IPSC Basics

Although the roots of the IPSC shooting are in the military applications, IPSC is developed solely as a sporting activity (as well as karate, aikido, biathlon, etc.). The IPSC has its own olympic games held every three years - The World Shoоt. The most supreme achievement in this sport is the title of the World Champion.

In IPSC a competitor must combine accuracy, speed and control of the power of the weapon in a winning combination.

Paper and metal targets are used. The classic target is a paper target 57 x 45 cm. with A, C and D zones. A hit in the A zone (classic target - approx. 15 x 32.5 cm.) of the paper target brings to the competitor the max score of 5 points. Hitting the C or D zone brings to the competitor a score from 4 to 1 points depending on the power factor of the cartridges used. Taking down a metal target brings the max of 5 points. The miss of a paper or metal target is penalized with -10 points. In most cases the shooting distance is up to 10m. Less often the shooting distance is between 10m and 25m and in extremely rare cases - up to 40m. The targets are set differently for every single exercise (aka "stage"). The requirements for the targets settings and the stage design are defined in the relevant IPSC rulebooks. There are two types of stages - classification stages (aka "classifiers") and freestyle stages. The classifiers (74 in total) are published on the IPSC official website. The classifiers are exactly defined and must be set identically whenever and wherever they are to be shot. Thus a comparability of the results throughout the world is achieved. Based on the shooter's results from classifier stages, a worldwide shooters classification is maintained by the IPSC. The main competitions consists entirely of freestyle stages.

The competitor's result from a stage is determined by the the points scored from the course of fire minus the penalty points (if any), divided by the time it took to complete the stage, accurate to the forth number after the decimal point (e.g. 28 points / 6,80 sec = 4,1176). This is the so called "Hit Factor" for the stage of the given competitor. The competitor with the highest hit factor for a given stage is declared a stage winner and receives 100 points for the overall standings. The other competitors receive less than 100 points for the overall standings, based on the ratio of their hit factor to the stage winner's one. The overall standings for a given competition are based on every competitor's sum of points from all stages shot. All the calculations are done with a special software: Match Scoring System (WinMSS), which is used by the competition hosts througout the world.

There are two methods of evaluating the score from a stage: "Virginia Count" and "Comstock". When using the Virginia Count method, the number of rounds a competitor must fire is fixed. Any extra shot is penalized with -10 points. It is used only for scoring of some of the classifiers, consisting only of paper targets. The Comstock method is used in the most cases. It does not imply a fixed number of rounds that must be fired. Each paper target must be hit at least two times as the best two hits per paper target are scored. Each metal target must be taken down, оtherwise a miss is scored.

In order to shoot a stage a competitor must be supervised by a range officer (RO). The RO looks after the safe handling of the weapon, the proper execution of the exercise, gives commands to the competitor and do the scoring. The start signal is given by a special timer which measures the time taken by the competitor to complete the stage (the time span from the start signal to the last shot fired). The timer is acoustic and records the exact time of each shot.

In IPSC handguns, shotguns and rifles are used. There are some requirements for the minimum power factor of the ammunition used, which are described in details in the relevant rulebooks.

In order to avoid the superiority of one competitor over another because of the weapon and modifications used, the weapons are grouped into divisions based on their types and modifications made. For example, according to the current IPSC handgun rules the following divisions exist: Open, Standard, Modified and Production for pistols and Standard for revolvers. What is common for the guns in all the divisions is that they all use large caliber ammunitions. Most of the leading gun manufacturers in the world do offer specially designed for IPSC versions of their production: CZ, Glock, STI, STS, Tanfoglio, Sphinx, Sig Sauer, etc. Besides the heavily modified sport versions of the guns used in the other divisions, in the Production division only factory weapons with no improvements are allowed.

All the requirements for the weapons in the different divisions are detailed in the relevant rulebooks.

Top of the page