Will competition get you killed? Police take

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BlueTrain, with regard to IDPA, there are different divisions, including two for revolvers. One of those is for revolvers that take moon clips, and the other for those that require speedloaders or loading by hand, to simplify things. Revolver shooters compete directly against other revolver shooters, and there's a "handicap" of sorts figured in for each division when assessing overall winners.

I have friends who regularly shoot revolvers, or who alternate 50/50 between their preferred carry revolver and their preferred carry auto.

Some IDPA clubs will have occasional BUG matches, so if somebody wanted to shoot a pocket pistol, there are opportunities for that, too.

I've only shot in IDPA and GSSF, partly due to availability, and partly because I have no interest in "race guns." I like (relatively) stock handguns and holster rigs, though I will change out sights and tune triggers.
 
Sorry, folks. I gave up shooting fifteen years ago. It was way too expensive. I can't even afford range membership. Also, I got up one day and it wasn't fun anymore. I don't have any friends that shoot, either. And at my age, it's just plain silly to think of competing. But not having competed should keep me from making comments. This is not a debating forum, is it? Anyway, neither of my two handguns is a .45, which I believe is minimun required basic equipment, judging from what I read here, though not in this thread.

Say, is there an age handicap?
 
There are guys at our club who can't run anymore and can barely pick up their empties and they still come to compete. The 9mm is the smallest caliber used and I use mine when arthritis is bad. If you lived here in Mesa, Az I'd come get you and let you use my equipment. It's still fun to go and shoot (badly at times) and hang out. :D
 
No way, even the armed threat targets I've seen at matches don't have real guns, so have never even fired a shot. Much less one at someone playing the game.

Real life, I think not owning and or knowing how to shoot a gun would be more likely to be of harm.
 
BT, I apologize if I struck a bad cord with you.

I only shoot IDPA now. We have one guy that is ALL crippled up,(had a concrete beam crush him) only has the use of one hand and cannot stand without a crutch and he competes. He does not do some of the stages from the required positions-he can't. One of our revolver guys is 75 years old. Our local club is a very friendly group of guys, there are no prizes, only bragging rights. There is a division for seniors, they are usually the best shots. pistols and revolvers must be 9mm/38 or larger.

IDPA is great because you cannot even use a race gun. At my club, there is a smattering of Glocks, 1911's, revolvers, XD's, Beretta's, Taurus's and since you are presenting from concealment, you should be using everyday gear.

Depends on the club, we are not an "IDPA sanctioned" club so you can pretty much run what ya brung. I use the competitive arena to wring out new guns, sometimes knowing I am gonna suck. Match before last I ran my 640 Pro, I actually beat a guy shooting a 4" k frame.

Nothing says you have to win, I do it for fun.
 
Will competition get you killed? Police take
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Anything can get you killed. You can do everything right and still get killed.

Sure some things in competition are generally not good ideas in combat or self defense but...

There are billions of situations and who knows what skills will be needed.

Overall though the skills you learn at gun handling in competition will, in general, do you well on the street.

Deaf
 
back up gun matches

Blue Train did bring up an interesting point, in that most courses of fire in IPSC or IDPA are NOT real practical for a shooter running a Walther PPK or S&W 36 (or similar small gun) (And for the record, I have a PPK and 3 different Chief Specials [all with a 3 inch barrel] and carry them frequently)

I have shot back up gun side matches a few times in both IPSC & IDPA. I wish I had the oppertunity to do so more often.

Not all courses of fire used as stages in competitive matches are that useful to those of us with a defensive orientation to shooting. That was the point of my previous post -- see what the local clubs around you run for stages, and shoot when their course design matches what skills you are trying to develop
 
Jeff22 said:
...most courses of fire in IPSC or IDPA are NOT real practical for a shooter running a Walther PPK or S&W 36 (or similar small gun)...
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Why would that make a difference? If that's the kind of gun you're carrying, that's the kind of gun you'll be relying on if you ever need it, and you can't know in advance what your problem will be if one ever comes up in real life for you. So you might as well try your PPK or J-Frame out with whatever comes up in a match and see how well you can manage with it.

