rapid fire practice
Shooting in IDPA and USPSA matches gives you a chance to develop & practice high performance marksmanship skills that are difficult to develop in any other venue other than attending some training classes.
And even then, in many classes the drills you shoot are semi-static on a square range, because you may have one instructor trying to run a class of 18 or 20 shooters in two relays. To develop basic and intermediate skills requires trigger time and some coaching and that's best accomplished in a more static application.
I've been going to a class or two a year since 1982. I highly recommend getting professional training if you can find some in reasonable cruising range at a reasonable price that also assists you in developing the particular skills you are trying to develop. Classes are usually great fun and you get to meet interesting people and learn interesting stuff.
A company called NEXT LEVEL TRAINING makes something called the SIRT pistol. SIRT stands for "shot indicating resetting trigger". Check out their website. A SIRT pistol may be something useful to integrate into your practice routine. They make a version for the Glock pistol and now have a version for the S&W M&P which should be available shortly. I only have a very little bit of experience with the SIRT pistol but the tech school I work for part time just bought a couple and I hope to get some experience with the SIRT system soon.
USPSA shooting can sometimes be useful for those of us with more of defensive orientation, depending upon the design of the stages in the match. I find the simple USPSA stages to be great fun and good skill builders. Some/many/most? USPSA clubs prefer to run lots of run & gun 32 round field courses, and I don't usually find them to be very interesting or useful to what I'm trying to accomplish. (I have shot a few over the years that were pretty good, but that's the exception).
Some clubs post their stages on their website before the match, so you know what to expect. Then you can decide if you want to shoot that match or not.
I really like shooting the IDPA classifier or shooting in USPSA classifier matches. The IDPA classifier is a great test of basic skills, and so are the USPSA classifiers. I was able to shoot in a classifier match in both disciplines in the month of May, which I really enjoyed.
(My duty gun at the PD is a Glock 22 which I shoot in production class in USPSA. I shoot a Glock 19 in SSP class in IDPA. I also own a Smith & Wesson M&P in .40 cal [for which I have a 9mm conversion barrel] and an M&P in .22.)
