IPSC
Sounds like fun AND good practice. I like this better than IPSC. I'm not impressed with those boys. Squib shooting, sneaker and shorts wearing clowns that would choke with real loads in a real situation.
You may not be impressed with those boys, but some of the real world operators are.
A number of Grand Master IPSC shooters make a big chunk of their living teaching US Federal law enforcement ; US Military and foreign government agencies. One recent email reply I received from a big name IPSC shooter came for Iraq where he was on an instructional assignment. Another big name IPSC person I deal with on a regular basis is frequently "out of country" on training assignments. When an FBI agent I met socially mentioned one of the guest instructors it was a familiar name from the IPSC world.
Would you be able to give a list of name of people from other handgun shooting sports who have never held a law enforcement or military position who are welcomed as paid guest instructors by elite agencies due to their performance in that sport? My IPSC list starts Garcia, Voigt, Burkett, Barnhart, Jarrett (with due respect to those I missed). [ There is a chance one of these is a leo/mil veteran, but I know that at least most of them are not ]
As to "squib shooting"
I just completed some consulting for an ammo company (
www.precisiondeltasales.com) on loads for IPSC competition. This involved identifying which factory loads could not even be used for IPSC matches because they were not sufficiently powerful, and test evaluations of a couple of new loads they had to develop to meet the power factor requirements since the stardard 40 S&W load was not hot enough. My efforts resulted in the conclusion that their 115gr 9mm load is not sufficient for IPSC competition (even at minor power factor), and the addition of two new 40S&W major power factor loads to their product line.
I had previously been involved in a similar project for one of the big "name brand" ammo companies (cancelled since the IPSC proponent left that particular company), and they also had the same power factor issues.
As to "choking" ....
IPSC has a wide variety of people whose gun skills range from "basic" to "world class". I have no doubt there is a similar range in the ability of individuals to handle a real situation without choking (the same can be said for other shooting sports and perhaps even police departments). I would not expect Phil Strader (US Capitol Police), Julie Goloski (Sgt. USAMU, ret., curently at Glock), Travis Tomsie (USAMU) or Max Michel (USAMU) to "choke", nor would I expect choking from Dave Sevigny (Glock) who can stay cool under the greatest of pressure and always shoot smoothly and at a top level - despite a lack of police/military experience in his background.
Now about that "not impressed" comment...
Have you personally gone up against M and GM class IPSC shooters and proven your ability to engage targets accurately at speed more competently than them, or are you simply more skilled by verbal assertion? Can you reload a semi-auto handgun and have the first round after the reload fired, and on target, before the magazine you dropped (without the "tactical reload" that virtually no law enforcement agency teaches) hits the ground? Many of the GM's can do this on demand. Or are we talking about a case where you are "not impressed" because you can verbally assert that you have a higher level of skill, but competition does not effectively measure said skill?
As to other action/defense style sports ...
I would never be so presumptive as to categorically state that I am "not impressed" by practicioners of other sports. It's just plain silly to assume that someone is less skilled because they play a different game. This reminds me of those martial artists who make absurd claims like "Any brown belt in my style can beat any black belt in your style". It's also silly to assert that a game gives any real indicaiton of how someone will behave when an adversary is trying to harm them. All the "games" do is develop shooting skills so they become second nature.
It's the individual's skills which are either impressive or not, not the arena in which those skills are being demonstrated.
Rob Boudrie
USPSA Area 7 Director
(USPSA is the US IPSC member region)