mobiushky
Regular Member
Tonight I competed in a friendly Practical Pistol competition with a bunch of guys from Lockheed Martin. It's very much like IDPA without the concealment requirement. But basically it's a real world shooting competition designed to mimic what if's in the real world. The guys do 2 a week, Monday is what they call Practical Pistol Lite and Wednesday is the real deal. The lite version is for people who are less competitive and fairly new to the sport.
There were about 20 shooters. Among them were 2 probably 13-14 yr old kids boy and girl (brother and sister) shooting Glock 34's. They were pretty darn good actually. Tonight they decided to mimic an injured strong side. Stage one we lined up in front of 4 steel popper targets. We shot normal 2 handed. After we dropped the last target, we ran to a cover board. Forced a tactical reload and then "lost" the use of strong side. So we had to use cover shoot a IDPA style target from the left side of the board but it had a hostage target stapled to it. Weak hand only. 2 shots to the BG. Then transition to the right side of cover and drop 2 more steel targets all weak hand only. No support from the strong hand.
Stage 2 was a line up of 6 steel poppers at about 15 feet with 2 ratchet steel silhouettes. The silhouettes were man height, but they had to drop 3 levels. A good head shot might drop them 2 levels, but you had to be clean on the head. A chest or gut shot would not move them at all. So the deal was, the 6 poppers were 2 handed. The 2 silhouettes had to be shot weak hand only. Man that sucked... LOL!
Stage 3 was the same as above, but shot all 2 handed and only needed one shot per target. Mainly just a speed round.
I'll tell you what, if you've never done an IDPA style shoot you need to. I'm dead serious. I know there are a lot of guys here who have a lot of experience and even real life shooting experience. But if you're like me, I've never been in a fire fight. I was never a cop or in the military. I'm just an average joe. Well, let me say this. Everything you think you know about stress goes right out the window when the moment hits you. You think you can draw fast on paper targets. Well, try it in a high stress situation and put a timer in your ear and see what happens. The first time I did it, I completely forgot everything. I forgot to aim. Doing this has made me more aware of the realities of actual split second situations. Like I said, I know there are a lot of guys here with way more experience than I have. And there are a lot of ex-military/police/whatever. I'm not talking to you guys. I'm talking to people like me. If you get a chance to do an IDPA event, do it. You'll learn about yourself more than any day just shooting at a range and paper targets. Just FYI.
There were about 20 shooters. Among them were 2 probably 13-14 yr old kids boy and girl (brother and sister) shooting Glock 34's. They were pretty darn good actually. Tonight they decided to mimic an injured strong side. Stage one we lined up in front of 4 steel popper targets. We shot normal 2 handed. After we dropped the last target, we ran to a cover board. Forced a tactical reload and then "lost" the use of strong side. So we had to use cover shoot a IDPA style target from the left side of the board but it had a hostage target stapled to it. Weak hand only. 2 shots to the BG. Then transition to the right side of cover and drop 2 more steel targets all weak hand only. No support from the strong hand.
Stage 2 was a line up of 6 steel poppers at about 15 feet with 2 ratchet steel silhouettes. The silhouettes were man height, but they had to drop 3 levels. A good head shot might drop them 2 levels, but you had to be clean on the head. A chest or gut shot would not move them at all. So the deal was, the 6 poppers were 2 handed. The 2 silhouettes had to be shot weak hand only. Man that sucked... LOL!
Stage 3 was the same as above, but shot all 2 handed and only needed one shot per target. Mainly just a speed round.
I'll tell you what, if you've never done an IDPA style shoot you need to. I'm dead serious. I know there are a lot of guys here who have a lot of experience and even real life shooting experience. But if you're like me, I've never been in a fire fight. I was never a cop or in the military. I'm just an average joe. Well, let me say this. Everything you think you know about stress goes right out the window when the moment hits you. You think you can draw fast on paper targets. Well, try it in a high stress situation and put a timer in your ear and see what happens. The first time I did it, I completely forgot everything. I forgot to aim. Doing this has made me more aware of the realities of actual split second situations. Like I said, I know there are a lot of guys here with way more experience than I have. And there are a lot of ex-military/police/whatever. I'm not talking to you guys. I'm talking to people like me. If you get a chance to do an IDPA event, do it. You'll learn about yourself more than any day just shooting at a range and paper targets. Just FYI.