I wasn’t really impressed with the USPSA scene at Markham Park; standing around for 6 hours to shoot 4 mediocre stages in a concrete oven with no breeze isn’t really a great way to spend a Sunday morning.
Homestead on the other hand is pretty great, at least for Steel Challenge. I’m going to check out their IDPA scene tomorrow; I haven’t shot an IDPA match since Nationals in 2014, and I’m always curious to see how local club culture influences the direction of the match.
Obviously I'm not caleb, but in my opinion, truly good stages are ones that present multiple options for how to navigate them and/or are designed around some sort of interesting concept, thus making you think about how to proceed. I enjoy the puzzle aspect of the sport. One of my favorite stages ever was sort of a memory stage, except that thinking about it beforehand, I had a eureka moment about how to shoot it without having to remember which targets I'd shot at each exposure. Even though I had a mediocre finish at the overall match, getting to solve that puzzle made it a good day. Other folks' opinions may vary.
Here is something about USPSA and AIWB. Generally, those most impressed with shooting from concealment, AIWB or otherwise, don’t shoot USPSA. Most USPSA shooters are puzzled why someone would want to shoot from concealment, or think you got the IDPA and USPSA match dates confused.
Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.
Last edited by Peally; 11-10-2017 at 08:35 PM.
Semper Gumby, Always Flexible
It’s not the norm and when you behave outside the norm it draws attention. And often when someone is at a match doing something “wrong”, aka, different, it’s usually a newbie who showed up with what he has and is fumbling through, so some guys immediately go into “i’m helping!” mode.
I shot a match from appendix last week and got a lot of questions, too. One guy was really confused and came over while I was reloading mags and questioned me pretty hard like I didn’t understand how this all worked. Oh well.
--Josh
“Formerly we suffered from crimes; now we suffer from laws.” - Tacitus.
Left IDPA almost 2 yrs. ago b/c my LE buds started playing USPSA in Texarkana & liked that they had a carry optics div. After a match/two asked the MD if he was good w/ me using AIWB/concealment, got a thumbs up & been running it that way since.
Had a few ask early on where my gun was but usually everyone in my squad are LE friends & since the MD & I have gotten close, he leaves us alone b/c we are the least of his worries.
Last edited by OldRunner/CSAT Neighbor; 11-10-2017 at 10:34 PM.
I think good matches have a mix of stage types - some complex ones you have to think through/figure out, and some simple ones that are designed for fun. 180 traps and other stage design/construction that set shooters up to be in situations where they're likely to get DQed only serve to make people feel bad and make the job of the ROs more difficult. I've never been excited about props. The suspension/wobble bridge somebody brought to a match I attended a while ago was pretty fun for me, but if there had been anybody there with physical limitations, it could have been problematic for them to navigate it safely. Not sure if that's what you mean by props, but I feel like we're at least mostly on the same page.