Greg Ellifritz recently made a post about Andy Stanford’s book Gunfighter U https://www.activeresponsetraining.net/gunfighter-u that a few of us were fortunate enough to receive an advance copy of at TacCon 2026.
Andy and Greg make some good points. I’ve been deficient in my reading, so let me present an alternate Point Of View based solely on what Greg posted.
Greg’s comment was:
“After seeing more than a few shooters obsessively chasing performance at Tac Con (with what Col. Cooper described as ‘Preoccupation with Inconsequential Increments’), I wanted to share some of Andy’s advice from the book:
‘Shoot at least twelve matches total, not more than one a week, no fewer than one a month. If you wish, shoot until you reach a “B” classification in USPSA, or Expert in IDPA. Then throttle back to one or two matches a year at most. At this point, spend your spare time learning tactical medicine or applied combatives. Or conversing with your significant other. Or playing with your kids.
To get a Grandmaster card or win a major match requires many esoteric skills that have nothing to do with gunfighting.”
As with most things in life, competition yields what you put into it. This includes not only effort but philosophy. After taking a 10 year mostly hiatus from competition, I’ve started competing regularly again but with a much different attitude and personal philosophy. I’ve unlocked my Patreon post about my change in attitude. https://www.patreon.com/posts/discipline-for-138437533
Something I try to be very cautious about as a trainer and educator is assuming that all gunowners have access to the same resources and opportunities that I do. One of the most important of these is availability of a gun club where I can draw from a holster and practice most of what I’d like to. Since I’m a numbers nerd, years ago I calculated how many gunowners in the Atlanta Metro area had that resource. The number I came up with was 1 in 1,000. Hardly any indoor range in the Metro area allows shooters to draw from a holster or do any moving. Outdoor gun clubs are private and require a membership. What I gather from talking to shooters in other parts of the US is that we are exceptionally fortunate here in Atlanta. Some areas in the Northeast, the number is an order or two of magnitude higher.
What that means is that the other 999 shooters have only two venues where they can draw from a holster; at a match or at a training event. The match I go to costs $20 to enter and has an ammunition cost of about $25. It takes about 5 hours, starting at 11AM, and is a 45 minute drive from the city. The resource requirements for a training event obviously exceed that by a large margin. And such events are only occasionally available.
Another aspect of competition that I think is useful could be described as legally and morally defensible performance standards. In a competition, the bare minimum standard is to hit the silhouette with every shot. Experienced shooters will rarely miss the entire silhouette. Even Novice competitors will hit the entire silhouette somewhere in the 80-90% range because they know that misses dramatically hurt their score. This far exceeds the most common Qualification standard of 70% and the general ~50% average seen at indoor ranges. We all agree that the only safe place for bullets to land is in the body of a criminal attacker so I think getting that hit average up is a good thing.
Although there are numerous other positives to competition, the one I will finish this post with relates to Empty Chamber Carry. We all roll our eyes at people who think ECC is a good idea. Empty Chamber Carry is rooted in the fear of having a Negligent Discharge, period. People who do this are either afraid they’ll shoot themselves or shoot someone else they shouldn’t. Why? Because they are inexperienced gunhandlers. They haven’t yet developed confidence that they have an adequate level of skill to carry a loaded gun. In the 25 years and hundreds of matches I’ve shot, the only competitors I’ve seen who believe in Empty Chamber Carry are Cowboy Action Shooters and bullseye shooters. That doesn’t just mean Single Action revolvers, either. Competitors who are used to carrying a 20th Century gun in a holster and drawing it to shoot don’t carry empty chamber.
I’m back to shooting one local match a month now and I probably won’t shoot another Major Match. My Classification is down to Sharpshooter and I don’t care. The attitude I approach competition with is very different from the past when I was a Four Gun Master with 36 Major Match wins. Where I place in the scores is completely unimportant to me. What is important to me is to test myself and my equipment, have some fun, and see folks I haven’t seen in a while. I learn something about shooting in every match. Oddly enough, because I shoot Compact Carry Pistol, I still usually win my Division because almost everyone else is shooting Optics now.
There are a lot more benefits that I’ll share on my Patreon page but this post is food for thought for the community.
tacticalprofessor 