the first position too quickly. I sent the makeups, but I was already falling out of position, and one round missed.

My 15.01 was the fastest raw time on the stage out of all 230 entries, across all three divisions. Patrick Posadas won the stage in Open with an 8.1311 hit factor at 15.25. My run finished 11th in Open with the miss. Speed can only make up for so much.

Points vs. time: where I lost it

I wanted to see whether better hits would have been enough, or whether I also needed more speed. For each stage, I worked out how fast I would’ve needed to be with the points I shot to match the winning Open hit factor. Then I checked whether all alphas at my actual time would’ve closed the gap.

Keep in mind these time gaps are hypothetical. They aren’t how much faster the winners actually were, so they don’t show exactly where I lost time. For the all-alpha numbers, I assumed I hit all the steel with no misses or penalties.

On Stages 3, 4, 5, and 6, even a perfect all-alpha run at my time wouldn’t have matched the winner. Better hits alone wouldn’t have closed the gap. I needed to find time, too.

Stage 7 was different. Maximum points at the same time would have beaten the winning Open hit factor. The miss alone cost me 15 raw points compared with an alpha. With the delta and five charlies, I gave up 29 of 130 available raw points, more than double what I dropped on any other stage.

Overall, I was 11.74 seconds slower than Ashton. Of the shooters ahead of me in Open, Jericho was the only one with a slower total time.

Across the match, I shot 105 A, 31 C, 1 D, and 1 M, with no no-shoots or procedurals. That’s 137 hits and one miss. Alphas made up 76.6% of the hits.

Shooting my LO gun in Open also meant scoring minor. My charlies were worth 3 points and my delta 1. Under major, they’d be worth 4 and 2. The same hits scored major would have been worth 32 more raw points over the match. That’s just the raw scoring math, though. It doesn’t translate directly to 32 match points or tell me how I would’ve shot a major load.

What I’m taking into practice

I finished with 609 of 690 available raw points after penalties, or 88.3%. That’s on the low end for me, and I can see where the extra push cost me.

On Stages 1 and 7, I was falling out of position before I’d finished shooting. The steel on Stage 4 gives me something specific to look at, too. I rushed the sight picture, then spent the time making up shots anyway. Cleaner execution in those spots would help.

I need more trigger time on the Prodigy. I’ve spent most of the year playing with CO. I want a better feel for what I can execute consistently with this gun. I’m shooting it at the Staccato LE Nationals in November, so that’s what I’m working on between now and then.

Top 10 by division

Full results: Open | Limited Optics | Carry Optics

Classifier board

Seven new hitfactor.info records this week, and one of them is a Production mark that had been sitting there since 2017.

• Nils Jonasson took the Production record on October 17 with an 8.4633 on 03-18, “High Standards.” Ryan Zajac’s 7.8498 had stood since October 7, 2017, about nine years.

• Jacob Turner took two records on 25-04, “We Did Our Homework,” on October 20. He shot a 13.1868 in Open, beating Colin Maxon’s 12.8134, and a 12.5341 in Limited 10, beating Ashton Hammond’s 11.5288.

• Daniel McAlister shot a 10.1215 in PCC on 26-03, “Mike Who?” on October 17. The old mark was David Leake’s 9.5602.

• Also on October 17, Ian Coberly put up an 8.2143 in Limited 10 on 26-01, “King Crab,” passing Sal Hernandez’s 7.1689.

• Marco Arias took the Single Stack record on 26-02, “Darwinism,” on October 17. His 6.4643 edged out Maximus White’s 6.4090.

• Nathan Oxendale got the Revolver record on 26-03, “Mike Who?” on October 16 with a 5.9880. Rick Weise had it at 5.6671.

These come from the hitfactor.info leaderboard records, which are separate from USPSA’s official High Hit Factors.

Coming up

• Area 4 Championship: underway at ETTS in Waxahachie, Texas, October 21-25.

• Glizzy Goblins Halloween Championship: October 29-November 1 at Richmond Rod & Gun Club in Richmond, California.

• Area 2 Desert Classic: November 11-15 at Rio Salado in Mesa, Arizona.

• Staccato LE Nationals: November 13-15 at Staccato Ranch Vegas in Pahrump, Nevada. I’ll be at this one.

USPSA match calendar | Area 2 Desert Classic | Staccato LE Nationals

Thanks for reading. If this was useful, share it with someone who shoots.

I’m also headed to the Holosun Zero In Championship at Prado this weekend, where there’s cash for the top three in each division. Plus, we’ve got five new records on the classifier board.

Give your match a purpose

Having a primary mental focus or game plan going into a match has helped me tremendously over the last three years. Sometimes I use a local to push speed and force failures in my shooting. Other times I focus on minimizing penalties and shooting mostly alphas. And sometimes I treat it like a major and try to shoot as consistently as possible at my known ability.

A lot of us dry fire throughout the week, with maybe one or two live fire sessions mixed in. Then we show up at the weekend match to see whether any of our practice actually worked, which makes sense. But don’t discount the match itself as being part of your weekly practice.

