Advice for IDPA Matches
by
Gary W. Burris

In the years I’ve been shooting in IDPA competitions I’ve observed a number of problems associated with how the matches were organized. I’ve also seen a number of solutions to those problems that were very imaginative and helpful. When you see a problem, rather than complain about it, why not learn from what happened and look for a solution to the problem? I tend to look for simple solutions to problems. Many times we try to over-think or over-engineer the solution to a problem. I offer this advice in with the hope that it will help you the next time you hold a sanctioned match.

Problem #1: Keeping Shooting Order Straight

In a match that has open squad shooting, it is frustrating when a shooter turns in his score sheet at a stage in a match and others who come after him get to shoot before him. First let me note that the match won’t be completed any sooner just because some other shooter(s) got in front of you. But fairness dictates that competitors get to shoot in the proper order.

Perhaps the best method of avoiding this problem is the one employed by the Central Arkansas Shooters Association (CASA). They have a sign up sheet that the shooter puts his name on. The shooters are called in the order on the sign-in sheet. The shooter hands his score sheet to the Safety Officer when called and begins the course of fire. If the shooter is not there when called, his name is scratched and he must sign in again. This offers a number of advantages besides keeping the correct shooting order. You can draw a line after the last shooter on the list and that way keep track of who has had a course description by the Safety Officer and who has not. Also, it relieves the staff from keeping track of score sheets that have been handed in by the shooters.

I like the idea that the shooter keeps his score sheet and hands it to the Safety Officer just before he shoots even if using a squad format in a match. This can be done by using the sign in method described above or by appointing a squad leader to collect the score sheets and then handing them one at a time to the Safety Officer.

Problem #2: Understaffed Match

If you are the Match Director, be sure that you have plenty of help to run the match. I’ve worked as a Safety Officer in a lot of matches that were under staffed. And I’ve made the same mistake as Match Director so take some advice from one who knows. You can never have too many helpers in a match.

There have been matches that had a minimum staff and guess what happens? One of the staff calls in sick or has some other emergency that prevents them from helping the day of the match. I’ve been in the situation where it was difficult to get a little relief just to get a bite of lunch. I’ve also had to enlist some of the competitors to help with scoring.

I understand that major matches provide a lot of revenue for local IDPA clubs. I think it is for this reason that many Match Directors tend to cut corners by having minimal staff. Think about this because if your match staff is overworked and unhappy do you think they will want to work another match? Likewise, consider how much better the competitors will enjoy the match if the staff is happy.

Problem #3: Awarding Prize Table Items

There are a number of ways to pass out items from a prize table. Let’s see if I can list some of the more memorable ones.

• No prize table at all. After all we came to shoot a competition not win something from a prize table.
• All shooters names are in a hat. Names are drawn and the lucky winner comes to the table and selects what he wants.
• Shooters have been assigned a shooter number. That number is drawn and the lucky winner selects an item from the table. (Most shooters don’t remember their shooter number so time is spent looking the name up on a list. Why not just put the names in the hat and forget the shooter number).
• A prize is picked from the table and a name drawn for the winner.
• Tickets are sold for a big prize (like a gun) and the winner is drawn from the tickets sold.
• Tickets are included in shooter’s package they receive prior to the match. Shooters can buy additional tickets. The ticket holder can put his tickets in any of several jars to which a particular prize has been assigned. When the major prizes have been drawn and awarded, all the remaining tickets are put together and a drawing is held for the remainder of the prizes on the table. It is possible to win several times using this method.
• Vendors are drawn from one jar and winners from another. All items donated by a particular vendor are awarded and a photo is taken of the winners and sent to the sponsor. Then another vendor is drawn and so on until all prizes are awarded. This method was used in the 2004 Arkansas State match. Shooters were given labels to put on their score sheets and there was an extra label when they signed in that was put on a 3 by 5 card that was used in the drawing for the prize table.

There are so many variations of this that it is difficult to remember them all. And because of this, there is a lot of confusion and sometimes some unhappy shooters who did not understand how the prizes were going to be awarded.

I have to say that I think having a prize table is a good idea. One of the main reasons for having a prize table is to use up time waiting on the scores to be tabulated. Just be sure to clearly explain how prizes will be awarded. It must always be by chance and not according to shooting skill. It gives shooters a chance to take something nice home with them no matter how they shot in competition. Don’t forget to thank the sponsors who donated items for your prize table. You may want their support another time.

I’ve written about bottleneck stages before. These can be very frustrating to both match staff and shooters. And many a Match Director has agonized over how to speed up a bottleneck stage. I’d like to offer a few bits of advice about what I’ve seen work to help speed up a bottleneck stage.

