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 (or sometimes within a set maximum 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.
There are several international sanctioning bodies:
The International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC) is the oldest and largest sanctioning body within practical shooting. IPSC Open Division is sometimes considered the "Formula One" of shooting sports,[1] and is shot with handguns, rifles and shotguns.[2]
The Steel Challenge Shooting Association, founded as a separate discipline, was purchased and integrated by USPSA in 2007. In Steel Challenge matches, competitors shoot five strings of fire at a series of five steel plates of varying sizes at varied distances in an attempt to achieve the fastest time possible for knocking down the plates. The order of fire is dictated by a plate designated as the stop plate which must be shot last. The longest time is dropped and the remaining four times are averaged for a composite stage time.
The International Defensive Pistol Association (IDPA) is a game based on the philosophy of using practical equipment to solve real world self-defense scenarios.[3] Fundamental aspects include shooting from behind cover (when available) and a mandate on engaging targets immediately as they become visible. The sport was created to bring defensive tactics back as a component in addition to speed and accuracy.
Cowboy Action Shooting is quite similar to IPSC-shooting, but with an Old West theme. There are multiple international sanctioning bodies, with Single Action Shooting Society being the oldest and largest.[4] Firearms must be either original or reproduction designs correct for the 19th century, such as Colt single-action pistols and Winchester rifles. The competitors must also choose and go by a cowboy nickname, and are required to look the part by using cowboy and cowgirl garments in late 19th century period dress.
Multigun, also called 2-Gun or 3-Gun depending on the weapons used, are shooting events with a combination of rifles, handguns and shotguns. While multi-gun has a lot in common with ordinary IPSC/USPSA matches, the biggest difference is that the shooter generally has to transition between the use of several different firearms in each stage. Among the largest annual multigun events in the USA are the USPSA Multigun Championship, the Rocky Mountain 3-Gun, the DPMS Tri-Gun Challenge, the Superstition Mountain Mystery 3-Gun, and the LaRue Tactical Multigun Championship.
Glock Sport Shooting Foundation (GSSF) is a competition sponsored by Glock and limited to participants using Glock pistols.[5]
Origins
These men are five of the "Combat Masters", the most successful shooters during the competitions held at the South Western Combat Pistol League ("SWCPL") at Big Bear Lake, California, during the late 1950s. Left to right: Ray Chapman, Elden Carl, Thell Reed, Jeff Cooper, Jack Weaver. (The sixth "Combat Master", John Plahn, is missing from this photograph.)
Practical shooting evolved from experimentation with firearms for hunting and self-defense. The researchers of what were to become practical shooting were an international group of private individuals, law enforcement officers, and military people generally operating independently of each other, challenging the then-accepted standards of technique, training practices, and equipment. The work was, for the most part, conducted for their own purposes without official sanction. Even so, what they learned has had a great impact on police and military training forever.
Some consider the previous Olympic event 100 meter running deer as the first practical rifle shooting competition,[6][7] which originated in Wimbledon, London in 1862. Other notable rifle speed shooting events are Stang shooting (stangskyting) which has been arranged since 1912, and Nordic field rapid shooting (called felthurtig, sekundfält and sekundskydning in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, respectively) which has been a part of the Nordic Fullbore Rifle Championship since 1953.[8][9] Around 1900, efforts were done to develop more effective uses of handguns in combat shooting, mainly through experiments by two Britons, Captain William E. Fairbairn and Sergeant Eric A. Sykes.[10] The first known attempts at developing practical shooting as a handgun sport were done in the U.S. before the Second World War, but the attempts resulted in little.[10]
Shortly after the second world war a distinct combat shooting sport for handguns known as stridsskyting became popular in Norway.[10] This form of shooting had few similarities with the practical pistol sport which would later emerge. During the 10 to 12 years of its existence, what today is known as field shooting gradually took over as the more popular form of pistol shooting in Norway, and the original stridsskyting was completely gone as a discipline in the beginning of the 1960s. Stridsskyting later also was used separately to describe the completely different sport of IPSC-style practical shooting during its infancy in Norway.
In the early 1950s, practical handgun competitions as we know them today emerged in the USA. Competitions begun with the leather slapquick draw events, which had grown out of America's love affair with the TV westerns of that era. However, many wished for a forum that would more directly test the results of the experimentation in modern technique that had been going on at the Bear Valley Gunslingers[11] at Big Bear Lake, California[citation needed] and other places. Competitions were set up to test what had been learned, and they soon grew into a distinct sport, requiring competitors to deal with constantly changing scenarios. The first public competition was at the Big Bear Lake in 1957. In 1969, the South-West-Pistol-League was formed by individual shooters and clubs from California, which to this day is one of the oldest clubs for practical shooting.
