Range open to members

Next closure: WPRC IPSC Level III Provincial Championship Match, Sep 8 – Sep 13

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WPRC Woodstock Pistol & Rifle Club

The email address wprc2005@gmail.com is not an authorized club address.

IPSC

IPSC at the Woodstock Pistol & Rifle Club

Practical shooting: accuracy, power and speed

IPSC — the International Practical Shooting Confederation — is the original practical shooting sport, and still the largest. Where most target disciplines have you standing still and shooting slowly at a fixed distance, IPSC has you moving through a course laid out with barriers, ports, moving targets and steel, engaging targets from wherever you can make the shot work.

The sport’s motto is Diligentia, Vis, Celeritas — accuracy, power, speed. The scoring is built so that none of the three can be ignored. Shoot fast and miss and you lose. Shoot perfectly and slowly and someone quicker beats you. The whole game is finding the fastest pace at which you can still hit.

How a stage works

Every stage is scored on hit factor: your points divided by your time. The shooter with the best hit factor takes the stage, and everyone else scores a percentage of it. So a stage is never simply “fastest wins” or “most accurate wins” — it is the best trade between the two.

Most stages are freestyle. You are told where you start, where the targets are, and what counts as a hit, but how you move through the stage is your problem to solve. Two shooters will often walk the same stage and shoot it completely differently, and both can be right. Working out your plan during the walkthrough, then executing it under a timer, is most of the sport.

Targets are cardboard with scoring zones, plus steel poppers and plates. No-shoot targets are mixed in, and hitting one costs you. A Range Officer runs each shooter individually, gives the commands, and scores the stage.

Divisions and power factor

You are not competing against every gun at once. Shooters are separated into divisions based on equipment — broadly, everything from near-stock service pistols up to purpose-built race guns with optics and compensators, plus a division for pistol-calibre carbines. IPSC Canada publishes the current division list and the equipment rules for each.

Power factor is the other half of it. Ammunition is chronographed, and loads making the Major threshold score better on the outer scoring zones than Minor loads do. It is the “power” in accuracy-power-speed: shoot a heavier recoiling load and you are rewarded on marginal hits, but you have to control the gun to do it.

Shooters are also classified by performance, so a new competitor is ranked against others at their level rather than only against the top of the field.

Getting started in Canada

This is where IPSC differs from most of what else we shoot at the club, and it is worth understanding before you get your heart set on it.

1. You need an RPAL. Handguns are restricted firearms in Canada, so competing with your own handgun means holding a Restricted Possession and Acquisition Licence. That means the Canadian Firearms Safety Course and the Canadian Restricted Firearms Safety Course.

2. You must pass the Black Badge course. This is not optional and it is not a club rule — successful completion of IPSC Canada’s Black Badge course is a mandatory prerequisite for every new IPSC competitor in the country. It runs over two days: classroom work on the rules and safety procedures, then a full day on the range drawing from a holster, reloading under time pressure and moving with a loaded firearm. Expect to bring several hundred rounds. Most courses finish with a mini-match so you shoot your first stages with experienced competitors coaching you through them.

Black Badge courses in this province are organised through IPSC New Brunswick. They run on a floating schedule — instructors wait until enough people have signed up — so it is worth registering your interest early rather than waiting for a date to appear.

An honest word about handguns

Since October 2022 there has been a national freeze on handgun transfers in Canada. If you already lawfully owned and registered a handgun before that date, you can keep shooting it. If you do not, you cannot currently buy one, and the narrow exemption that exists applies to disciplines on the Olympic and Paralympic programme — which IPSC is not.

We would rather tell you that up front than have you complete an RPAL and a Black Badge course before finding out. It does not mean the door is shut:

  • You can shoot a borrowed handgun under direct supervision at the range, which is enough to find out whether you enjoy the sport before committing to anything.
  • IPSC is not only a handgun sport. Rifle, shotgun and pistol-calibre carbine competition uses the same stage design and the same scoring.

Firearms law changes. Confirm anything above with the RCMP Canadian Firearms Program or the New Brunswick Chief Firearms Officer before making decisions based on it.

IPSC at WPRC

  • How many matches a year: [e.g. we run X club matches through the season]
  • Which bays we use: [the 15m bays? the 50m bay? both?]
  • Provincial championship: [your calendar shows a Level III Provincial Championship — is this an annual fixture at WPRC? Worth its own paragraph, it is a genuine draw]
  • Entry fee: [$XX per match]
  • Membership requirements: [WPRC member? IPSC Canada member? both?]
  • Black Badge at WPRC: [do you host courses here, or do people travel? who do they contact to get on a list?]
  • Who to contact: [name and email]
  • Registration: [Practiscore link, email, or turn up]
  • Can newcomers watch? [worth saying explicitly if so]

Coming to watch

You do not need a licence, a firearm, or any experience to come and watch a match, and it is by far the best way to work out whether the sport is for you. Bring eye and ear protection. Ask questions between stages — practical shooters are, almost without exception, happy to explain what they are doing.

Useful links