Does anyone run Cooper Assault Courses?

[twikster]

of novice and intermediary guy's speed? A lot of this is "just" athleticism, of course. I'd like to see how today's guys do, as vs the 19 seconds or so posted in my day, with 7 shot 1911's. The course is a draw and 2 hits on each of 2 targets at 15 yds, reload and holster, then run the 15 yds, get over a 6 ft high barricade (a step is on it, at 3 ft of height) land, draw, and get 2 hits on each of 2 targets at 10 yds, reholster, run 8 yds, crawl thru a 2 yd long "tunnel" of easily knocked down boards (each one a 5 second penalty). When you emerge from the tunnel, you must function weak hand only, move 2 yds to a barricade with an 18" window in it, at kneeling height. Draw WHO, and hit one target 2x, and hit the stop plate. The range is 7 yds. With a double stack mag, I'd say that a young guy can do this in 16 seconds, with a space gun, maybe in 14 seconds.

[38supPat]

That kind of course pretty much wouldn't fly now, here are a couple of particular rules that deal with why.

8.2.4 A course of fire must never require the competitor to draw a handgun

from the holster with the weak hand.

8.2.5 A course of fire must never require the competitor to re-holster a handgun

after the start signal. However, a competitor may re-holster provided

this is accomplished safely, and the handgun is either unloaded

or in a ready condition stated in Section 8.1.

[Joe4d]

yeh go ahead and build a stage like that this week and see how many shooters you have next week.

[MarkCO]

While you won't find those kinds of things in USPSA, you will find many of them, to various levels, in 3 gun matches. I'm not sure DS v. SS makes any difference with the movement and reloads required. I added up the times and compared them to a book of times I've got for various GMs and 3 of the top tier 3 gunners. At least on paper, it looks like they would all beat 19 seconds by pinch to 3 seconds.

Rifle and shotgun, but BRM3G match, 2010, stage 6 had some stuff lie this...

Edited December 11, 2010 by MarkCO

[twikster]

I've run the Cooper a time or two, and gone to several others. I had no idea IPSC had become so wimpy. We shot the Cooper, albeit with a 4 ft wall, at the 1978 US Natl's. Many guys loved the Cooper.

[calishootr]

as i recall one or more higher level competitors have broken their ankles and or sprained their knee's goin over the 'rhodesian' wall as it was called back in the day...

i 'like' the idea, but as someone already pointed out, go ahead and put it on this week/month's match andsee how many people you get the next time around...

[Coach]

Never seen it run, but it sounds like fun.

[Corey]

as long as i knew that id need a holster to make sure my pistol wouldnt fall out (if in fact the pistol were used on the stage) i wouldnt care. It does look like fun!

[twikster]

It's a blast, really. I was able to run some 16 second times in practice, with a 7 shot 1911, using the 4 ft wall we used at the Natl's, because I could just hurdle it. At the actual match, tho, the loose sand was enough of a "drag" on my feet that I didn't dare risk trying such a thing. I had a foot fault and a brain fart that really knocked me down in the standings,too. :-)

[tunakilla]

Not sure if "wimpy" is an appropriate term. Do we want to test a shooters marksmanship ability or his athletic ability? A balance of the two is best.

Course designers do have plenty of latitude in designing the courses of fire. Today's competitors seem to prefer less physically challenging courses, unlike stages of the past (I started in mid 80's) that were more physical.

[Bryan 45]

I'd love to run it. We had a cooper tunnel at Benning this year, with 4 targets that had to be engaged from 3 low ports inside it. It was a lot of fun.

Ask me in another 20 years and I might change my mind, but it all has to do with knowing your own limitations.

[TJ1911]

This would be fun even without the re-holstering and weak hand draw. I can remember when those 2 things were a consideration when choosing a holster; I wore a cross draw for a while and practiced re-holstering a lot so I wouldn't sweep my off hand. Never did a weak hand draw in a match, but I did practice it a lot in dry fire and got pretty good with my left hand.

Early in my IPSC experience (early '80s) I went over a few 6 foot walls and one 8-footer; now I think I'd take the penalty and run around it.

[ArmdCtzn]

I set up matches like this all the time. Both outlaw 3-Gun and pistol matches.

I would never require a shooter to re-holster, I don't think I like that from a safety

standpoint. Same with drawing weak-hand only, a little too squirrely for me. But all the physical stuff, climbing, crawling, etc. is great fun.

I think the more physically demanding matches are in 3-Gun now. IPSC seems to be much less physical, you're usually on flat ground and not really moving or dealing with obstacles much. I prefer the more physically demanding courses, and I think the stress of all the movement probably simulates the stress of a shooting situation a little better than the typical IPSC course. I use natural hills, scaffolding, walls, and have lots of running in many of my matches. I also like to add mental excersizes, but thats another topic!

[Mark R]

On a side note...what was the RO <<edited/add: in the video>> indicating with one, two, and three fingers on the shotgun portion? Procedures? for what?

Edited January 19, 2011 by Mark R

[rnbore]

I believe he said one failure to engage and two no shoots fell at the last of the video.

[M1911]

I seem to recall reading that such courses were dropped after a competitor shot himself while holstering on that sort of stage.

[Jim Norman]

Problem is most of our customers can't vault a 4-0 wall. Seriously I have shoot 3-gun where you had an eight foot high wall to scale, Rope strung between two trees that you had to traverse, dummy's that weight a good 150 that you had to drag and a whole lot more.

All that was accomplished without having to re-holster. You grounded and retrieved. takes the Oh CRAP! factor out. That said, in your every day USPS match with the shooters we get you would lose about half your shooters. Heck I'd love to do more physical stuff, but I too am getting older. What I could once do I can now only remember doing (Barely)

Seriously, I used to free dive and had a breath hold of over 3 minutes, hit over 100 feet, admittedly no record, just did it for fun, the other day in the pool I barely made 70 seconds sitting still! Same goes for vaulting walls rappelling down walls or cliffs jumping off first story roofs and all the rest. We, all of us are getting older, we are still doing a lot, but there are things we just are not going to do.

Also consider the clientele, There are a lot of people out there that THINK they know what they are doing. How many of them would you really want to RO on this stage?

[Dwain C. Baer]

While you won't find those kinds of things in USPSA, you will find many of them, to various levels, in 3 gun matches.

Very cool video...most entertaining indeed, think I'll watch it again