International Practical Shooting Confederation: A sport for everyone

I'm a practical target shooter. My sport, IPSC, differs to most other forms of target shooting. In most other types of target shooting a single type of target, mostly paper with concentric scoring zones, is used. There's typically a bulls-eye as well. The rules of engagement are typically constant in that the "match" is conducted in the same way every time allowing shooters to practice that particular competition over and over; It never changes.

Practical competitions offer a wide variety of targets including paper and steel, stationary, moving, disappearing, scoring and penalty targets. There is no "standard" way to array the targets and no set number to utilise in a stage or match. The match Director or organiser simply designs a set of stages that conform to "design rules" set by IPSC using the various types of targets creating an often complex shooting challenge for competitors to "solve" as quickly and accurately as possible. Scores are also calculated differently in that the total score on a stage is divided by the total time taken for the competitor to complete the stage and that becomes the shooters score on that particular stage. For example: A hit score of 19 points divided by elapsed time of 13.58 seconds equals a score of 1.39. So, the more accurate the shooter and the quicker the time the better the score when divided out.

A word on the paper (cardboard) targets. As you can see they have Alpha, Charlie and Delta areas and scores get smaller the further from Alpha one shoots. A Mike is what we call a miss. Not only does one not score on a Mike but a further 5 points are removed. Missing is costly. Each target has to be engaged twice (double-tapped). Steel targets are scored as 1 point per hit and are only hit once as they fall when struck. Often on striking a steel target it will activate a secondary target that pops up, runs down a rail or swings out from cover or concealment. Moving targets are a large part of IPSC.

Ok, that's just a brief description of IPSC. I've included a few target array's in this post from today's shooting. I was shooting a match at my club today in practice for the IPSC State Titles next weekend in which I'm competing. Whist one simply can't walk around the range because we shoot live bullets, I managed to grab a few pictures between shooting.

You will see a couple of different targets we were shooting today. To the right is a popper deployed and ready to shoot at, to its left is a post with a falling plate on it (the round yellow thing) and to the left of that is a popper that has not been reset after being shot. You can see it laying flat to the ground. It simply pulls upright on a hinge and latches. When shot the latch "unlatches" and it falls. You can see the bullet strikes on the poppers.

One gets a lot of satisfaction from shooting at these (provided they're being hit). They make a pleasing sound when struck. I love shooting these but they are only one aspect and to be good at this sport one must master many different concepts and target arrays.

Here's an array of 5 targets (cardboard) which are standard IPSC sized. They also come in smaller half sizes. Each has to be double-tapped and we were shooting at about 15m away. You'll note that two of them are obscured by white cards. They are called Penalty Targets or No-Shoots. Hit one of them and you will lose 25 points plus the 5 you lose for missing the target. That's 30 points total which will put you back a long, long way if you keep hitting them. This particular stage was shot with the strong arm only meaning one-handed with the natural arm (right for right handers, left for left handers.) Shooting these guns one handed is pretty difficult. When you see it done in the movies you can call bull-shit because mostly they would never hit a thing.

This last image is of our house complex. You can see it spreads out to left and right and straight ahead and is partially two-story. In a stage here targets including cardboard, steel poppers and bobbers (targets that activate off a popper and bob up and down back out of view) are arrayed throughout. We're climbing stairs, busting through doorways and running left to right here. We even shoot down from the raised section into doors and windows beneath. It's not cool at all...Umm, YEAH IT'S COOL!

IPSC stages are typically complex in that strategy is required to ensure it is shot efficiently. Magazine changes are necessary, running, jumping, climbing, crawling, prone, kneeling and just about every form of shooting position is employed and all under the timer. It's intense. Oh, typically we draw and shoot from a holster but sometimes not. Last week I had to start a stage on a quad bike with no gun. The gun, (minus magazine) was on a bench 20 meters away. The timer started , I ran to the table, picked up the gun, kept running to the target array whilst loading and racking the gun then started shooting. It was a stage requiring a minimum of 32 rounds and I shot it in 47.36 seconds including the running between target arrays.

So there you have it. A very basic overview of IPSC shooting. The discipline is shot in every continent and thousands of shooters enjoy the sport weekly, safely. Children to old people, men and women shoot and the community is typically close-knit and friendly and also welcoming to new shooters. I hope you have enjoyed my post and if you want to learn more check out this link. IPSC

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@galenkp