If I’m not too concerned about where I finish at a local, I can play with many different things. It could mean moving faster, pushing transitions or splits, or being more aggressive on distant targets and partials. I will even use these matches to test new gear or different guns.

Whatever I pick as my focus, I want to keep it to one thing at a time. If I try to focus on too many things during a stage and collect a handful of misses, it’ll be harder to figure out which part went wrong.

Say I’m working on movement. I can focus on leaving positions more decisively or earlier and arriving at the next position with the gun up, ready to shoot. I still have a stage plan to execute, but movement gets the extra attention.

And I still want good hits. I don’t just start sending two on brown. I’m just willing to have a rougher match while finding out where things start falling apart. Knowing how much I can push a particular skill and where I start making mistakes gives me something to take into practice during the following week.

If I decide to work on speed, I need to stick with it through the match. A bad stage gives me something to look at and adjust. But if I start shooting more conservatively because I didn’t like the result, I haven’t given myself much of a chance to work on what I came there for.

In the Glock vs. M&P article, I mentioned going into a match at SWPL focused on speed and aggression. It cost me four misses and a no-shoot, with three of those misses coming from one stage. That brought me back to reality a little.

I tend to approach all majors with the same mindset: shoot to my known ability and focus on consistency. Bombing one stage at a major can cost me the match. I need to shoot at a level I can control and put together a whole match, and SWPL was a good reminder of why that’s become my strategy.

I had that in the back of my mind going into Coastal Classic, which was the next match on my schedule and my first major in CO.

Other days, minimizing penalties is the priority. I don’t tell myself to shoot slower. I tell myself not to outshoot my sight picture and to stay disciplined with my sights and trigger control on difficult targets.

On a far partial with a no-shoot, that means getting the sight confirmation I need and a clean trigger press from a properly prepped trigger. Even though that’s where my mental focus lies, I can still move efficiently and shoot aggressively where the targets allow it. After all, the timer is still running.

Focusing on minimizing penalties probably costs me a little time, but simply taking longer isn’t what makes the difference. This mentality was my approach at a local at Prado back in April. I finished without any misses or no-shoots and won Carry Optics.

Finishing a match with clean hits feels good, but I also want to know how I got there. Did I give the harder targets the minimum attention they needed, or did I spend the whole match hesitating and overconfirming on everything? There’s still time to be found in a match without penalties.

The one I think gets overlooked is practicing consistency.

Sometimes I use a local to shoot a match the way I’d want to shoot a major. I put the time into the walkthrough, commit to a plan I can execute, and focus on shooting to my known ability. Putting together a whole match at that level takes practice. I need to shoot matches to practice that.

I’ll even intentionally skip pre-walking the stages at a local. The first time I look at or walk a stage is when the squad starts its four-minute walkthrough. That gives me four minutes to figure out the stage, come up with a plan I can execute, and get it into my head. That’s a skill I can practice at every match.

What happens between stages matters, too. A good run can make it tempting to push harder on the next one. A bad run can make it tempting to try to make up for it. A malfunction can throw a wrench in my stage plans.

Whatever happened on the last stage, the next one still needs a walkthrough and a plan. Getting myself ready to do that after a penalty or malfunction is part of the practice. I don’t want to carry that frustration through the rest of the match.

If I want to do that at a major, I need to work on it at locals. Expecting consistency at a bigger match without practicing it beforehand is asking a lot.

Afterward, I still look at the results. I also look at what I went there to work on. Did pushing transitions show me where I’m losing time? Did I cut down on penalties? Could I stick to my game plan after a rough stage?

I like seeing my name higher in the results. But if I leave a local knowing what to work on during the week, that was useful practice.

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Competition news

This weekend I’ll be at the Holosun Zero In Championship at Prado Olympic Shooting Park in Chino. Oh Shoot is hosting the match October 17–18, with seven stages and more than $10,000 in advertised cash prizes.

The match has some heavy hitters lined up! Ashton Hammond, Isaac McLearn, Zach Keever, and Adam Grimm are all making the trip to SoCal. Local Open Master Matt Haygood will also be there, along with GMs Khoi Pham, Jon Bautista, Matt Clark, and Gabe Rivera. I’m shooting Saturday, and I’ll have a full breakdown in next week’s issue.

What I really like is the payout structure. There’s cash for first, second, and third in each division, and if you earn one of those spots while shooting a Holosun optic, your division payout doubles. There are also additional bounties and a squad shoot-off.

We need more matches like this. We spend plenty on entry fees, ammo, and travel. It’s good to see a sponsor putting money into the match and giving shooters a chance to win some of that back.

Match details | Holosun cash-prize announcement

A quick follow-up on Shotgun Worlds in Greece: Lanny Barnes in Open Lady and Lena Miculek in Modified Lady each won individual gold, team gold, and their shoot-off. Dianna Muller added silver in Open Lady Senior. A good showing from the American women.

Classifier board

Five new records this week, with three of them coming from Limited 10.

• Niko Robinson, Limited 10: 20-01, “Wish You Were Here”: 7.0133 HF, set October 11. Previous mark: 6.6272 by Keith Stephenson.

• Isaiah Trite, Limited 10: 06-03, “Can You Count”: 14.6789 HF, set October 8. Previous mark: 14.5138 by Dave Tatoian.

