Idpa Matches

[bman]

I want to make it fun and do not want it to be over to quickly either what is the average you usally shoot?

[Ron Ankeny]

We try to do 7 courses to make it worthwhile for the guys who drive 300-350 miles round trip.

[TRG65]

I don't do the set-up or planning for any matches but I do drive about 2 hours or more each way to attend the matches I shoot. Anything less than 4 stages feels like a waste of the entry fee (usually $10-15) and a wasted drive to me. I usually try to do 1 or 2 reshoots to make the drive worthwhile, so I don't spend more time driving than shooting.

[tightloop]

I can sympathize with the guys who drive long distances to shoot. I also understand that they want to shoot as much as they can to make it worthwhile.

However, I am an advocate of quality not quantity. That kind of thing ruined IPSC and now you have 36 and 40 shot field courses. A lot of thought should go into the stages being set up to provide a challenging series of stages without having to burn 120 rounds. Most of the matches have 6 or 8 stages and half of them are really stupid. The match would have been lots better ifthey would have eliminated the poor stages and shot some standards, or had a theme for the match. IE., 5 stages using barricades, or 6 stages with lots of movement, or set up a mover and shoot it till you get tired of shooting it.

I have shot stages with yur hands in a bucket of soapy water simulating washing your car, with your gun hidden in a box of sawdust, with yur gun under a BBQ apron, etc. I mean come on. These are not only silly, they have no application, so why do them.

I realize that every match doesn't have to be set up like the Nationals, but getting rid of the silly stages, and the stages that just add shot count to the match will go a long way toward keeping IDPA more in line with what the founders had in mind. I have been MD for lots of matches, both IPSC and IDPA and you can have a very tough match with 4 stages and a total round count of 75 to 80. Fair to the revo shooters, and keeps the balance between the 10 round mag guys and the 7/8 round guys.

Just my $.02 worth.

[vincent]

In Houston we are lucky enough to have IDPA matches 5-6 days a week, year round. There are "weekly" clubs that usually shoot on week days (mostly indoors) and several "monthly" clubs that usually shoot on a specific weekend day of the month (mostly outdoors).

The weekday night shoots are usually time driven. They shoot from say 6:30-9:00pm and get in as many scenarios as time allows. The scenarios are usually setup serially. This usually works out to 4-6 a night. A lot also depends on the number of shooters since everyone has to complete a scenario before another is started.

The monthly matches tend to be larger and have more props (steel, cars, moving targets, etc). These matches usually have 6-8 scenarios and run from say 9:00am-1:00pm. Scenarios are usually all setup early and run in parallel with open squading.

Round count per scenario varies, but 6-12 rounds is usual, with occasional 14-18 round or 3-4 round stages. It really depends on what defensive situation the rangemaster is trying to simulate or what skill is being tested.

For over 800 example IDPA scenarios check out http://www.tacticalshooters.com - this is the website for a Houston club and the webmaster has compiled more scenarios over the years than I have seen anywhere else.

[Mark Perez]

Our club hosts 4 stages and the Tuesday night idpa at Shooters World runs 3 stages.

Cactus Match Leauge does 4 to 6 stages , depending on how many bays they can get.

[jnorine]

Our club's weekly indoor matches generally run 3-4 stages over about 2 1/2 hours.

[rhino]

The club where I shoot normally has five stages each month.

[Duane Thomas]

A well-run IDPA match is a thing of beauty. This weekend I shot a match of six stages. And they all made sense, they were all good stages. I fired a grand total of 74 rounds. We were done by 1:30. And I felt I'd shot a great match.