You might not be competitive with that sort of gun, but you'll at least see how well you can make it work for you.
 
+1 Frank Ettin.

If you want to run a PPK or a BUG on a regular day, go for it. Don't worry about scoring, per se, just see how well it works for you.

Put another way, I used to fly Navy P-3's. We'd often loiter (shut down) an engine while flying long, low, overwater profiles. Running fewer engines, at higher power levels, actually saved fuel - since somewhere around half the fuel burn for each engine was required simply to turn the engine compressor, not to produce torque or thrust.

The decision on when/whether to do that was based on performance numbers in our operating handbook (NATOPS), officially, but in reality most of us would pull power back on that engine to simulate a feathered prop, then pull back the other engine on the same side (worst case dual failure, since a lot of rudder would be necessary to counter the severe torque imbalance, and a lot of rudder equals a lot of drag) to see what that airplane would really do in those conditions.

Books and stats are well and good, but if I were going to operate 200ft above the water, I wanted to know exactly how that system would work in that weather on that day, if I were to lose the worst case engine while I had #1 shut down.

So, run what you plan to use, and see what you can really do with it.
 
Let me just say two things here.

First, shooting just costs more than I'm willing to spend. Period. As I said, the range membership alone is prohibitive. Clark Brothers in Warrenton has a free range that you can use if you buy their ammunition, which seems fair enough, and I have shot there, but it's nearly 50 miles from where I sit. It's a lot closer to where I work, however, and I've actually been out there at lunchtime to pick up a special order.

But returning to the subject of handguns and courses. I can see there would be a lot of value in actually competing with your actual carry gun, if they would let you. It might make you rethink your choice of a carry gun, though, at least for a while. You could decide that you really should be carrying a (physically) bigger gun and you switch for a couple of months until the weather started getting hot and it started to seem a little harder. So you switch back to the original gun (you otherwise don't switch carry guns, do you?) that you had spent so much time thinking about already.

It might also put you off on competitions, too, unless you imagine that a course which requires three magazines worth of ammo to finish is realistic. That's probably a bigger issue and to attempt a course with a five-shot revolver (or a single action, perhaps) is a nonstarter. That isn't to say there isn't a club somewhere that has a more realistic (fewer shots) course set up.

If nothing else, competition forces you to take a harder look at everything without the element of real danger but with real pressure.
 
Unfortunately, for the above post, people do compete with BUG guns. I've shot my 642 or 632. A friend just did an IDPA match with a Sig 238.

There are no rules against it. Yes, the reloads are a pain but if you want to practice with such, you can in most club venues around here.

I shoot my carry, stock Glock as others do most of the time.

As far as need multiple mags - yep, that's not realistic in most cases. But, you get need repetitions on trigger, sights, multiple fast shots, reloads and malfunction drills.

Reps are important for skills. I really don't see any downside of competiton in a context of also having more realistic training.
 
The gun is the least of it.
A fellow showed up at one of our local USPSA matches with his trusty five shot snubby revolver, a cheapie holster, and a few speed loaders.
The guy at sign in jokingly asked if he actually wanted a score card.
It turned out the joke was on him.
The fellow with the snubby finished fifth, out of over 50 competitors that day.
And the fellow with the snubby was one of the oldest of the bunch, to boot.
 
Will competition get you killed?
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How can someone can expect to arrive at a definitive answer to this sort of question for everyone else? Maybe for themselves. Maybe.

What does any particular person need to do in the way of training/practice in order to focus attention on some of the critical factors involved in deadly force encounters, especially where the use of a firearm as a dedicated defensive weapon is anticipated (and available)?

Foundation skillset (marksmanship, safe handling, etc)

Knowledge

Tactics

Continued/recurrent proper training & practice to ingrain the training to the point of unconscious competence, under physical & mental stress

Mindset

Experience

Equipment (familiarity, handling, manipulation, maintenance, etc)

I've known cops who enjoyed participation in various competition venues ... and those who didn't. I've known non-cops who did the same (on both counts).

