This post is for folks who have never shot a match before and want to be walked through the thought process for a stage. If you have any specific questions I don't answer, feel free to ask.
Most matches consist of 5-6 stages. IDPA matches have lower round counts than USPSA matches. Both require not just shooting, but drawing from a holster, movements, and reloads. IDPA requires you shoot from "concealment", meaning a covering garment like a photographer vest or a long shirt. As you'll see in the video, I just use a big unbuttoned 2XL shirt as my concealment garment when I shoot IDPA.
The first thing to understand about pistol matches like IDPA/USPSA/Steel challenge is that they're looking for a combination of accuracy and speed. How IDPA does this is by adding time to your "raw time" for the stage depending on your accuracy. Here is an IPDA target:
Notice that the two small circles in the head and torso have a 0 in them, with areas on target but outside of those smaller zones having numbers like 1 and 3. Cardboard targets in IDPA and USPSA require (usually) two hits to be considered properly engaged. If both hits are in the 0 zone, no time is added to your raw time for the stage. If you have one 0 hit and one 1 hit, 1 second is added. If you have one 1 and one 3 hit, 4 seconds would be added to your time. If you miss the target completely, 5 seconds would be added to your time.
This way, if you go flying through the stage but hit nothing but 1s and 3s, while someone else goes slower than you but hits nothing but 0s, despite you finishing the stage faster, they will have a better score. Speed and accuracy are BOTH important.
There is one more type of target used: a non threat target that looks like this in IDPA:
A hit on a non threat target is a 5 second penalty to your time. Non threats are usually placed close to threat targets to reinforce the need for accuracy.
So with scoring/targets explained, here is what you usually see as you walk up to an IDPA stage:
This stage guide shows you your starting position, position of targets, and any special conditions for the stage. For this stage, instead of the typical 2 rounds required per cardboard targets, T1-T4 required 3 scoring hits, and T5 required 4 hits on the torso and one on the head to be scored.
*disclaimer-the following two paragraphs should only be worried about after you've shot a few matches, don't worry about it as a beginner, just wanted to show you where you can go with it as you continue to shoot*
This is where it gets interesting and part of why I like competition so much. The gun I shot this match with is a CZ P-09, which falls into the SSP division. Mag capacity in SSP is limited to 10 rounds in the magazine at the start, which means if I start the stage with one in the chamber I have 11 rounds before I need to reload. One of the (sillier, IMO) rules of IDPA is that you cannot drop a magazine with rounds left in it to the ground. If you reload before the magazine is empty, you must retain the magazine. This takes time, so most people prefer to shoot to slidelock and empty a magazine, then reload. The problem with this is that if I shot 11 rounds hitting the 3 required per target, I would need to do a flat footed reload in the middle of shooting target T4. I try to avoid reloading unless on the move between shooting positions, because if I can do both required things at once that cuts down on the total stage time. Any time spent standing there reloading is time I'm not shooting or moving to the next shooting position and it slows down my time. So my game plan for this stage was shoot the required 3 rounds at T1, then shoot 4 times at T2 and 4 times at T3 which allows me to reload while moving to position P2 to engage T4, cutting down on stage time. I chose to shoot the additional two rounds at T2 and T3 because I would be engaging them further away than T1, so one more shot gives me one more chance to shoot those targets cleanly as the best 3 shots will be scored.
This is what makes competition valuable: Now as I shoot this stage, the shooting portion itself (sight alignment, trigger control, reloads) is relegated to the near subconscious level, as I'm actively counting shots per target and observing if I've made good hits and if I need to change my plan to take a make up shot on T1 when I start. Training your brain to handle the mechanical manipulations required to shoot well while you observe the people and situation around you are highly, highly valuable skills for anyone who is going to consider carrying a gun in public. This to me is the greatest value to be gained from shooting competition: learning to shoot at the lizard brain level so you can think during a situation, observe and react properly to a changing and chaotic environment around you.
Here is the other stage shown in the video:
This one requires you to start carrying an object and shooting strong hand only for the first three targets, before putting down the car seat/fake baby and finishing the course of fire. This stage forced a flat footed reload. In the video, you'll notice I fire 3 shots at T5 to reload between targets instead of halfway through one. This is just to help prevent me from making a mental error by putting one shot on T6, reloading then moving on to T7 without putting a second shot onto T6. I still had 3 rounds left by the time I got to T5, but I was observing the strong hand only targets and if needed would have used it on an earlier target to try and make up for a bad trigger pull. Again, we're back to relegating the mechanics of pistol shooting to a lower level function to increase observation, which is a valuable skill hard to learn in any other environment.
This post is too long, so I'll put the video of my running through these two stages and an explanation of what you're seeing in the next post.