The first IPSC World Shoot was held in 1975 in Zurich, about two years before IPSC was formally founded. Ray Chapman from the U.S. became the first ever world class practical pistol champion. The next year, the 1976 IPSC Handgun World Shoot followed with Jan Foss from Norway taking gold. On 24 May 1976 the International Practical Shooting Confederation was formally founded at the Columbia conference in Columbia, Missouri, with representation in fourteen nations.[12]Jeff Cooper was unanimously chosen as the first president. Between 1974 and 1979, stridsskytterligaen (literally the Combat Shooting League) had been the forerunner of IPSC shooting in Norway, until the Norwegian Association for Practical Shooting took over and was incorporated into IPSC in 1979.
Finland pioneered IPSC Rifle in Scandinavia in the beginning of the 1980s,[13] and the discipline soon spread to Norway where the first competitions were held in Stavanger February 1984.[10] In 1987 the first official Norwegian Rifle Championship was held,[13] and the championship has been held annually since. South Africa has held IPSC Rifle and Shotgun matches since 1983, and IPSC multigun matches since 1984.[citation needed]
The United Kingdom Practical Shooting Association (UKPSA) was founded in 1977,[14] and initially focused on practical handgun competitions. In the 1980s, practical shotgun competitions were held both by UKPSA as well as another organisation known as the Combat Shotgun Society. UKPSA also held IPSC practical rifle competitions, while the NRA UK has held a separate discipline known as NRA Practical Rifle competitions with courses usually including physical elements.[15] Today, the NRA UK also holds Practical Shotgun competitions (PSG) alongside the IPSC Shotgun of UKPSA.[16]
One of the first 3-Gun matches to be held in the United States was the Soldier of Fortune matches held in 1979 in Missouri,[17] but these matches were neither associated with USPSA nor IPSC. The first USPSA Multigun Championship was held in 1990 at Pike-Adams Sportsmen's Alliance (PASA) in Barry, Illinois,[18] but USPSA did not take on multigun full-time until around 2000.[17] In Finland multigun matches have been held since around 1992.[citation needed]
In the beginning IPSC Shotgun and Rifle competitions were run using the IPSC Handgun Competition Rules[20] with small adjustments. Adjustments were later formalized in supplementary rulebooks, e.g. UKPSA published a supplementary Rifle and Shotgun rulebook in 1989.[21] Since 1996 IPSC Shotgun and Rifle rules have been published in standalone rulebooks separate from the IPSC Handgun rules.[22]
Organizations
In 1976, an international group of enthusiasts, interested in what had become known as "practical shooting", met in Columbia, Missouri.[23] From that meeting came the International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC). In 1984, the United States Practical Shooting Association (USPSA) was incorporated as the US Region of IPSC. After many years of established IPSC competition, some shooters, including some of the original founders, became dissatisfied with IPSC, as more specialized equipment was allegedly required to remain competitive. The International Defensive Pistol Association (IDPA) was formed in 1996 with the aim of returning to the defensive pistol roots of practical shooting. Soon after this split, the USPSA devised a series of competition "divisions" with varying limits on type and modification of equipment, including a "Production" division with rules similar to the IDPA's regulations. Today USPSA and IDPA matches are two of the most popular forums of practical handgun shooting in the United States, with more than 25,000 and 11,000 members respectively.[citation needed]
In 1977 the UKPSA was formed to promote and regulate practical pistol shooting in the UK, and became England's regional affiliate of the IPSC. The association proved very popular, gaining international respect within the practical shooting community, and hosted many National, European and International competitions. Despite the 1997 Firearms Amendment Act in the UK, worldwide practical shooting is currently the second most popular international target shooting discipline[24][25] and now the fastest growing.[26] Most pistol shooting in the UK suffered severely after the handgun ban, which wiped out many shooting disciplines by removing the ability to participate. Practical shotgun has gained much popularity since the handgun ban, with numerous graded matches each year, and large entries to the European Practical Shotgun Championships.
Scoring methods
Various scoring methods are used:
Hit factor scoring
* Comstock scoring - Total available points on a given stage, minus penalties earned, divided by the time spent to score those points. Sometimes called "points per second" scoring, each competitor is graded against the shooter who, at the end of the competition, scores the highest "hit factor". Courses of fire utilizing the Comstock scoring method are allowed to shoot as many shots as needed to neutralize the targets, but not scored more points than each target allows, allowing a shooter to correct or "make up" points, albeit at the cost of the time taken to score the points.
* Virginia Count Scoring - Total available points on a given stage, minus penalties earned, divided by the time spent to score those points. Virginia Count or "Virginia" scoring prescribes the exact order of and total number of shots that may be taken during a stage, with shots taken and hits scored outside of the specified order penalized. Virginia Count can also specify specific shooting positions, strong, weak, or freestyle (two handed) shooting styles, and may mandate reloading the pistol on the clock.