I've seen folks from either end of both groups who experienced difficulties successfully completing qual courses-of-fire ranging from simple & straightforward (no stress and no requirement to identify the threat/non-threat targets), to rather demanding. Pretty much depends on the person, and their "marksmanship" was only one aspect of the equation, it seemed.

Personally, while I'm not at all interested in participating in "outside" competitive shooting venues, I'd not think to dissuade someone else from doing so.

I would, however, if asked, suggest that anyone interested in participating in various competitive venues remember to try and identify the differences between following "contest rules & tactics", and using the appropriate & optimal tactics in the "real world".

Marksmanship is a perishable skill.

Anything that reinforces good marksmanship can't be bad.

Good marksmanship is not the same thing as good tactics and mindset, though.

I've seen the occasional skilled Camp Perry, IPSC & IDPA shooter choke when faced with a close range drill where decision making and multiple threat targets were involved. Train for one set of conditions and then encounter another, and things might go fuzzy in a bad way.

Train for what you reasonably expect to have to accomplish ... and try to make sure your expectations are really reasonable. ;)

Good trigger time is better than no trigger time.

Bad tactics can render good shooting skills a moot point.

As Deaf reminded us (and has been said elsewhere often enough), sometimes you can do everything right and still come out on the wrong end of things.

Maybe different folks have a different set of expectations and perception of actualized benefits from competitive shooting events. Dunno.

There's a reason the language used to describe deadly force encounters has often included things like dynamic, chaotic & rapidly changing ... right?

You happy with your training, practice and ability to employ good tactics, in a situational context, while trying to safely & optimally use your shooting skills?

I ask myself that question all the time. ;)
 
While the gun may not be the most important thing, the course might be. So a good question is, is the course or competition realistic? For some it might be, for others, not so much. I've read some complaints that trivial rules detracted from the course but of course, that was just one person's idea.

Some old-time writers (not when they were old) believed strongly in competition. Only the competition they were speaking of was regular bullseye shooting. There was never any suggestion that they ever thought of any kind of practical pistol shooting competition. I guess that was more into the future. But they still felt it was important to get the basics down pat before you attempted anything else.

Naturally, others disagreed.

One very simple reason is that to some, target shooting and any form of practical pistol competitions were really a luxuary that they just didn't have time for. You may recall that at one time, soldiers were sent off to combat with what most of you probably would consider totally inadequate training and probably some think that's still the case. For the rest of us, going out every week and shooting up your gas money to hone your shooting skills is really a luxuary from a cost standpoint. For soldiers in basit, it's a time constraint. But I think I've talked about this before.
 
BlueTrain said:
...So a good question is, is the course or competition realistic?...
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That's not necessarily the question. Of course competition by its nature will be unrealistic. The purpose of "practical" competition is to practice and test basic skills stress: moving quickly and safely with a loaded gun; shooting quickly and accurately; engaging multiple targets shooting from unconventional postures or awkward positions; manipulating objects while shooting (e. g., opening doors, carrying things, etc.), reloading, among others.
 
BlueTrain said:
You mean it can't be realistic? Well, you just killed the whole thing right there, I think.
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If that's what you think, then you simply don't understand what I, and others who train and compete, have said.
 
If you are looking for law enforcement training, competitions don't really offer that. They do not simulate pulling someone over for a seatbelt ticket while standing in the interview stance, and having to engage multiple perps from hard cover until back up arrives.

If you want to simulate getting robbed while taking money out of the atm machine than IDPA is for you. If you would like to find the limitations of you skill and your hardware while improving fundamental mechanics such as drawing from holster and shooting at multiple targets quickly than just about any action shooting sport will fill your needs.

I see no reason to make such a science out of it. Just try it or stick with the idea that comps = death in the street
 
Can receiving high quality tactical/self defense training and then following it up with virtually no real practice, other than standing in one spot and shooting slowly at the local range, a couple of times a year, get you killed if a real self defense situation confronts you? Mark
 
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