| La Asociación de Tiro Práctico de Costa Rica | |
| Formation | |
|---|---|
Parent organization | International Practical Shooting Confederation |
The Practical Shooting Association of Costa Rica, SpanishLa Asociación de Tiro Práctico de Costa Rica, is the Costa Rican association for practical shooting under the International Practical Shooting Confederation. [1]
Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, and Ecuador to the south of Cocos Island. It has a population of around 5 million in a land area of 51,060 square kilometers. An estimated 333,980 people live in the capital and largest city, San José with around 2 million people in the surrounding metropolitan area.
Practical shooting, also known as dynamic shooting or action shooting, is a set of shooting sports where the competitors are trying 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.
The International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC) is the world's second 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 and Oceania. Competitions are held with pistol, revolver, rifle and shotgun, and 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 own separate awards for the categories Lady, Super Junior, Junior, Senior and Super Senior.
