"High Power Handgun" Competition - NEW!

[ReadyOnTheRight]

My trap team is done with trying to shoot Fall trap. Too many nights of driving 45 minutes to get pelted with snowflakes late in the season. And the Winter league is simply brutal.

So we have been talking about some sort of pistol competition when our summer league is over if a few weeks.

We all have home defense-type pistols in 9mm or .45acp.

No one has a real interest in the "run & shoot" type of games. The guys who do not have a 1911 or a .22 are not interested in spending $1000+ to do NRA bullseye.

A few of us shoot high power rifle. Why is there not a similar competition for pistols?

A pistol competiton where a person can use their standard home defense pistol, caliber does not matter - as long as it is "high power", no holsters or running are involved (due to the rules at many ranges), accuracy is valued over speed, and you can score with a standard paper target.

I am thinking something along the lines of...

-Standard targets (NRA Bullseye targets perhaps)
-10 yards slow fire
-10 yards rapid fire
-25 yards slow fire
-25 yards rapid fire
-5 yards rapid fire

-Stance does not matter - one-handed NRA Bullseye, two-handed weaver stance - Who cares? What works for you?
-10 shots each stage
-Total of 50 shots
-Use any defensive handgun you like - we establish a minimum caliber - I am thinking .38spl / 9mm as a minimum caliber. We would have to approve/disapprove calibers
-Iron sights
-Rapid fire allows (just barely) enough time for revolver reloads

I am open to suggestions, but I want to keep it simple and based on home-defense types of handguns.

I am calling it "High Power Handgun".

Since we have the Internet...we could start this as an online league.
-Teams of 5 (can be online/virtual teams)
-Self-scoring
-Completed targets are scanned in with scoring
-Online member voting for disputed targets
-10 weeks of shooting per season - you can shoot all at one if you want to.
-Regional and national championships if it get popular enough

What do you think?

 

[darkgael]

HP Pistol

I shoot internet matches a number of times a year with my flintlock Lyman GPR courtesy of the Muzzleloader's Forum. It is great fun.
There are a number of sites that host internet competitions. I see no reason why this site could not do the same.
Timing - How slow is slow fire? How rapid is rapid? Would the rapid be fired in two timed five shot strings or in one timed segment (the advantage goes to the semis there. Less busy.)

standard paper target.

Have to decide on which. There are lots of "standard" paper targets. You may want to keep the type and number of targets limited so as to avoid asking shooters to have to acquire five different types.
May I suggest that fifty shots is too much. Keep it simple at the beginning at least. Thirty shots will work - NRA gallery matches are 30 - just need to rework the stages.
Pete

 

[lmccrock]

There is NRA Action Pistol, aka Bianchi Cup. That does take more stuff in terms of targets, but you could limit it to the "Practical" event which is paper at varying times and distances.

How high is "high" power? Will a 38 revolver downloaded to just enough velocity to clear the barrel and punch through the paper compete directly against 45acp shooting ball loads? If it is a game, it will be gamed.

When I saw the thread title, I thought "High power? Cool - a place to shoot my 44 mag!"

Lee

 

[MrBorland]

Great idea. I'd be up for it, though my range only goes out at 20 yards.

FWIW, I've been hosting a monthly handgun match over at THR. It's been fun, and I'll keep at it, but participation is generally modest. I'm fairly new at hosting it, so maybe I'm still learning about what's perceived as fun and what's not, but it's my impression that while most shooters on forums like this love to shoot and talk about it, actually competing in an accuracy-based match where their score and/or target is on public display isn't quite their cup of tea. YMMV.

As far as equipment and power levels, you mentioned it'd be limited to iron-sighted defense-type pistols (and revolvers, I hope), so I'd just follow the IDPA rules for equipment and power levels. You might also include a separate rimfire division, though. Seems many of us have a .22LR, and some may only have a .22LR, so it'd open the field up to more people.

As far as targets, I'd use standard printable NRA targets. The link below is a good source for these; for the 10 yard CoF, I'd probably just use the NRA B-2 or B-3 21 foot slow and timed targets.

http://dotclue.org/targets

 

[ReadyOnTheRight]

Great ideas!

I am calling it "high power handgun" to copy the idea of highpower rifle - which includes .223. The scoring and concept of shooting at a round paper target is the same. Essentially, the idea is to have a match for people to get out and shoot their home defense weapons. Make it do-able and safe at most ranges, and offer a lot of shooting, not a lot of waiting.

How about this:

-Standard target - probably NRA B-16 25 yard slow fire. Nice big black target and big X ring. Although some of the 6-ring would be lost when scanning.
-5 clean paper targets and 35 rounds per match
-Target #1 - Sighters: 5 shots at 25 yards
-Target #2 - 10 shots at 25 yards ~3 minutes slow fire
-Target #3 - 10 shots at 10 yards ~3 minutes slow fire
-Target #4 - 5 shots at 5 yards ~ 1 minute rapid fire
-Target #5 - 5 shots at 5 yards ~ 1 minute rapid fire
-If you have a team, score for each other, not for yourself.
-Since this is virtual, scoring will be on your honor. "Character is Who We Are When No One is Watching"

-Classes - "Duty Class" for .38/9mm, "Heavy Duty Class" for .40/.45, "Hunting Class" for .44mag and up.
-".357mag Hunting"; ".22lr" might be worthy of their own classes. More classes, more prizes!

Some questions:
-How are the times? 3 minutes for slow and 1 minute for rapid fire?
-Is scoring 10 rounds at a time going to be a problem? I would rather not score each shot to keep this easy and make the targets scan-able.
-Do many folks have a problem with a 25 yard range? We could make it shorter, but I would prefer to keep it at 25 yards.
-Would you pull together a team and shoot a match a week?
-What else should I change or include to make this interesting and fun so you would shoot?

 

[MrBorland]

I'm not clear on target #1: I see it's part of the 35-round CoF, but is it for sighting in only, or does the score count?

Targets 4 & 5 are the same - Is #4 supposed to be 10 yards rapid fire?

5 shots in 1 minute = 12 seconds per shot. Seems slow to me for "rapid fire". Even bullseye rapid fire only allows 10 seconds for 5 shots. Also, 5 yards seems pretty close for a B-16, and I'm betting you'd see a number of perfect 50s, especially if we get 12 seconds per shot. You could stipulate the x-ring is used to break ties and/or reduce the time available.

As far as shooters whose range only goes to 20 yards, maybe they could simply print the 25 yard targets at 80% it's original size.

 

[emcon5]

What about PPC?

 

[ReadyOnTheRight]

http://www.nrahq.org/law/competitions/npsc/faq.asp

How do I know if I'm eligible to compete in Police Pistol Combat?
You must be a full-time law enforcement officer meeting Police Pistol Combat Rule 2.4 in order to be eligible. Beginning in 2006, PPC was opened up to Military Police.

It looks like the NRA's PPC is only open to law enforcement officers.

PPC seems to be close, but from what I can tell, it involves holsters, speed reloads and shooting from the left and right side of a barricade. None of these things are easily allowed at my indoor range.

 

[ReadyOnTheRight]

Mr. Borland -- The 5 sighters do NOT count for score, they are there to get sighted in, acclimated to the range, etc.

I like the NRA B-16 target because it has an X-ring - so that would be used for ties. Maybe we will find that this target is too big.

Moving #4 to 10 yards and speeding up the rapid stages make sense. Thanks!