• Sami Saleh, Limited 10: 99-53, “Triple Play”: 6.0410 HF, set October 11. Previous mark: 4.2169 by Josh Holmes.

• Mike Dixon, Single Stack: 26-03, “Mike Who?”: 8.3636 HF, set October 10. Previous mark: 7.8303 by Jonathan Chandler.

• Tanner Edmond, Carry Optics: 26-02, “Darwinism”: 7.9625 HF, set October 10. Previous mark: 7.9162 by Niko Robinson.

Saleh had the biggest jump, raising the previous mark by about 43.3%. Robinson picked up a Limited 10 record while Edmond took over his Carry Optics mark on Darwinism.

Source: hitfactor.info leaderboard records. These are separate from USPSA’s official High Hit Factors.

Coming up

• USPSA Area 4 Championship: October 21–25 at Extreme Tactics and Training Solutions in Waxahachie, Texas.

• Area 2 Desert Classic: November 11–15 at Rio Salado in Mesa, Arizona.

• Staccato LE Nationals: November 13–15 at Staccato Ranch Vegas in Pahrump, Nevada. I’ll be at this one.

USPSA match calendar | Staccato LE Nationals

Thanks for reading. If you’re at Prado this weekend, come say hi.

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We’ve also got the Grauffel/Sailer rematch at IPSC Nationals, two division titles decided by less than one percentage point, and six new classifier records. One shooter set two of them on the same classifier, in two divisions, on the same day.

Glock 17 Gen 6 vs. S&W M&P M2.0 Metal HD

Backstory

At the beginning of this year, I wanted to shoot Carry Optics in USPSA. I’d been exclusively on 1911/2011-platform guns since I started competing consistently in 2023, and I wanted a change of pace.

I was also getting tired of the excuses from other competitors saying I only beat them because I was shooting a 2011, and if they had a $3,000 gun, they’d be just as good. Most of these little chirps were in good fun. Half of shooting on the weekends is getting to trash talk your friends. But still, I wanted to prove them wrong.

The other reason was that 2026 Factory Gun Nationals were being held at the Southern Utah Practical Shooting Range in Hurricane, UT, near Zion National Park. Stunning scenery, great family trip with the wife and kids. I tend to have better luck signing up for major matches if I make it seem like a vacation. Pro-tip for all you guys.

So the decision was made. Carry Optics was going to be the 2026 experiment, but what gun was I going to shoot…

Coming from 1911s and 2011s, I expected the Glock’s grip angle to take some getting used to. But the Gen 6 felt more natural to me than previous generations. As soon as they started becoming available, I snatched one up.

The M&P came a short time later, largely by accident. I’d seen it at SHOT Show in January, but planned on giving the Glock a fair shake first. Then I was at another gun store selling one of my 1911s and got to talking about my CO experiment. The employee told me he had a steel-frame M&P in the back. I asked to see it. He brought it out. I’d just gotten a bunch of cash from selling a gun, so I immediately gave some of it back and started the paperwork. Funny how that works when you sell a gun…

Modifications

The Glock 17 immediately got an Apex trigger and connector, and springs from the TTI Grand Master Trigger kit. For competition, I think stock Glock triggers suck. For duty or self-defense, they’re absolutely fine. I leave the stock triggers in all of my off-duty/CCW Glocks.

A Vortex Defender XL went on top using a Calculated Kinetics optic plate, and I removed the factory plastic sights.

The M&P modifications followed roughly the same lines. The stock trigger was acceptable, but I found the overtravel a little long and wanted a lighter pull for competition. In went the Apex trigger with its flat-face trigger shoe. I also added the Paragon Grips steel insert to put a couple more ounces in the rear of the gun.

I was concerned about accuracy with the factory barrel. I’ve been an M&P armorer for years and have seen M&Ps struggle to hold a softball-sized group at 10 yards. The fix has been an Apex barrel, and I’ve fit about a dozen over the past few years. This particular M&P had no accuracy issues, so the factory barrel stayed.

As with the Glock, I mounted a Vortex Defender XL using a Calculated Kinetics plate.

Weight Comparison

I expected weight to be the biggest difference between these two guns. The M&P was over a pound heavier, so it seemed like the obvious place to start.

Both were weighed as configured, with the optic and an empty 17-round magazine. My scale admittedly isn’t the best for weighing handguns, so treat these numbers as approximate.

That’s 17 extra ounces overall, with 14 of them in the frame. The slides are only an ounce apart. The longer barrel and steel guide rod account for another ounce on the M&P.

The big difference is in the non-reciprocating mass. I expected that extra frame weight to make the M&P noticeably easier to shoot.

Grip and Ergonomics

The Glock’s ergonomics felt better to me than previous generations, particularly its natural index. I think the added beavertail is a big part of that. With a high grip, it puts more pressure into the web of my strong hand between my thumb and index finger. For me, that helps the muzzle present lower and makes the presentation easier to get used to coming from a 1911 or 2011.

The grip texture and palm swells also make achieving a consistent, durable grip easy with my hand size and structure. Add a little chalk and you’re golden. The built-in magwell is fairly large for a CO gun and makes reloads a breeze.