Time plus, similar to points down, scores a competitor's raw time to finish a course of fire, plus any additional penalties accrued. One of the simplest scoring methods, Time plus oftentimes is found in outlaw (unsanctioned) matches.
Points down is the standard scoring method for IDPA. Shooters under points down score their time, plus their points down, plus any penalties incurred for their final score. Similar to time plus, Points Down progressively penalizes progressively worse marksmanship.
Fixed time (par time) sets a time limit for each course of fire, and mandates shooters to score as many available points within the specified limit. Shooters do not typically incur penalties for not engaging targets (as these points were not scored within the time limit) but may incur penalties for taking shots outside of the time limit.
Two primary paper targets are recognized by IPSC and the USPSA and are named for each organization.
The USPSA Target (or Headbox Target) is the classically recognizable target for practical shooting. The modern USPSA target includes two Alpha (A) zones, one Charlie (C) zone, and one Delta (D) zone.
The IPSC Target (or "Turtle" Target) is a target designed specifically to not resemble a human being, and includes only one Alpha, Charlie, and Delta Zones. IPSC Targets are physically smaller than their USPSA counterparts and are subsequently considered harder targets to hit.
USPSA uses both IPSC and USPSA targets on their courses of fire, while IPSC only utilizes the IPSC target.
Modifiers to the scoring are controlled by a shooter's power factor, which is calculated based on projectile velocity times the projectile weight, divided by 1000. Each shooting organization controls the minimum floors for qualifying for "major" and "minor" power factors -- this prevents competitors from competing with lightly loaded ammunition, sometimes colloquially called "powder puff" ammunition.
USPSA awards an extra point per scoring zone outside of Alpha for competitors shooting "major" power factor.
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 International Defensive Pistol Association (IDPA), founded in 1996, is an organization based in Bogata, Texas that governs a practical shooting sport (IDPA), which is based on defensive pistol tactics, everyday carry equipment, and full-charge service ammunition, to solve simulated "real world" self-defense scenarios. Competitors (shooters) are required to use handguns and equipment that are suitable for self-defense, and wear a concealment garment tha conceals the handgun and associated equipment from view of bystanders.
Jerry Charles Miculek Jr. is an American professional competition shooter known for his achievements in 3-Gun and speed shooting. He holds five officially sanctioned world records in revolver shooting and over 15 unsanctioned records with firearms ranging from 9mm semi-automatic pistols to the .50 BMG Barrett M107 anti-material rifle. Additional accomplishments include rapid-firing 12 shots from a six-shooter in 2.99 seconds, fast-shooting six shots in .98 seconds from a handheld Barrett M107, and a 1000-yard off-hand shot with his 9mm Smith & Wesson revolver.
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 pistols, revolvers, rifles, and shotguns, 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.
A racegun or race gun is a firearm that has been modified for accuracy, speed, and reliability. Often a semi-automatic pistol, raceguns are used primarily in practical shooting competitions and are modified to function best within a certain set of rules, such as weight, size, and capacity requirements.
Robert Jennings Leatham is a professional shooter who is a 24-time USPSA National champion and 7-time International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC) World Champion.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Brazilian Army Barracks, Brasília, Brazil was the 11th IPSC Handgun World Shoot. The event 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.
Ashley Rheuark is a highly accomplished 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.
↑ Maddison, R. J. (19 April 2011). Shooting at Moving Targets(PDF) (Report). p.12. Archived(PDF) from the original on 31 October 2019. Retrieved 31 October 2019. "Moving target shooting is the original 'Practical Rifle' discipline."
↑ Braathen, Erik (1983). Skyting & våpen. A/S Våpenlitteratur, Chr. Schibsted forlag, Oslo. p. 82, ch. 7 Viltmålskyting.
1 2 Morris, James R. (2011). The 3 Gun, Multi-Gun Report. Authorhouse (self-published). p.1. ISBN978-1-456-75798-4. "Kurt Miller [..] about the origin of 3-Gun: As far as I know the first of its kind was the S.O.F. World Championship 3-Gun Tactical Match. It started in 1979 and the first couple of matches were held at Freedom Missouri."
↑ "The Pike-Adams Sportsmen's Alliance: A Brief History". PASA Park. Archived from the original on 11 February 2019. Retrieved 31 October 2019. "PASA has for 29 years also been home to a wide variety of national and international championship shooting sports events, including [... the] inaugural USPSA National 3-Gun Championship (1990)"
↑ Newsletter International Practical Shooting Confederation. 1 April 1987
↑ "IPSC Rules for Practical Pistol Competition", 1st edition. International Practical Shooting Confederation and the American Pistol Institute. June 1978
↑ First supplementary rulebooks: "International Practical Shooting Confederation Rifle and Shotgun Rules", UK Edition 1.1. UKPSA. July 1989.
↑ IPSC Rifle Rules, 3rd Edition. International Practical Shooting Confederation. October 1996.
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