Shooting sports is a group of competitive and recreational sporting activities involving proficiency tests of accuracy, precision and speed in shooting — the art of using ranged weapons, mainly small arms and bows/crossbows.
Airsoft, also known as survival games in Japan where it was first popularized, is a team-based shooting game in which participants eliminate opposing players out of play by tagging them with spherical plastic projectiles shot from low-power toy airguns called airsoft guns.
The International Defensive Pistol Association (IDPA), founded in 1996, is an organization based in Bogata, Texas, that has created a shooting sport based on defensive pistol techniques, using equipment including full-charge service ammunition to solve simulated "real world" self-defense scenarios. Shooters competing in defensive pistol events are required to use practical handguns and holsters that are deemed suitable for self-defense use and concealment garment that can conceal the handgun from view of bystanders.
The .38 Super, also known as .38 Super +P, .38 Super Auto, .38 Super Automatic, .38 Super Automatic +P, or 9×23mmSR, is a pistol cartridge that fires a 0.356-inch-diameter (9.04 mm) bullet. It was introduced in the late 1920s as a higher pressure loading of the .38 ACP, also known as .38 Auto. The older .38 ACP cartridge propels a 130-grain (8.4 g) bullet at 1,050 ft/s (320.0 m/s), whereas the .38 Super pushes the same bullet at 1,280 ft/s (390.1 m/s). The .38 Super has gained distinction as the caliber of choice for many top practical shooting competitors; it remains one of the dominant calibers in IPSC competition.
Practical shooting, also known as dynamic shooting or action shooting, is a set of shooting sports where 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 amount of time. While scoring systems vary between organizations, each measures the time of 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 varies between shooters.
Combat pistol shooting is a modern martial art that focuses on the use of the handgun as a defensive weapon for self defense, or for military and police use. Like most martial arts, combat pistol shooting is practiced both for defense and for sport.
Metallic silhouette shooting is a group of target shooting disciplines that involves shooting at steel targets representing game animals at varying distances, seeking to knock the metal target over. Metallic silhouette is shot with large bore rifles fired freehand without support out to 500 meters, and with large bore handguns from the prone position with only body support out to 200 meters. Competitions are also held with airguns and black-powder firearms. A related genre is shot with bow and arrow, the metal targets being replaced with cardboard or foam. The targets used are rams, turkeys, pigs, and chickens, which are cut to different scales and set at certain distances from the shooter depending on the specific discipline.
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.
Airsoft is a sport in which players use airsoft guns to fire plastic projectiles at other players in order to eliminate them. Due to the often-realistic appearance of airsoft guns and their ability to fire projectiles at relatively high speeds, laws have been put in place in many countries to regulate both the sport of airsoft and the airsoft guns themselves. Safety regulations in many areas require an orange or red tip on the end of the barrel in order to distinguish the airsoft gun from a working firearm. They are officially classed as "soft air devices" or "air compressed toys", depending on the jurisdiction. A handful of countries including Australia, China, Malaysia and Singapore, have laws that are deemed to be airsoft-unfriendly.
The United States Practical Shooting Association(USPSA) is the national governing body of practical shooting in the United States under the International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC). Its over 35,000 active members and over 500 affiliated clubs make USPSA the largest practical shooting organization in the United States and the second largest region within IPSC after the Russian Federation of Practical Shooting. USPSA publishes a monthly member magazine called Front Sight.
ActionAirgun was a commercial action shooting sports game where competitors use standardized airsoft shooting kits to shoot special courses of fire and keep track of their scores online. It is a trademarked name of ActionAirgun LLC. As of November 23, 2016, the domain for the sport, actionairgun.com, has expired.
Power Factor (PF) in practical shooting competitions refers to a ranking system used to reward cartridges with more recoil. Power factor is a measure of the momentum of the bullet, which to some degree reflect the recoil impulse from the firearm onto the shooter.
Dynamic Sports Shooting Norway (DSSN), NorwegianDynamisk Sportsskyting Norge (DSSN), is the Norwegian association for practical shooting under the International Practical Shooting Confederation. It was constituted in 1979 as Norges Forbund for Praktisk Skyting (NFPS), and changed its name to Dynamisk Sportsskyting Norge in 2013.
To buy a firearm in France, in line with the European Firearms Directive, a hunting license or a shooting sport license is necessary depending on the type, function and magazine capacity of the weapon.
Steel targets are shooting targets made out of hardened (martensitic) steel, and are used in firearm and airgun sports such as silhouette shooting, cowboy action shooting, practical/dynamic shooting, long range shooting and field target, as well as recreational plinking. They are popular in both training and competitions because the shooter gets instant acoustic feedback on a successful impact, and can often also visually confirm hits by seeing the bullet getting pulverized, leaving a mark on the surface paint, or moving/knocking down the target. Hanging steel plates or self-resetting steel targets also have the advantage that the shooter does not need to go forward downrange to tape the targets, making it a good option for shooting ranges that otherwise have electronic targets. Steel targets also are weatherproof, contrary to paper targets, which do not hold up in rain and wind gusts.
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.
Shooting targets are objects in various forms and shapes that are used for pistol, rifle, shotgun and other shooting sports, as well as in darts, target archery, crossbow shooting and other non-firearm related sports. The center is often called the bullseye. Targets can for instance be made of paper, "self healing" rubber or steel. There are also electronic targets that electronically can provide the shooter with precise feedback of the shot placement.
Multigun, Multi Gun or Multi-Gun, often also called 2-Gun or 3-Gun depending on the types of firearms used, are practical shooting events where each of the stages require the competitor to use a combination of handguns, rifles, and/or shotguns Multigun has a lot in common with ordinary IPSC/ USPSA single gun matches, and matches generally have courses of fire where the shooter must move through different stages and engage targets in a variety of different positions.
The 1981 IPSC Handgun World Shoot V held in Johannesburg, South Africa, was the fifth IPSC Handgun World Shoot, and was won by Ross Seyfried of United States, using a relatively stock firearm compared to the highly tuned firearms of many other shooters. Well known in the U.S., Ross had previously won the 1978 U.S. National Championship, and was member of the US National Team who placed second in the previous 1979 World Shoot. The 1981 championship showed the Americans return with a vengeance when both Ross Seyfried took the individual World Title and the US National Team took gold in the team classification.
The 2018 IPSC Action Air World Shoot I was the first IPSC Action Air World Shoot, and was held in Hong Kong indoor at the Kowloonbay International Trade & Exhibition Centre (KITEC). The match consisted of 30 stages over 3 days and had a match capacity of 600 competitors.