The M&P also fits my hands very well, and its grip angle feels closer to a 1911 to me. The polymer front strap and backstraps have plenty of texture without being overly aggressive. The Metal HD’s steel frame also has texture machined into the sides of the grip.

I use the medium backstrap. Its palm swell creates a great contact spot for the base of my support-hand palm when I develop my grip.

The M&P’s magwell is significantly smaller than the Glock’s. I’d find myself missing reloads fairly frequently in dry practice, although it never seemed to cause me issues during a match.

Ammo and Reliability

Both guns used their factory recoil spring and guide rod assemblies throughout this experiment.

For Glock practice, I mostly used standard-pressure 147 gr Speer, 135 gr Hornady, or 115 gr Winchester white box. The Speer and Hornady are typically 145+ power factor (PF), with Winchester around 130–135 PF in my experience.

For matches, I used a mix of Blazer 115 gr and 124 gr that I had about 1,500 rounds of. I didn’t get a chance to chrono it in my gun, but my good buddy Adrian uses Blazer 115 gr in his Gen 5 Glock 17 and measured 126 PF at Factory Gun Nationals last month.

I’d estimate I put 3,000–5,000 rounds through the Glock during this experiment. I can’t recall a single malfunction, although my memory isn’t the best either.

The M&P, however, loved to malfunction when I first started shooting it. With the same 135 gr Hornady and 115 gr Winchester white box I’d used in the Glock, it was rare to get through a magazine without a light primer strike. Most of the time, it happened every third or fourth round. Hard primers seemed to be the issue, but switching ammo was my workaround.

I used the 147 gr Speer for most practice and sprinkled in 147 gr Librarians from Outdoor Dynamics. All matches were shot with the Outdoor Dynamics ammo. Even with that competition load, I had four match malfunctions: one hard extraction and three failures to eject, or “stovepipes.” Total round count was roughly 7,000–8,000.

For reliability, the Glock was the clear winner in my experience. Those four M&P match malfunctions belong in this comparison, even though I prefer shooting it.

Shooting Comparison

When it came to shooting the two guns, the difference really didn’t come down to the weight, it came down to the ammo. Let me explain.

I shot everything from the 145+ PF Speer down to Blazer, and even a few rounds of the Outdoor Dynamics competition ammo through the Glock. Yes, the lighter ammo felt softer. What I didn’t expect was the consistency in the gun’s return. I could apply the same grip pressure, tension, and inputs, and it would return in a predictable, similar way regardless of the ammo.

I don’t know what Glock does to make that happen, but that was my experience. Please let me know if you shoot Glocks and have noticed this as well. Maybe it’s just me.

The M&P, on the other hand, is happiest with the competition ammo. With all that frame weight, I expected it to soak up the recoil from higher-PF practice loads. In reality, those loads required a lot more conscious effort with my grip to control the gun and get it to return.

Give it what it wants with the competition ammo and it shoots like a dream. Very little input required to get sewing-machine-like doubles with .18-second splits and stacked alphas at 15 yards. Chef’s kiss.

Match Results

I only shot three matches with the Glock before switching to the M&P, so there’s quite a bit more match experience with one than the other. Let’s take a look at how they went.

All placements and percentages below are for Carry Optics.

Glock first:

March 7 felt like a pretty solid first match with the gun, with only one no-shoot.

I had a few bad runs at the all-classifier match on March 14, but I came in unclassified in CO, and my four best classifiers were enough to make Master. I’ll take that.

March 28 was a little rougher. Two misses, two no-shoots, and six deltas. The penalties were sprinkled across four stages, and six deltas was uncharacteristic of my typical match performance.

Now for the M&P:

The first match with the M&P ended with a CO win on April 4. I remember going into that match focused on minimizing penalties. It probably cost me a little time, but I finished without any misses or no-shoots, and the plan paid off.

May 30 brought another CO win and second overall behind a PCC shooter.

Then I went into the June 28 match thinking speed and aggression, and it cost me. Four misses and a no-shoot, with three of those misses coming from one stage. A good humbling practice match before Coastal Classic.

Coastal Classic was my first major in CO. I finished fourth in the division and first in Master Class. I followed that with third in CO on August 1, despite one miss, then won CO and overall out of 110 shooters on August 29. That one felt pretty good.

At Factory Gun Nationals, I finished 55th out of 487 in CO, putting me in roughly the top 11.3% of the division. One malfunction cost me about five seconds or more, and I finished just outside my top-50 goal. Other than that, it was a result I was happy with. You can read more about that match in my first issue.

Here’s what those results look like together:

The M&P results averaged 3.26 percentage points higher, with three division wins. I also had more practice and more time in Carry Optics by then, and these were different matches against different fields. The results give me something useful to look back on, but they don’t tell me exactly how much of the difference came from the gun.

What stands out to me is the difference between how I approached April 4 and June 28. One was about minimizing penalties, the other was about speed and aggression. Same M&P, very different results. A pretty good reminder that my game plan matters, too.