The best way to prevent a bottleneck is in the planning stages of an event. We often set up multiple scenarios in a single shooting bay. Not problem here except that in combination some courses of fire will contribute to a bottleneck. For instance, two 18 round stages together will force most shooters to have to reload magazines between scenarios. I’ve written a Match Time Calculator program in spreadsheet form that is available on the Tactical Shooters Club web site under a tab called “Resources”. Simply enter the information for each course of fire and it will calculate how long it will take to shoot a scenario as well as total match time given the number of shooters and shooting bays. This calculation is not perfect, but it will give you a clue about possible bottleneck stages.

One way to speed up a scenario is to load everyone in the shooting bay hot at one time so that you don’t have to give the command to Load and Make Ready to each shooter as they come to the firing line.

Take the example where you have a shooting bay with multiple scenarios. Consider not running the same shooter continuously through all the stages in the bay. Have one shooter shoot the first scenario and a second shoot the second scenario. This way the shooters have time to reload between start signals while the targets are scored and taped.

I worked the 2003 IDPA Nationals in a bay that had 3 stages. There was thought given to throwing one of the stages out because it was felt that this bay would be a bottleneck. The CSO for the bay was Johnny Van Etta and he refused to have a scenario thrown out and so devised a plan to prevent the bottleneck. Part of it included not allowing the competitors to tape targets. I first thought this was nuts because usually the more help you get taping, the faster you can run a course of fire. But we discovered that the Safety Officers could run the scenarios and tape them ourselves much faster if we didn’t spend our time hustling the competitors out to tape and then hustling them back so we could begin shooting again.

2004 Texas State IDPA Championship
by
Gary W. Burris

Everything is big in TEXAS. In the early stages of planning for this event, Match Director, Dale Hunnicutt had a vision to make this the biggest Texas IDPA match ever held. My task as Range Master for the event was to put together courses of fire that would challenge the contestants, yet facilitate a large number of shooters. Our goal was to have as many as 200 shooters. This goal seemed unattainable to me. But given that we had over 170 shooters in the 2004 Texas Spring Regional IDPA Championship, it looked like having 200 shooters at the Texas State match was entirely possible.

The 2004 Texas State IDPA Championship match should probably be renamed the 2004 International Texas State IDPA Championship. After all, Texas advertises itself as being a “Whole other country”. Eight different states were represented as well as competitors from Italy, Slovenia and Venezuela.

A lot of work was done at the PSC Shooting Club, Inc. to prepare the range for the event. Two walls were built in one of the large shooting bays turning it into three bays. They also agreed to allow us to use the .22 range for a couple of scenarios. This gave us seven shooting bays to play with. And we would need the additional shooting bays to run a large number of shooters in a reasonable amount of time. This was the third year that the PSC IDPA Club has hosted the Texas State match and by all accounts it gets better every year.

The match was designed to be a one-day event so that shooters who had to travel a long distance to compete could travel on Friday, shoot the match on Saturday and then travel back on Sunday. The match staff shot the match on Friday so they could work the event on Saturday. And because we expected a large turnout, we opened the Friday shooting up to anyone who wanted to shoot with the staff, thereby helping to reduce the number of folks who would shoot the match on Saturday.

The festivities started early on Friday evening. Ernest Langdon presented a free class on flashlight techniques. His presentation was very highly praised by a standing room only crowd of enthusiastic shooters.

Brian Marino served as Prize Coordinator and worked with our sponsors who have supported our match through donations for the prize table. And what a prize table it was with an estimated $12,000 in merchandise. I think we gave away a gun for about every 15 competitors. And there was much, much more. We were truly blessed with industry leaders who have gone out of their way to support this match and the IDPA in general. On behalf of the staff and competitors at the 2004 Texas State IDPA Championship match, I want to extend our heartfelt thanks to these sponsors: Academy Sports & Outdoors, Accurate Arms Company, Brian Marino Photography, Inc., Brownells, Comp-Tac, Competitive Concealment, Competitive Edge Dynamics, Eastex Tactical IDPA Club, Glock, Hunnicutt Auto Repair, The ImpactZone, Jim Pruett’s Guns and Ammo, Ready Tactical Products, Remington Arms, Springfield Armory, SureFire, Tactical Shooters Club, Tactical Trainers, Texas Defensive Pistol Safety Association, Thunder Tactical Shooters Club, Top Gun Gear and XS Sight Systems.

If there was a downside to the match it was the temperature. The heat and humidity here on the Texas Gulf Coast can be brutal for those from more moderate climates. I made it a point to encourage staff and competitors to drink plenty of fluids and stay hydrated. Both fixed covered shooting areas and pop-up tents were used to provide ample shade. Water was available at each shooting bay. On the plus side of the weather, the threatening thunderstorms held off until the match was complete. Just minutes after the last shot was fired we were blessed with a torrential downpour including pea sized hail that lasted about 30 minutes. This helped to clear the air and provide a little relief from the heat.

The match consisted of twelve scenarios and 140 rounds minimum. The theme for this match revolved around outdoor activities. There were scenarios that involved camping in a remote area, stopping at a roadside rest stop, going to a sporting goods store, a hunting trip and a fishing trip. Shooters found themselves going prone behind an ice chest (only available cover), shooting from a seated position in a duck blind, hooking a trophy size large mouth bass and passing the baked beans at a family picnic.

