Where is the IDPA Going?
by
Gary W. Burris

In my opinion the IDPA is slowly moving away from its stated goals. And I’ll admit that I’m as guilty as any of my fellow shooters for not living up to the goals of the IDPA. Don’t misunderstand, change is good and to be expected in an organization like the IDPA. We just need to be very careful that we do not stray far from the original goals that were established when the IDPA was formed. I’d like to look at some of these and try to discover where we have gone off course and what it might take to get back on track. Basically, this is an introspective article that might inspire others to evaluate their motivations for shooting competitively.

In order to understand where the IDPA is going, we must first know where it started and what goals were established. Here are the goals as stated on the IDPA web site:

What are the goals of Defensive Pistol?
• The goal of Defensive Pistol is to create a level playing field for all competitors to test the skill and ability of the individual, not their equipment or gamesmanship.
• To promote safe and proficient use of guns and equipment suitable for self-defense use.
• To offer a competition forum for standard factory produced service pistols such as the Beretta 92F, Glock 17, etc. (STOCK SERVICE PISTOL Division), for popular single action 9mm/.40 pistols which have been modified for carry (ENHANCED SERVICE PISTOL Division), for 1911 style single stack .45's which have been modified for carry, not competition (CUSTOM DEFENSIVE PISTOL Division) and for service revolvers such as the popular Smith & Wesson 686 (STOCK SERVICE REVOLVER Division).
• To provide the shooters with practical and realistic courses of fire that simulates potentially life threatening encounters or tests skills that would be required to survive life-threatening encounters.
• To offer a practical shooting sport that is responsive to the shooters and sponsors, with unprecedented stability of equipment rules.
• To offer a practical shooting sport that allows competitors to concentrate on the development of their shooting skills and fellowship with other like-minded shooters.

First let me say that no system is perfect. No matter what we do, no matter how hard we try, we can never create a perfectly level playing field for all competitors. For example: scenario design will almost always favor a right-handed shooter over a left-handed shooter or visa versa. Then there are the over 50 shooters that compete against the under 30 shooters. Is it a level playing field if you have to wear bifocals and are not as fit physically as you were 20 plus years ago? I’m not complaining just because I’m in the over 50 bunch. That’s life and we have to play the hand we’ve been dealt. The point is that there is no such thing as a level playing field.

There are a few things we can do to help level the playing field. Design matches so that they are balanced for left and right-hand shooters. Follow IDPA course of fire design guidelines that require scenarios that do not disadvantage the senior or mobility challenged shooter.

Gamesmanship is rampant in our sport. Come on, admit it, many of us use Kydex holsters and magazine carriers because it is faster in competition and not because we like the feel of Kydex over leather. A lot of us have special concealment garments or vests that are designed for competition. We attend training classes that are intended to improve competitive shooting skills not just marksmanship or survival skills.

Shooters do a number of things to their equipment in order to be more competitive. Many factory sights are replaced with colorful ones that are easier to see, we put skateboard tape on grips and a number of other subtle modifications. We work long and hard to get just the right formula for reloading ammunition that just makes the minimum power floor. Question, do you carry the same ammunition you compete with?

And what about equipment that is suitable for self-defense? Do you compete with the gun you carry? Good, most of us do. However, there are a lot of shooters that compete with one gun and carry another. Case in point, I don’t carry my S&W 625. Actually, that’s not exactly right, I did try carrying the revolver but found that it was difficult to conceal in public with it on my hip. I ended up carrying it in a shoulder rig but after a couple of hours it became uncomfortable and I switched back to my Glock.

All of these things we do are within the rules established by the IDPA and are done so that we will do well in competition. I find no fault with this as long as we understand that the competition is a game and it is fun to do our best to win the game. Problems arise when we abandon the IDPA goals, and winning becomes our focus and motivation for shooting IDPA.

Barricade Shooting
by
Gary W. Burris

We do a lot of shooting around barricades in IDPA. A barricade can be a Bianci barricade, a wall, at tree or just about anything else that is commonly referred to as a “tall cover.” And then there are things referred to as “low cover” like barrels, cars, tables, chairs etc. The difference between these two types of cover is that on tall cover we stand and shoot, while at low cover we are required to have at least one knee on the ground.

Quite a few shooters, including a lot of very experienced shooters, do not use cover properly and their tactics leave a lot to be desired. Having observed this at a number of matches, I thought I’d write about proper use of cover and the tactics involved when doing barricade shooting.

Something to keep in mind is that barricade shooting in IDPA is a lot different than barricade shooting in a real life scenario. I guarantee that you won’t have anywhere near 50% of your upper torso exposed to someone who is shooting back at you. This fact alone should be enough to make us stop and think about the tactics we practice for IDPA shooting. It is a proven fact that when the excrement hits the fan that you will default to what you have learned and what you practice. We’ve all read the horror stories about people in law enforcement being seriously injured or killed when they reverted to poor tactics learned in training.

First I want to address how close to stand to a barricade. How many people do you see extending their gun, hands and arms past the edge of a barricade when they are shooting? And why do you think they do this? Is it because they hope that by having the muzzle a foot or so closer to the target that they will make better hits? Whatever the reasoning, there are a lot of really good reasons not to put your muzzle past the edge of a barricade.

