I've mentioned larger calibers because it seems everyone who is serious about competing shoots 9mm due to the lower required power factor. Isn't this correct?
To a degree. Of course, the CDP and ESR guys are pretty "serious" and they have to hit 165,000. (Hardball .45 ACP or equivalent.)
There's lots of competative folks who show up and shoot factory ammo in 9mm, .40 S&W, .38 Spc, etc. And there's lots of folks who reload their ammo and try to get down pretty close to the minimum required power floor.
In 9mm, it isn't that big a deal. Your 125gr./1000 fps game load isn't going to be too awful different from your 125 gr/ 1100-1200 fps carry load. In .38 Spc, your "game" ammo is almost definitely going to have to be HOTTER than the factory stuff!
If you load .40 S&W, you can "cheat" a little and load a comparitively light charge -- because you're really competing with the 9mms. If this doesn't appeal to you, don't do it. Like a lot of the other rules, these are minimums, designed to put some limits on how far folks can go to "game" the game. If you want to shoot carry ammo and use a deeper concealment holster and a sub-compact gun, go for it! You're only really competing against yourself, anyway.
If you want to compete against the gamers using lighter loads, you'll either need to be incrementally better than them so that you can compensate for slightly slower equipment, or you'll have to modify your equipment and load to match theirs...and be incrementally better than them.
I'll add one last thought: Up to a certain pretty high level of proficiency, the benefits of using minimum power floor loads vs "full-power" loads are more psychological than practical. Just like when new shooters ask if they should modify their guns or buy expensive competition gear to get a leg up -- spend a year or two getting as good as you can with the equipment you choose. When you've put 5 or 10 thousand rounds downrange in competition, and practice for competition, then you're in a much better position to evaluate how much -- or how little -- difference these things really make. The actual benefits to gaming the system are a lot smaller than people make them out to be. At the upper levels, where things are decided by the tenths and hundredths of a second, those differences can be important, but for most shooters they're simply a crutch, distraction, or excuse.
-Sam
