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.
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 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.
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.
The Steel Challenge is a speed shooting competition governed by the Steel Challenge Shooting Association (SCSA) that consists of eight standardized stages with steel targets in three sizes; small circular, large circular and rectangular targets. Competitors are scored solely by the time it takes them to complete each stage, and the match winner is the competitor with the lowest overall time.
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 reflects the recoil impulse from the firearm onto the shooter.
Todd Jarrett is an American competitive shooter, firearms instructor, and filmmaker. He has both national and World titles within practical shooting, holding four world titles, nine national titles and has won more than 50 US Area championships, as well as many other action shooting events. Jarrett is the only USPSA Triple Crown Winner and holds four USPSA National titles - Open, Limited, Production and Limited-10. Jarrett lives in Virginia.
Michael Paul Voigt was president of the United States Practical Shooting Association (USPSA) from 2000 to 2012.
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.
Long range shooting is a collective term for shooting disciplines where the distance to target is significant enough that shooter has to put effort into calculating various ballistic factors, especially in regards to the deviating effects of gravity and wind. While shooting at shorter ranges, a shooter only has to slightly adjust the sights to compensate for limited bullet drop at most, but when the range is extended, wind drift will be the first factor affecting precision to the extent that it must be taken into serious account. Some would argue that long range shooting starts where assessment of wind, distance and various atmospheric conditions are equally important for the results as pure shooting skills - meaning that even if one conducts a technically perfect shot, the shooter will miss the target because of incorrect calculations, neglecting to take some elements into consideration, or merely due to unpredictable downrange conditions. It is widely accepted within interdisciplinary circles that for a standard rifle firing full-powered cartridges, "long range" means the target is more than 600 m (660 yd) away,, while "extreme long range" is generally accepted as when the target distance is more than 1,000 m (1,100 yd) away from the shooter.
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.
Daniel Horner is an American sport shooter and firearms instructor who placed fourth in the Production division at the 2008 IPSC Handgun World Shoot. He shoots varied action shooting competitions with an emphasis on multigun, and is a 10-time USPSA Multigun Champion in the Tactical division. Horner competed for the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit from 2005 to 2018, when he joined Team SIG Sauer.
The USPSA Handgun Championships are yearly championships held by the United States Practical Shooting Association (USPSA) run under USPSA-rules. Sometimes, all of the pistol nationals are held at the same time, other years, they have been broken up between different ranges. In order to attend one of the pistol nationals, a competitor usually has to win a "slot", usually by placing well enough at various regional and Area Championship matches held throughout the year.
The USPSA Multigun Championship, formerly called the 3-Gun Nationals, are yearly multigun championships held by the United States Practical Shooting Association (USPSA). The Multigun Championship is always held at a separate range and date from the pistol nationals USPSA Handgun Championship and IPSC US Handgun Championship. Currently, anyone can participate in the Multigun Championship on a first-come, first-served basis.
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 1996 IPSC Handgun World Shoot XI held in Brasilia, Brazil was the 11th IPSC Handgun World Shoot. The match had 609 competitors, teams from 31 nations and consisted of 35 stages. The Open division was won by Todd Jarrett, while the Standard division once again was won by Ted Bonnet of USA. Todd Jarret from Virginia had established himself as a major player before the event, having placed in the top four of the US Nationals every year since 1990 except one. According to himself he had trained well before the World Shoot in Brazil, and was quoted saying "It's really amazing, the harder I work, the luckier I get."
Shooting competitions for factory and service firearms refer to a set of shooting disciplines, usually called service rifle, service pistol, production, factory, or stock; where the types of permitted firearms are subject to type approval with few aftermarket modifications permitted. The terms often refer to the restrictions on permitted equipment and modifications rather than the type of match format. The names Service Rifle and Service Pistol stem from that the equipment permitted for these types of competitions traditionally were based on standard issue firearms used by one or several armed forces and civilian versions of these, while the terms production, factory and stock often are applied to more modern disciplines with similar restrictions on equipment classes.
The International T-Class Confederation (ITCC), founded in 2014, promotes the shooting sport of T-Class which is mainly focused on competitions with precision rifle systems for various short, medium and long range distances, which may either be known or unknown. Headquarters reside in Bulgaria, and for the purpose of promotion of the sport internationally the organization offers a ruleset which regulates the design and management of competitions.
Ashley Rheuark is an American sport shooter who took silver medal in the Standard division Lady category at the 2017 IPSC Handgun World Shoot, and silver medal in the Open division Lady category at the 2017 IPSC Rifle World Shoot. She is also USPSA National Champion, ranked as an IDPA Distinguished Master, and has proven herself as a strong competitor in multigun (3-Gun) competitions.