Where I Landed

If you asked which gun I’d take to my next Carry Optics match, the answer would be the M&P. The data from these matches shows I performed marginally better with it, but several CO wins and an overall match win create an emotional piece to the decision, too.

Paired with the Outdoor Dynamics 147 gr Librarians and the Apex trigger, the gun is a pleasure to shoot. It makes the shooting FUN. That’s one reason I love Limited Optics, Single Stack, and the 1911/2011 platform. Shooting those guns is enjoyable, and it makes the whole match experience better regardless of how well you shoot.

The more fun you have, the more likely you are to keep shooting and keep getting better. I think that gets lost on a lot of people. Ultimately, competition shooting is a game we play on the weekends. If you’re not having fun playing the game, then what’s the point?

Now, I’m not saying the Glock can’t be fun. For me, it’s just not on the same level as the M&P with my preferred competition load. In that comparison, the Glock makes me work harder and highlights deficiencies in my shooting, which is useful for learning.

Its consistent, fast return across different ammunition is a huge advantage, especially if you want to buy whatever ammo is available or cheapest and shoot your local match. The Glock also came out ahead on reliability in my experience. That’s a real tradeoff in choosing the M&P.

Ultimately, both guns have pros and cons, and the choice belongs to the individual shooter. My recommendation would be the following:

Glock: If you want to prioritize cost, reliability, and the ability to shoot different ammo, get the Glock and use the cost savings on ammo and range time to work on your skills.

M&P: If you want an easier gun to shoot with a competition load and a more fun overall shooting experience, don’t mind tuning your ammunition or reloading it yourself, and don’t mind the added weight and cost, go with the M&P.

Or, don’t get either. There are plenty of other viable options for CO out there.

Let me know what you guys think in the comments. Should I give the Glock a fair shake and shoot a few more matches with it in order to make the match results comparison an equal sample size with both guns? Or should I move on to a different division for 2027?

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Competition news

The Grauffel/Sailer rematch delivered. Christian Sailer beat Eric Grauffel by about 3.4% at Indiana State. The following weekend, Grauffel answered at IPSC US Nationals at Greater Pittsburgh Gun Club, winning Optics with Sailer second at 96.92%. Rolly Nathaniel Tecson rounded out the podium at 96.33%.

One win each on consecutive weekends, both decided by about three percent. I’d watch round three of the Hippo vs. the GOAT.

Open was even closer. Bryan Jones edged Aaron Eddins by just 0.05 percentage points. In Production Optics, Jacob Hetherington took the win over Jay Beal by 0.53 percentage points. There wasn’t much room to give anything away in either division.

A few other division winners worth mentioning:

• Production: Nils Jonasson, adding another title after his Factory Gun Nationals win.

• Standard: Austin Hull, who won the division overall as a Junior.

• Classic: Tim Herron.

• Revolver: Jay Slater, the guy behind Shooting Sports Analyst.

• PCC Optics: Max Leograndis.

Shotgun World Shoot

Shotgun World Shoot V also wrapped up in Corinth, Greece. Nearly 1,000 competitors from 50 countries shot 30 stages over five days. IPSC’s event recap is available here.

Classifier board

Jacob Turner set record hit factors in both Open and Limited 10 on 26-03, “Mike Who?”, on the same day. That’s a pretty good day at the range.

Here’s the full list of six reported records:

Coming up

The USPSA Area 4 Championship runs October 21-25 in Waxahachie, Texas.

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Drill of the Week: El Presidente (USPSA Classifier 99-11)

A quick bit of history: Jeff Cooper developed El Presidente in the 1970s while training a presidential protection detail. Australian practical shooters later standardized it and gave it the name. The familiar benchmark is 12 alphas in 10 seconds, though the original drill and the USPSA classifier aren’t identical. For this issue, we’re using the classifier version: 99-11.

Drill setup: Three USPSA targets at 10 yards, spaced 1 yard apart. For the classifier setup, the targets’ shoulders should be 5 feet high, with a 3-by-3-foot shooting box.

Procedure: Start inside the box facing uprange, with the toes of both feet against the rear fault line and your wrists above your shoulders in the “surrender” position. Gun is loaded and holstered.

On the audible start signal, turn, then draw and fire two rounds on each target. Perform a mandatory reload, then fire two more rounds on each target. All shooting is done from the box. Twelve rounds total, scored Virginia Count.

Breaking the drill into its individual components, first you have the turn and draw.

Experiment with turning toward your holster/strong side and your mag pouch/weak side. There are pros and cons to both, so put them on the timer and see which works best for you. Me personally, I prefer turning toward my holster.

Whichever direction you choose, keep the movement simple. If you’re taking three or four steps before you’re comfortably settled into a shooting stance, that’s too much. Do less. Ideally, take one step as you turn, pivoting on the ball or heel of the foot that stays in place. A small adjustment with that foot to finish settling into your stance is fine.

The next component is target transitions: three targets, two rounds each. Essentially a 10-yard Blake Drill, which we’ll cover in a future issue. It’s one of my favorite quick and easy drills to set up.

Start by figuring out the split time at which you can consistently shoot two alphas at 10 yards. Sub-.20 splits are perfectly doable with a solid grip and a consistent return of the sights. Doubles is another drill we’ll cover in the future to help develop that skill.

