the skill level required to be "good" in USPSA today is outrageous...for whatever reason, I shot one of the worst matches of my life last Sunday... and I've been doing this for over 30 years...as far as number of rounds in practice... the first year I had my first Dillon 450 (pre 550)I was casting my own .45acp bullets... I cast, sized, lubed, loaded, and shot 34,000 rounds (I saved the end flaps of the 1000 primer cartons)