Everyone has heard that if you extend your pistol past the edge of a barricade that it is possible for a bad guy lurking on the other side to reach out and take the gun away from you. So it makes good tactical sense to keep the muzzle out of reach of a potential threat. If you extend your gun past the edge of cover you will find that you need to bring the gun back away from cover for a reload or remedial action. This just adds more time to your score for the stage.

In some shooting venues, contestants are taught to steady the gun or hand against the edge of the barricade. This is not desirable in IDPA shooting because it can cause the gun to malfunction. And the recoil of the gun will cause injury to your hand as it scrapes along the edge of the barricade.

It’s important to maintain a stable stance and shooting platform while shooting around a barricade. I recommend that you have your right foot slightly forward when shooting around the right side and your left foot forward when shooting around the left side of a barricade. You’ll be able to bend your knee and lean out or move out to engage additional targets. It is a good indicator that the shooter is not using cover properly if only the gun moves between targets.

The shooter should stand so that the muzzle is about two inches from the edge of the barricade and lined up on the target when the gun is drawn and pointed at the first target. No other threat targets should be visible to the shooter. You should be able to move from one side of the barricade to the other without moving your gun back. This is another time saver in a scenario. An added safety benefit: control the muzzle direction is easier if you don’t crowd the barricade.

I find that it is easier to roll the gun off vertical to engage targets around a barricade. Many shooters want to keep the gun straight up and down. And when they do this, they often have to expose themselves to threat targets.

The same techniques mentioned above apply to shooting from a low cover position. However, there are some other things to consider. Is it better to shoot with one knee or with both knees on the ground? The answer depends on the situation. Shooting with both knees on the ground will give you a more stable shooting platform. However, it limits your mobility if you have to move from there to another shooting position.

Shooting around a barrel presents another problem. The shooter will feel the need to move closer in order to effectively use cover. I’ve seen shooters hug the barrel so tightly that they skipped bullets off the side of the barrel and didn’t hit their target.

Reloading in a low cover position can be difficult. This is something that most of us never practice. Therefore, I recommend that you reload prior to assuming a low cover position. If that is not possible, then I recommend a slide lock reload because less manipulation of magazines required.

Shooting around cover at targets is pretty straightforward. You engage the targets in barricade tactical order. This means that you engage them as you see them (slicing the pie). The relative distance between you and the targets has no bearing on the order of engagement. If no cover is available, then the targets should be engaged in tactical priority (near to far). This is because the target closest to you is normally considered your greatest threat. An exception might be that one target has a big stick while the other has a gun and in this case the gun target is your greatest threat and should be engaged first.

The IDPA considers targets that are not greater than six feet apart as equal threats. So if there are two threat targets and one is five feet further away from you than the other, you can engaged them in any order. My personal preference is to engage them right-to-left. I choose to engage them in this order because I know that for a right-handed shooter it is easier to track from right-to-left. Many shooters prefer to engage from left to right like reading a book and feel more comfortable doing it that way.

In a scenario that is shot in tactical sequence the targets are normally shot in tactical priority first and then re-engaged in any order. Here again I prefer to re-engage the targets from right-to-left. Tactical sequence for those who are new to the sport means that all targets must be engaged with one shot (you don’t have to hit the target, only shoot at the target) before any can be re-engaged with additional shots.

The scenario pictured here was shot in tactical priority and tactical sequence. The order of engagement should go something like this: T1, T2, T4, T3, T5, T6 each receive one shot; then T6, T4, T2, T1, T3 and T5 in that order. Note that because T1 & T2 are equal distance from the shooter that either can be engaged first. The same applies for the other two groupings of targets T3 & T4 and T5 & T6. Different divisions (gun type) would shoot this differently. First, the revolver division would shot it something like described above with a reload after engaging the 6th target. CDP shooters typically have 9 rounds so their reload would occur after re-engagement of target T2. SSP and ESP shooters have 11 rounds so their reload would occur after re-engagement of target T3.

However, because you can re-engage in any order, you may have a way to engage the targets that gives you an advantage. For instance, SSP & ESP shooters may want to engage one of the close targets last so their shooting order would be something like T6, T4, T2, T3, T5, reload T1. Some shooters feel that this order is faster because it is quicker to get good site alignment and shoot the last target if it is one of the close targets.

It is wise to plan how you will shoot the scenario described above. Stay with me here as I describe how and why I engaged the targets in the order mentioned in my example. First my plan was to re-engage the targets right-to-left. Than means that I need to finish the first part of the scenario at target T6 because that will be my first target during the re-engagement part of the scenario. In order to accomplish ending with target T6, I had to plan my order of engagement so that I would end there. By engaging target T1 first, then T2. I had only a small transition between targets T2 & T4. And again there was a small transition between targets T3 and T5. I then engaged target T6 and did a reload because I shot a revolver. I then re-engaged target T6 and continued shooting right-to left for the remaining targets.

If I had shot the scenario in another division I would still have planned the scenario the same way. When I got to target T6, I would have shot it twice and continued engaging right-to left until in had to perform a slide lock reload to finish the scenario. If my preference was to re-engage left-to-right, all I had to do was start with target T2 first.