Practical shooting, also known as dynamic shooting or action shooting, is a set of shooting sports in which the competitors try to unite the three principles of precision, power, and speed, by using a firearm of a certain minimum power factor to score as many points as possible during the shortest time. While scoring systems vary between organizations, each measures the time in which the course is completed, with penalties for inaccurate shooting. The courses are called "stages", and are shot individually by the shooters. Usually the shooter must move and shoot from several positions, fire under or over obstacles and in other unfamiliar positions. There are no standard exercises or set arrangement of the targets, and the courses are often designed so that the shooter must be inventive, and therefore the solutions of exercises sometimes vary between shooters.
The International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC) is the world's largest shooting sport association, and the largest and oldest within practical shooting. Founded in 1976, the IPSC nowadays affiliates over 100 regions from Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania. Competitions are held with pistol, revolver, rifle, and shotgun, and the competitors are divided into different divisions based on firearm and equipment features. While everyone in a division competes in the Overall category, there are also separate awards for the categories Lady, Super Junior, Junior, Senior, and Super Senior.
Athena Lee is a competition shooter and USPSA Master. She is also known for competing in the second season of History Channel's marksmen competition Top Shot.
Julie Goloski Golob is an American professional sport shooter with one gold (2017 Lady Classic and two silver medals, one bronze medal and seven Ladies Steel Challenge World Speed Shooting Championship gold medals. She also has 2 US IPSC Nationals Lady titles and 13 USPSA Handgun Nationals Lady titles, and is one of two seven Division USPSA National Champion in history.
The IPSC Handgun World Shoot is the highest level handgun match within the International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC) which consists of several days and at least 30 separate courses of fire. The Handgun World Shoots are held triennially on a rotational cycle with the other two main IPSC disciplines Rifle and Shotgun.
Raine J. Peltokoski is a Finnish sport shooter who has won the IPSC European Rifle Championship three times, and the IPSC European Shotgun Championship once (2006). He is sponsored by Lapua ammunition and Armi Dallera Custom rifles. He also has 7 Finnish Rifle Championship gold medals, one silver medal (2007) and one bronze medal (2005).
The IPSC US Handgun Championship are yearly IPSC level 3 matches held by the United States Practical Shooting Association (USPSA) run under IPSC-rules. Sometimes, all of the pistol IPSC nationals are held at the same time, other years, they have been broken up between different ranges. In order to attend the nationals a competitor usually has to win a "slot" by placing well enough at various regional and Area Championship matches held throughout the year.
The IPSC Nordic Handgun Championship is an IPSC level 3 championship hosted in every year either in Norway, Sweden, Finland or Denmark. Until 2017 the championships were held annually in all divisions. But from 2018 onward championships in Open and Production division will be held even years and championships in Classic, Revolver and Standard divisions uneven years.
The IPSC Rifle World Shoot is the highest level rifle match within the International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC) which consists of several days and at least 30 separate courses of fire. The Rifle World Shoots are held triennially on a rotational cycle with the other two main IPSC disciplines Handgun and Shotgun.
Vidar Nakling is a Norwegian competitive shooter who won the 1980 IPSC European Handgun Championship, and four time Norwegian IPSC Handgun Champion. He is the father and coach of IPSC World Champion Hilde Nakling and has written a book on how to succeed in dynamic pistol shooting.
The IPSC Norwegian Handgun Championship is an IPSC level 3 championship held once a year by Dynamic Sports Shooting Norway.
Maria Guschina is a Russian sport shooter with three IPSC Handgun World Shoot titles in the Lady Production Division. In addition to being a dominant shooter in the Lady category, she has also asserted herself strongly in the Overall category against male shooters in several major IPSC Level 3 events and above. She made an impressive performance at the 2017 World Shoot when she both came 1st in the Lady category in Production and in 6th place in Production Overall with a score of 98.23% of match winner Ben Stoeger. The production division was also the division with the toughest competition and the largest number of participants. Maria has also proven herself in practical rifle, taking bronze in the 2017 IPSC Rifle World Shoot in the Open Lady category and second in the 2015 IPSC European Rifle Championship.
The 1977 IPSC Handgun World Shoot III was held in Salisbury, Rhodesia at the end of August, and was the third IPSC Handgun World Shoot, and was won by Dave Westerhout in front of his Rhodesian teammate and second-place winner Peter Maunder by 116.403 points and third-place winner Raul Walters of United States with further 41.741 points.
Lena Miculek is an American practical sport shooter who took gold medal at the 2017 IPSC Rifle World Shoot in the Open division, Lady category, and three gold medals in the IPSC Shotgun Standard division, Lady category, from the 2012, 2015 and 2018 IPSC Shotgun World Shoot. She is the daughter of IPSC Revolver World Champion Jerry Miculek and Handgun Lady Open Champion Kay Clark Miculek, whose brother was the gunsmith Jim Clark of Clark Custom Guns. Miculek has competed since she was eight years old and started competing actively in 2011.
Christine Burkhalter is a Swiss practical sport shooter who took silver medal at the 2014 IPSC Handgun World Shoot in the Production division Lady category, and gold in the 2016 IPSC European Handgun Championship Standard division Lady category. Christine also has four Swiss National Lady Production titles and one Swiss National Lady Standard title (2016).
Jan Foss was a Norwegian sport shooter from Oslo who became the second world champion in practical shooting in 1976 during the IPSC Handgun World Shoot II in Salzburg, Austria. The favourite ahead of the championship was reigning world champion Ray Chapman from USA, who competed with a 1911-pistol in .45 ACP. Foss took the title with a SIG P210 in 9×19 mm with minor scoring, while Chapman and most of the other competitors shot the .45" caliber with major scoring which was considered an advantage due to the scoring system. The competition was described as being versatile, and Foss shot 379 points which was enough to take the title with a small margin of only four points ahead of Ray Chapman in second place with 375 points (98.94%). Foss had been unknown before the world championship, and did not compete internationally afterwards. He continued to compete locally throughout his career with pistol, rifle and shotgun where he took several medals.