The competitors seemed to enjoy the “theme” for the match. And the match crew did a fantastic job of taking my concepts written on paper and turning them into near realistic settings for the scenarios.

Scenario #1, Rest Stop, was my personal favorite. This scenario included a couple of threat targets hiding behind a tree. The tree was made of plastic but behind the trunk was a steel plate. No judgment calls in hard cover were necessary by the Safety Officer; you either hit the target or the steel.

Scenario #2, Duck Hunting, had the shooter seated on a swivel stool looking for ducks when a bunch of bad guys with malice (mallard?) on their minds attack.

Scenario #3, Gun Store Clerk, had a couple of crooks looking to upgrade their weapons collection. What they got was a bunch of lead. Are crooks stupid or what?

Scenario #4, Scout Leader, had the shooter seated in a tent when kidnappers appear and want to take an industry leader’s kid. First the shooter took cover behind a garbage can, and then moved to a large ice chest that provided better cover.

Scenario #5, Large Mouth Bass, is another of my favorites. The angler (shooter) has hooked a trophy fish when radical animal rights activists threaten the life of the angler. The shooter drops the fishing pole and turns to protect his life. I did substitute an old tennis shoe for the fish in the scenario because I support catch-and-release.

Scenario #6, Trip to Academy, places the shooter in the middle of shootout by felons who are trying to escape a murderous robbery. This scenario had the only moving threat target in the match. The runner was visible for about 5 seconds then moved behind a wall only to re-appear in a doorway. Another target popped out but then remained stationary. We made good use of the Allen Actuator system (invented by Randy Allen) to trip these targets.

Scenario #7, Dumpster Diving, had the shooter engage a gang of hoods and when more of their buddies appear the shooter has to dive behind a dumpster for cover.

Scenario #8, Camping Supplies, had the shooter get caught up in a hostage situation at the sporting goods store. He has to rely on his training to take out the bad guys.

Scenario #9, Family Outing, add this to my list of favorites. The shooter is seated at a picnic table passing the baked beans when thugs attack. There is a child playing on a playground spring horse caught in the middle of the action.

Scenario #10, A Moving Experience, was the only limited Vickers stage in the match. It was a standards skills test with four strings of fire, all while moving.

Scenario #11, Move’n on Out, had the shooter retreating from a couple of threats while engaging them as quickly as possible.

Scenario #12, Six the Hard Way, started with the shooter standing and his gun on the ground after being wounded in his strong arm. The shooter went to his knees, retrieved the gun and engaged both perpetrators with three shots each weak hand only.

There were a number of standout people working behind the scenes who deserve most of the credit for the success of the match. Chief among these is Charles Cotton. Charles worked tirelessly on all those details required to put on a match of this magnitude. Either Charles did the work himself or he knew the right person to delegate the task too.

Randy Allen spent many weekends working on the IDPA building and helping with other details of the match. It is said that Randy has more power tools than Norm Abrams, TV star of This Old House and The New Yankee Workshop. He is also famous for designing the “Allen Actuator” system used to trip moving targets.

Tim Fisher performed duties as Property Manager for the match. He designed a simple yet innovative wall system that was used in the match. This allowed us to construct walls of any size and configuration in a very short amount of time. Tim could be seen during the match responding to requests for more targets or to repair a damaged prop.

Marc Gentine took care of shooter registration and ran the scoring team during the match. Marc also worked weekends getting the IDPA building ready for the match.

Assisting in the score shack were Leslie F., Leslie L., Sara, Becky, Shirley, Amber, Mary and Jason. Samantha Newton went from shooting bay to shooting bay picking up score sheets and delivering them to the score shack.

Danny Stowers, Josh Kellogg and Cliff Thompson were there when we needed help to set the match up and worked tirelessly to accomplish whatever task needed to be done.

The one person who best exemplifies the qualities of a dedicated volunteer is John Martin. John is a self-proclaimed full time RV’er and retired from the Air Force. I asked him to be responsible for re-setting the runner in scenario #6. I felt it was critical that it be set the same for all shooters. He was there to help us set up the match on Thursday. He worked while the staff shot the match on Friday. And he worked the whole day Saturday. John didn’t shoot the match but his work contributed to the overall success of the event.

A large debt of gratitude belongs to the Safety Officers. They endured the heat and hard work of running all the shooters safely through their respective courses of fire. Please join me in giving a big Thank You to the Following:

Derrick Birdsall, Fritz Herbst, Frank Lynn, Garry Newton, Bernardo Haro, Joe Baily, Steve Vandermolen, Donna Vandermolen, Glenn Slaven, Billy Swift, Brian Marino, Abe Lattelle, Roy Renteria, Steve Gates, Cliff Thompson, Monico Meneses, Marco Meneses, Danny Stowers, Ryan Alworth, Gil Mauricio and Richard Scholtz