[Thinking of trying IDPA and/r USPSA]

I've only shot IDPA, and was able to do it with my normal carry gear. Your gun is SSP division. Your shirt should work fine as a cover garment, but it would probably be safer to tuck it in under the gun and wear a vest or button-shirt with the buttons open so you can sweep it back to reach your gun instead of pulling up. Seems like there's more opportunity for something to catch or snag and cause a safety problem if you have to pull up instead of sweeping back. Practice at home, and whatever you do, take your time and do it safely and carefully in the match.

You may want a couple more magazines since yours have a capacity of under 10. The rules say no string of fire can exceed 18 rounds, and if you start with 6+1, that would give you 19 total. That's fine if you don't miss, but there are some targets that you may miss and the scoring allows you to keep shooting, so having another magazine could help you there. We had one saturday with a 'texas star' (2 steel plates on a swinging gizmo). Very few of the shooters I saw got the 2 plates in only 2 shots, and several took 6-8 total shots.

I shot my first idpa match last month and i used my carry gun (m&p compact 40), and IWB holster and just carried my mags in my pocket. Yes, it slowed down my reloads, but i was going pretty slow anyway trying to be safe and learn and not win or anything. I ended up investing $17 in a double-mag pouch for the 2nd match. I may eventually get a different holster, but for now, i was able to draw safely and reasonably quickly from my iwb holster. If you don't have a fairly stiff holster that will stay open for easy reholstering, you might consider one, or an inexpensive kydex owb holster just so you'll have 1 less thing to worry about and 1 less thing to possibly go wrong. It's easy to make an RO nervous by fumbling around in your pants with 2 hands.

[IDPA GM class]

I personally don't care one way or another I compete to win, not my class but the match.

I think that's common amongst the top shooters in the sport like yourself, however you could also ask why have any classes at all for that matter? Seriously. Not suggesting we do that but it wouldn't matter too much to me. Not that it would ever happen.

I'm far far far from a 'top shooter', but I feel the same way. I don't really see the point for all the different classes. Is it just to be able to get a trophy in the beginner senior novice amputee transgender class by beating the one other guy/gal that showed up? I've only shot 2 matches, but I mostly looked at the overall, and other ssp scores. I figure in future matches I'll be able to gauge whether I'm improving by whether I move up overall, not by whether I get lucky and 3 people in my class have a bad day.

I also race motorcycles off-road, and we have skill-level divisions there too, but that makes more sense to me from a safety standpoint, since everyone is shoulder to shoulder at the same time. For sure, many folks do seem to want to stay in the novice class as long as possible so they can get a plastic trophy by beating both other 40+ novice redheaded 250cc catholic riders.

Of course, this is only my own thoughts about my own competition. For those folks who are motivated by the trophy, that's cool, but I only need the results. So I guess basically I'm saying it really makes no difference whatsoever to me what gets done with more classes or less classes or whatever.

[Ever try a sub compact?]

in my fantasy world, there would be some small percentage correction factor applied for small guns, perhaps by a combination of weight and barrel length, to encourage more folks to shoot their actual carry guns. OTOH, perhaps shooting in competition makes more people think about how to routinely carry their grownup guns.

[Ever try a sub compact?]

I've only shot 1 idpa match (going to my second one tomorrow) and I brought my daily carry, an m&p40compact (with 180gr factory ammo). I was slightly surprised to see everyone shooting full-sized guns with owb holsters, but whatever.

For various reasons i'm planning on shooting my cz75 (9mm) tomorrow, but I also carry it from time to time. I think in the future I'll probably alternate between the two. Once I found out about IDPA, the idea for me was to increase my own skills and help focus my training, not to game it up so i can get the best possible score against others. I want to move up the overall with both guns, and it won't bother me if I do better with one than the other. I sort of expect that, and I think it's not a bad idea to be aware of the difference in speed and accuracy that comes along with the convenience of a lighter smaller carry gun.

I personally don't think it would be very fun to shoot my pf9 in an idpa match tho.

[legal reloads for idpa]

Shooting Winchester White box 180's in a Glock 23 for IDPA.

if you're shooting factory .40's, they're way overpowered. OTOH, factory 9's seem to be almost as close to the pf as I'd want to cut it. I'm sure that going with a heavier bullet and faster powder would make even a 9 feel better tho.

[accuracy on a budget]

+4 (if I counted correctly) on the cz. I bought a 75bd because it just fits my hand perfectly and points very naturally, and I've been quite pleased with the accuracy. Base price for that model is around $500 and if you get one from czcustom.com you can order it with an upgraded smoother trigger assembly and still be well within your budget. I'd get wood grips for it too just because they're pretty. I think the sp01 is barely too heavy for IDPA, but is probably a bit better target gun than the 75 due to the heavier barrel.

I can't put a link in my post, but you can figure it out.

czcustom.com/CZ-UB-USA-Factory-Pistols.aspx

[idaho noob returns to reloading and starts idpa]

Power Pistol will pretty much limit you to snappy, factoryish loads, due to it's slower burn rate. If you want to load hotter ammo, it's a great choice.

Understood, although PP does seem to work just fine if you load it down even as much as 15-20% fro starting loads. I just liked the idea of starting out with a large margin of safety pressure-wise in case i made a rookie mistake, so the slower burn rate made sense.

I'm hoping to hold out for a year on the progressive machine, but we'll see.

[Reloading: Single stage a waste?]

I was in a similar situation as you, except my old press is moldering away in another state, so I just bought an inexpensive new single-stage. It allowed me to get going again more quickly with less to go wrong and fuss with and adjust. I've only loaded 350 or 400 rounds with it, but it's not too obnoxious so far. With a single-stage i can do it while I watch tv. all told, 50 rounds takes me around 45 minutes including swapping dies (lee breechlock system so no need to readjust everything, just check it quickly). I decap, size, and prime all the brass I have at once, then I do lots of 50 at a time expanding and charging, seating and then crimping. Starting with decapped, sized, primed brass, it's just under 30 mins for me load 50 cartridges, so I can spend an hour a week to get 400/month.

I know I'll eventually get a dillon progressive system, but there's no way I can spend the money right now.

At any rate, you really have nothing to lose since you already have the press. You'll need dies and a scale and a powder measure evntually anyway, so your investment now should be minimal. If you want cheap, the lee perfect powder measure is cheap and effective. I would stay away from their scale which is painfully hard to use (but is accurate and works) and get a decent digital scale. Other than that you just need some dies. For $130 or so you could be rolling with a cabela's digital scale.

If you don't have a primer tool, add a few bucks for that too. It will still come in handy in the future.

[idaho noob returns to reloading and starts idpa]

I did a little reloading back in 1980 or so for .357. Got a .40 last month, and entered an IDPA competition to see what it was all about and had so much fun I figured I'd better get back into reloading. This forum has been invaluable to peruse, but I got tired of not being able to search so I figured I'd better join, even tho I have little of value to offer others.

Picked up a lee breechlock challenger press, some berry's and zero bullets, and a jar of power pistol powder to get started. Once I'm sure I won't blow myself up, I'll be loading some idpa loads with a faster powder like solo1000 or n320.