How Long Does It Take to Become a USPSA Grandmaster?

Becoming a Grandmaster shooter is a huge achievement, one that few shooters ever attempt, and even fewer shooters achieve. It takes thousands of hours of dedicated work, but up until now there really hasn’t been a very good answer for those wondering how long it takes to reach this incredible level of shooting.

USPSA and The Classification System

For those that aren’t super up to date with competitive pistol shooting Grand Master is the highest classification in the United States Practical Shooting Association (USPSA).

USPSA is primarily an action shooting series that has various classes of pistol shooting, and pistol caliber carbine shooting. Anecdotally, it is also the competitive shooting league with the most talented shooters. Don’t believe me then check out this video.

Here we can see Grand Master shooter Shane Coley crushing this stage with an Open division gun. These specific types of pistols have red dots, compensators, and are generally hand built by master gunsmiths.

This is just one of many divisions including: Production, Limited, Carry Optics and Pistol Caliber Carbine, among others. Needless to say, you can compete with a stock Glock or spend a mortgage payment on your gun and still do well in your chosen class.

This leads us to the classification systems that USPSA has developed. In order to truly appreciate just how amazing Grand Master (GM) shooters are we need to first understand how the classification system works.

USPSA Classification System

Each USPSA shooter is given a number when they join. All match performances are tracked and recorded using this number. In most matches the match directors put together various stages that will challenge the shooters, and they generally will include at least one classifier

Classifier stages are meant to gauge your current level of performance in certain basic action pistol skills. Currently there are many dozens of classifiers and they will test the full range of shooting skills including: fast transitions, recoil management, shooting and moving, speed reloads and more.

Here is an example of a few classifiers with various pistol types

In this system all USPSA shooters are grouped into various skill levels, or classes. The definitions are my own emphasis.

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• Grand Master 95 to 100% (This guy shoots better than everyone!)
• Master 85 to 94.9% (This guy snaps necks and cashes checks)
• A 75 to 84.9% (This guy goes to matches with sponsors)
• B 60 to 74.9% (Top level tactical shooters)
• C 40 to 59.9% (Guy who dry fires sometimes and likes to shoot.)
• D 2 to 40% (Average shooting range guy)

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These percentages are figured based on the highest hit factors for all shooters. A hit factor is the amount of points divided by the amount of time. As an easy example, if it takes you 2 seconds to score two center mass hits, in the A zone (5 points each), then your hit factor is 5. Ten points divided by two seconds equals 5 hit factor (HF).

Now if the top level shooters in USPSA score a 6 hit factor, and you’ve scored a 5 hit factor then you have achieved 83% which is a very high A class score. To get a good idea of the difference in skill level check this video out.

Once you’ve accumulated at least four scores for different classifiers then your average of these four scores is your classification. However, once you have accumulated more than six classifier scores it becomes the average of your top six scores.

There are a few more detailed rules, but broadly speaking this is how each member is ranked. If you want all the details then check out this article where it is explained in full depth.

The Road to Becoming a Grand Master (GM)

If you ask USPSA shooters they will generally tell you one of two things about becoming a GM. They’ll tell you about someone who finally made it after years of work, or they’ll point out someone who made it out of no where, seemingly overnight. But there really isn’t any good analysis on how long it takes to reach a Grand Master level skill level. Until now.

This leads us to the method I’ve used to see just how long it takes to become a Grand Master level shooter.

Statistics and Analysis of Grandmaster Shooters

As I mentioned above you need four good classifiers, averaging 95% or better to become a GM, but there are more complicated rules. For instance if you score too low for your current classification, on a classifier, then that score doesn’t count.

This can make actually figuring the date a person truly became a GM very difficult. You would have to have some serious programming skills and I don’t. I used to be a Marine, so I can barely walk by a window without licking it!

Instead I examined match results for national and regional levels matches, looking at top finishers in the most popular divisions (Production, Limited, Carry Optics, Open) looking for high placing GM’s in each division.

I then looked up their classification history in USPSA to see how they faired historically on their classifiers. Finally, I looked at how long it took them to score their first 95th percentile classifier or above in a particular division. I measured this time in months for 20 top Grand Master shooters.

Is This Method Valid?

This method has the advantage of being easy to calculate and one could argue that scoring a GM level score indicates you have that level of skill. This, of course, over looks that everyone has good and bad drills and theoretically they could have shot one drill above their actual skill level. Remember you have to have at least four of your last six classifiers averaging 95% or above.

I would also point out that if you are truly obsessed with earning your GM card then there are ways to game the system. You could, for example, shoot tons of matches and really wing the classifiers.

If you are shooting it well then you will move up in classification, and if you are shooting poorly well you could “accidentally” shoot a no shoot, or “flub” a reload so that the score is so low that it won’t count for your classification.

In my mind, this is borderline cheating. You are really taking away the validity of the test just to say you “did” something hard. You aren’t really at that skill level and you will get crushed by shooters who came across their scores more honestly.

How Long Does It Take to Become a Grand Master in USPSA?

If we accept my method as a reasonable approximation for Grand Master level shooting then I have some great statistics for you!

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• Average Time Till First Grand Master Level Score: 30 months
• Longest Time Till First GM Score: 123 months (Matt Olinchak)
• Shortest Time Till First GM Score: 0 months (Ben Stoeger)
• The Median Time Till First GM Score: 14.5 months

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Remember this isn’t when they were official GM’s but the first of six scores they would need to earn the card. Many shooters went many more months before they could string together enough classifiers to become a GM.

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Discussion: On Becoming a USPSA Grand Master

Personally as a new USPSA shooter who hopes to one day attain GM level this is good news for me. Often times you hear about these wonder kids who attain this status immediately, but you hardly ever hear about the guy who worked for it for a decade then finally achieved it. This tells me a few things.

Just as in any sporting endeavor their will be those who have natural talent, and who naturally will work harder towards their goals. These folks are the top 1% of all shooters, but they aren’t necessarily representative of all GM’s.

It takes most of these amazing shooters two and a half years of work just to complete one classifier at a GM level. This is nearly three years of work and consistent practice. I believe this gives many shooters like myself hope that with enough work and stubbornness we can attain nearly any rank in this sport.

USPSA Shooting Resources

There are a few resources that I think are great places to start if you truly want to become a top level shooter. First, I recommend any Ben Stoeger book, but I particularly like “Dry Fire Reloaded.” It’s a great book, focused on dry fire drills, and importantly it gives you challenging times to shoot for.

I also recommend the Youtube Channel, Shooting Performance with Mike Seeklander. Mike is a former Marine, national champion shooter, and all around great instructor. He has hours of videos on this channel on competition and tactical shooting.

If you’ve read this far then you deserve an internet medal. I hope you found this to be informative and if you didn’t then fight me bro! If you have any questions or comments put them below where I can answer them quickly. Now get out there and start shooting!

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