Then look at your transition times.

Some people will tell you to make all six shots sound like a consistent cadence to push you to transition faster. I understand the idea, but I think it can also cause you to slow down your splits on each target.

Here’s what I mean: Say you can shoot two alphas on the first target with a .18 split, but your fastest accurate transition is .25. If you force everything into the same cadence, you might end up shooting .25 splits on each target when you’re capable of shooting .18s.

My advice: Don’t chase a cadence. Learn to shoot to your vision. When your sights tell you the shot is there, shoot.

Of course, there are different sight pictures and “sight confirmation levels” we can use depending on the target. That’s another topic for a future newsletter… I’m making myself a checklist.

Pay particular attention to drag-on and drag-off shots. A drag-on shot happens when you fire as you arrive on the next target, before you’ve seen the sight picture you need. A drag-off shot happens when you leave the target too early and the gun is already moving away as the shot breaks. Your attention has moved on before you’ve finished the shooting.

These are common vision and timing issues, and practice is where you work them out.

The third component is the reload.

I could do a deep dive on reloads in a future issue too. Another one for the checklist. They’re pretty simple, though, right?

Finger comes off the trigger and out of the trigger guard. Bring the gun into a comfortable position in front of you, with the magwell angled toward your mag pouch. Hit the mag release as your support hand indexes the fresh magazine. Shift your vision to the magwell and watch the magazine in. As you seat it, get your eyes back to the target, reestablish your grip, and present the gun.

Like I said, “simple.”

The fourth component is the same as the second: another Blake Drill. Two rounds on each of the three targets, with the same attention to your splits, transitions, and what you’re actually seeing.

Put it all together and you have a complete El Presidente.

For a little perspective, an all-alpha run in five seconds gives you a 12 hit factor. Whether that earns 100% depends on your division’s current high hit factor, but it gives you a number to work toward.

Time to put in the work. Good luck!

The bailout option: Working a contingency plan into your stage walkthroughs

Last week I touched on my Stage 6 malfunction at this year’s Factory Gun Nationals. If you haven’t read it, go back and take a look, but the basic TL;DR is that it cost me about five seconds or more to clear. Those five seconds were the difference between 55th place and my goal of a top 50 finish at Nationals.

Anyway, it got me thinking: what do I do when things don’t happen like they’re supposed to according to my stage plan?

There are probably an unlimited number of things that can go wrong during a stage, but I’m going to focus on three: malfunctions, reloads, and target locations.

Malfunctions

These are extremely frustrating when they happen. Proper maintenance of your gun and magazines should be the baseline, but even with that taken care of, malfunctions can still happen.

Part of the contingency is being able to quickly identify what happened and know how to clear it. That takes practice and experience.

One of my favorite personal examples is a hard extraction malfunction I had during a stage. I diagnosed it quickly, grabbed the slide with my support hand, and chopped the backstrap of the gun with my strong hand to clear it. Then I continued with the stage.

That malfunction cost me about three seconds, and I finished with a 77% run. Still frustrating, but knowing what I was dealing with and how to clear it was the contingency in that situation.

Reloads

Let’s talk about reloads next. When should you plan one, and what happens if you need it earlier than you expected?

The division you shoot obviously plays a big role. In Single Stack, you’re reloading a lot. Almost every time you move to a new target array, a new mag is going into the gun. I will say, the subtle differences in planning around an eight-round major gun versus a ten-round minor gun are fascinating, in my humble opinion.

In other divisions, you may only need one reload during the stage. But where you put it matters.

Say you’re shooting a 28-round stage and starting with 24 rounds in the gun. You plan to reload after shooting 20 rounds. That leaves you four potential makeup shots before the reload.

Does your opinion change if those first 20 rounds include eight mini-poppers?

That margin could disappear pretty quickly. Now you’re running dry and doing a standing reload instead of reloading during movement. That’s time you hadn’t planned on spending there.

The other thing to consider is your movement during the reload and the 180 rule. As a right-handed shooter, I tend to favor reloads while moving from left to right because it’s easier for me to manage muzzle direction. Sometimes the stage design means I have to reload moving right to left, and that’s okay. I just need to account for it in the plan.

What can ruin your whole match is an unplanned reload when the gun is already pointed near the 180 boundary. Particularly on the left side of the stage for right-handed shooters, or the right side for lefties.

The natural reaction is to bring the gun in front of you and finish the reload. But if you bring the muzzle across your body when you’re already near the 180, that could mean a match DQ. You still have to pay attention to where the muzzle is going, even when the reload wasn’t part of the plan.

Keep those possibilities in the background during your walkthrough. How much room do you have for makeup shots? Where could you reload earlier if you need to? What direction will you be moving? Those details help build the contingency into the plan.

Target locations

The first thing I do when walking a stage is find all the targets. Then I find the mandatory positions, the places I have to go because certain targets can only be shot from there.

After that, I look for targets that can be shot from more than one position. Once I know those options, I start putting together the order I’m going to shoot everything.

