Welcome to IPSC-NI     The Practical Pistol division of Kells Rifle and Pistol Club Host of the UK Open 2008

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Practical Pistol - Introduction

In practical shooting, the competitor must try to blend accuracy, power, and speed, into a winning combination. Most shooting takes place at close range, with rare shots out to 45 meters. In IPSC only full power pistols are allowed (9mm or larger), reflecting the heritage of this modern sport. In Comstock scored stages, the scores are divided by the time, adding to the challenge. Competitors may enter any one of five Divisions depending on the style of firearm they use.

Matches are divided into stages consisting of 8 to 32 shots.

This stage contains 3 steel poppers and 3 paper targets. The poppers fall forward when hit so you can see that this stage requires them to be hit in turn, each one revealing the one behind. The paper targets are engaged twice each.

This stage has 3 paper and 2 steel targets. The targets with a white X are 'no shoot' targets and collect a penalty if accidentally hit.

Stages may also include moving targets, partially covered targets, obstacles, movement, competitive tactics, and, in general, any other relevant difficulty the course designer can dream up all combine to keep the competitors enthusiastic and the spectators entertained. While the rules of IPSC state that the course of fire should be practical and diversity is to be encouraged, to keep the sport from becoming too formalized or standardized. In fact, some matches even contain surprise stages where no one knows in advance what to expect.

In competition and in practice, safety is paramount, so the shooter is always supervised by a range officer who ensures that the rules and course of fire instructions are obeyed and more importantly, that everything is done safely.

A stage briefing is given to inform competitors what is expected. They are then given a short timee to walk the course so that they can plan the best way to approach the problem. Let me describe just one stage. The stage consists of four target groups that may be engaged in any order. Walls, doors and windows are placed so that only one group is visible at one time.Competitors must therfore move after engaging each group until they can see the next group.

The competitors will assume that as is the normal practice, a minimum of two shots must be fired at each of the paper targets. There is a penalty for not engaging targets, but if the shooter has missed they can fire as often as they feel necessary without penalty, but only the two best hits will be scored. In this scenario poppers (steel knock down targets) must be hit to allow a clear view of the paper targets behind.

Remember, this is all being timed to the nearest 100th of a second and the total points scored is divided by the time it took to score them. In a typical stage (not shown) a competitor shot 28 rounds, only 2 of which were out of the highest scoring box. This gained him 138 points out of a possible 140. He moved four times advancing about 15 yards up range and reloaded twice. He did all this in 35.75 seconds.