For targets available from multiple positions, a lot of my decision comes down to what’s easiest for me to remember and execute during my walkthroughs. I’d rather be confident in an engagement order than try to force one that’s more efficient on paper but feels off, is difficult to remember, or requires aggressive shots on difficult targets.

That being said, I still want to know my other options. If something interrupts the plan, where else can I shoot that target? Can I get it from the next position, or would I have to come back?

Knowing those options ahead of time gives me something to work with when the original plan gets interrupted. That’s the bailout option.

Gear: What lives in my range bag

Here’s a quick look at the tools and supplies that stay in my range bag.

Magazine brush - For cleaning my magazines that drop in the dirt.

Small cleaning brushes - For cleaning dirt, debris and carbon fouling from the gun and magazine parts.

Wilson Combat oil and Slip 2000 EWL - For keeping my guns lubricated. These are my favorite oils to use right now.

Loctite 243 - Removable blue threadlocker primarily for optic screws.

Fix It Sticks T-handle driver and bits - For tightening and removing screws on the gun, optic, and other equipment. Used this set twice while at Factory Gun Nats.

Glock tool/punch - A small punch for pushing pins during disassembly and maintenance. I use this more for 1911s than Glocks…

Brownells mainspring housing pin tool - Specific for 1911/2011 mainspring housing pins.

Holosun optic tool - For adjusting the zero on optics.

LensPen - For cleaning dust and smudges off optic lenses.

Small armorer’s hammer - A soft-faced hammer for light tapping during maintenance.

10-8 bench block - Supports parts during disassembly and pin removal. Especially useful for 1911 work.

Spare optic batteries - Replacements in the sizes my optics use. Energizer and Duracell. Some optics like certain brands more than others.

Bic lighter - For replacing fiber-optic sight rods.

Shop towels - For wiping oil and dirt off the gun, parts, tools, and my hands.

Honorable mentions - Eye pro, ear pro, a paster tape gun, and a medical kit. These can all get their own segment in the future.

News

This weekend is IPSC US Nationals in Bulger, PA. Twenty-one stages, and the results will land after this issue ships, so I’ll cover them in #3. But the story going in is worth your time right now.

Christian Sailer beat Eric Grauffel head to head in Limited Optics at Indiana State last weekend. Three point four percent over Grauffel, field of 128. The ratings have Sailer at 146.2 and Grauffel at 145.1 according to Shooting Sports Analyst, which makes Sailer the small favorite going into Bulger. The hippo versus a legend.

Rest of the field. Brantley Merriam has the edge in Production Optics after beating Mason Lane and Jacob Hetherington at Factory Gun Nationals. Austin Hull leads Standard. Sal Luna gets another shot at Nils Jonasson in Production. Kyle Litzie gets another crack at Max Leograndis’s PCC streak. Open is a four-way dead heat between Eddins, Jones, Vlieger, and Hwang.

IDPA Nationals results are up on PractiScore. Carry Optics went to Trevor Blair at 213.95. He’s a Master, and he beat two Distinguished Masters (Austin Proulx and Gordon Ye) by under three seconds. Stock Service Pistol went to Nils Jonasson at 226.65. That one wasn’t close. He won by 20.6 seconds over Eric France, a few days before shooting Standard at IPSC Nationals this weekend.

The rest of the division winners: Gorka Ibañez took ESP at 261.51, edging Michael Seeklander by 1.34. Glenn Shelby won CDP at 265.31. James McGinty took CCP at 275.28. Andre DeSautel won PCC at 201.21. Sean Hynds took BUG at 321.67. And Luigi Li won REV at 355.19. He’s a Sharpshooter. He beat a Master by 73 seconds.

Shotgun Worlds V wraps today in Corinth. Finals are an issue #3 item, but Lena Miculek’s day-one stage-by-stage video is up if you want to watch along:

Coming up: USPSA Area 4, Oct 21–25, Waxahachie TX.

The classifier board

Two new records this week:

• Production — 25-08 “We Lost Hero or Zero”: Spencer Miller’s listed leading run is 9.3117, shot September 24, 2026, breaking Taran Butler’s old mark of 9.1255.

• Limited 10 — 25-03 “Let Him Cook”: Keith Osburn’s listed leading run is 9.127, shot September 27, 2026, breaking Sam Callahan’s old mark of 8.8632.

Who’s writing this?

I’m Brian, a firearms instructor, hobbyist gunsmith, and member of the OCLEO Practical Shooting Team. I shot my first USPSA match in 2019, got humbled, and started competing consistently in 2023. Limited Optics has historically been my main division, but I also shoot Carry Optics, Single Stack, and Limited 10. I build 1911s in my free time.

TheHitFactor is where I share drills, gear, match experiences, and what I’m working on in my own shooting. If you’re getting something out of this, share it with someone who shoots. Thank you.

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Welcome to TheHitFactor. Once a week, I’ll share a lesson from a match, a drill worth your ammunition, and something from the gear or numbers side of practical shooting. I’m still testing plenty of my own ideas. You get the notes.

FIVE SECONDS BETWEEN ME AND A GOAL

I went to the SIG SAUER Factory Gun Nationals in Hurricane, Utah, with a goal: finish in the top 50 in Carry Optics.

I finished 55th out of 487.

On Stage 6, I had a failure to eject. I spent roughly five or six seconds clearing it while the timer kept running. If you’ve ever had a gun stop during a stage, you know how quickly that becomes the only thing you can focus on.

I usually don’t play the what if game after a match. This time I made an exception. PractiScore lets you edit a score to see how the standings would change, and I wanted to know whether the stoppage had mattered to the goal I’d set before the first shot.

It had. I was 12.52 match points behind 50th. Keep my Stage 6 hits the same and take five seconds off the time, and the projected gain is about 18 points — enough to put me inside the top 50.

That isn’t an alternate match result. I don’t know the exact time the malfunction cost me, and I don’t know what caused it. I’m not going to retroactively convict a magazine, a round of ammunition, or the gun because I’d prefer a clean explanation.

What I can do is inspect the equipment, keep up with maintenance, and test anything questionable before the next match. Then I have to accept the score I actually shot. Both parts are harder when the difference lands right on a goal you cared about.

The match deserves credit beyond my Stage 6. The staff built creative stages with multiple sensible ways to shoot them. Thanks to everyone who made three days of that possible, and to the squad that shared them with me.

DRILL OF THE WEEK: THE BILL DRILL, WORKED BACKWARD

It had to be the Bill Drill for the first newsletter, right?

Setup: One USPSA target at seven yards. Gun holstered, hands relaxed at my sides. On the beep, draw and fire six rounds. My standard for a clean run is six A-zone hits.

The Bill Drill is easy to describe and difficult to fake. The time to the first shot includes the draw; then come five splits — the intervals between shots. A two-second run could be a one-second first shot and five 0.20-second splits. That math is useful because it shows where the time might go. It does not tell you whether any of the rounds hit the A-zone.

Here’s what I mean by working it backward.

First, shoot a few short strings without the draw. See what the gun does when you fire at a pace you’re trying to develop. Does it return predictably? Can you see enough to call the next shot? What happens to the hits as you push? The goal isn’t to prove you can make a timer display .20. A timer will do that for six misses.

Next, work the draw to a usable grip and first shot. If I rush the first shot and arrive with a bad grip, I’ve made the rest of the drill harder before shot two. Dry practice is a good place to sort that out; live fire tells me whether it holds up.

Then put all six together. Note your first-shot time, look at the pattern of splits, and inspect the target. Pay attention to what changes late in the string. A good pair followed by four wandering shots is a different problem from a slow draw followed by five solid ones.

I also like to shoot one run cold, before I’ve warmed up or rehearsed the drill. That number may be less flattering than the best run of the day. It’s often more useful.

Sub-two with six A’s is a strong benchmark. Wherever you are now, find a clean pace you can repeat, then push beyond it often enough to learn what breaks. The objective is to bring the hits with you as the time comes down.

GEAR NOTE: BASEPADS THAT MAKE MAGAZINE CLEANING EASY

I use Taran Tactical basepads on my M&P and Glock magazines. I can remove them by hand, which makes cleaning a magazine that hits the dirt a quick job between stages.

That convenience matters to me. A maintenance routine that takes less than a minute is more likely to happen during a match than one that sends me looking through my range bag for a tool.

I don’t know whether a dirty magazine contributed to my Stage 6 malfunction. This is a note about why I use these basepads, not a diagnosis of that stoppage.

THE CLASSIFIER BOARD

This will be a recurring look at standout classifier runs across every USPSA division. I want to put names next to the numbers, especially when a shooter posts a new leading run.

A quick terminology check: USPSA’s official High Hit Factor, or HHF, is the benchmark used to calculate your classifier percentage. A shooter’s top recorded run is an individual score. They are different numbers. Here, “top run” means the highest run currently displayed on hitfactor.info’s leaderboard for that classifier and division.

Two from the board today:

• Carry Optics — 08-03 “Six”: Keagan Whitelaw’s listed leading run is 11.9048, shot in 2.52 seconds on May 9, 2026. This is a six-round turn-and-draw stage: two scoring hits on each of two paper targets, plus two poppers, all from a shooting box.

• Limited Optics — 25-08 “We Lost Hero or Zero”: Alastair Steward’s listed leading run is 11.0843, shot in 4.15 seconds on January 3, 2026. This one calls for ten rounds across five paper targets; the best two hits on each target count. Walls and a no-shoot complicate the view; you can start anywhere inside the shooting area.

Different divisions, different classifiers, and no useful way to compare those raw hit factors as though they were the same stage. What interests me is the person at the top of each board and what the run required. As new leaders appear, I’ll check the score, the date, and the previous mark before calling one a new record.

WHO’S WRITING THIS?

I’m Brian. Limited Optics has historically been my main USPSA division, but I also shoot Carry Optics, Single Stack, and Limited 10. I’m a member of the OCLEO Practical Shooting Team and build 1911s in my free time. I shot my first match in 2019, convinced I already knew how to shoot. It humbled me. I started competing consistently in 2023.

Next week: El Presidente, why a stage plan needs a bailout option, and the tools that live in my range bag.

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