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Any one have any tips on practicing at home for someone new to IDPA?

Wait-Googling IDPA. Oh-Nope.

If you're able to find an Airsoft replica of the pistol you'll be competing with, it will fit in your holster. You can paint the appropriate white dots on the sights with model airplane paint or fingernail polish if necessary.

Then find a picture of the IDPA target, showing the perforations, on the web and print it out on 8.5x11 paper. You can tape copies of it on window curtains, which will stop the balls after they penetrate the paper.

Now you can practice drawing and shooting, both from retention and sighted shots, using strong, weak, and both hands. Unless you spend a lot of money on a repeater, you'll be limited to a single shot. The balance of the pistol and the trigger pull won't be the same. But you can get a lot of practice for practically no money.

Scott

ditto what scottmurray said.
go to the kr training sight (link) and print the targets in the training section. these are sized for practicing at five yards with the target to simulate 15, 25 and 50 yards. they are ipsc targets but are good practice.

http://www.krtraining.com/IPSC/IPSC.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'M LINKING A DIFFERENT SIGHT. I CANNOT GUARANTEE THE LANGUAGE OR CONTENT THOUGH I DID NOT FIND ANYTHING THAT OFFENDED ME.

Thanks for the info, it's greatly appreciated.

Just two words - - - Dry Fire.

the 3 big things that are different about IDPA vs your regular range visits:
-drawing from a holster to shoot (aka shooting from leather)
-shooting on the move
-reloads at a non-leisurely pace

with appropriate precautions and some snap caps, all these can be refined in your home. these precautions include:
-empty all mags of ammo
-empty all pockets of ammo
-put all this ammo in a different room
-check, double-check, and re-check your firearm for an empty chamber
-every time I drop the hammer on a snap cap, I still aim such that on the 1:1million chance I discharge a live round, despite all precautions, I'm only looking at some drywall and exterior sheeting repair and no more.

to practice shooting from leather, the big thing is to make sure your trigger finger is straight when you grasp your firearm, and remains straight until the sights are on target. same with re-holstering. make sure trigger finger is straight, and that no part of your clothing finds its way into your trigger guard as you re-holster. practice doing this smoothly. smooth is fast.

to practice shooting on the move, get alot of knee-bend as you walk. walk like you're holding a camcorder and taking film, but trying to make that film have as little shake as possible. do several walks with empty hands, experimenting with your walk to have your hands be as steady as possible. then try with a firearm. steady, smooth walk + good awareness of your front sight will go a long way to making good hits on the move.

then reloads. this is something you can refine alot at home. start with your firearm slide-locked, empty magazine in place. on your weak-side hip, 2 mags, each with a snap cap loaded.
bring your firearm up to target. so at this point, you simulate having just run dry, and the clock starts on your reload.
drop your mag, grasp your spare mag, insert mag, give it a vigorous bump with your palm, drop the slide, return your firearm to target. drop the hammer. hand-rack the slide, and you are ready for another practice run.
remember smooth is fast, and watch that trigger finger. it needs to stay straight unless you are sending a simulated round downrange.


mmm I luv IDPA. if case you want to see a couple mediocre revolver competitors in action, you can see myself and my buddy here: http://youtube.com/user/parkerlongbow

/after me doing a bit of youtube browsing...
wow, if you want to see someone who's actually good, check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkKc2w2sPxs

found it by using search keywords 'idpa reload' on youtube.

The forums at BrianEnos.com are THE place for info on competitive practical shooting. More for USPSA (IPSC) than IDPA, but you'll find lots of both there, really.

I think I might have posted this once before, but if you really want to have some fun, use either an airsoft or a VERIFIED empty pistol for dryfire practice. The television is your target. Watch some of the police or crime shows and shoot when you would be justified under the law. You can make any rules you want for who and what to shoot for IDPA practice too, but as a general rule, shooting tv criminals would give you the sudden appearance of the threat, the reaction time, the accuracy, etc.

Obviously, you must be very careful and verify the weapon and status, preferably having someone else check it too. One mistake like that is all you get before it gets expensive and possibly dangerous (depending on your living situation).

I dunno, my wife probably wouldn't mind if I shot the TV. She says I watch it too much anyway

srothstein wrote:I think I might have posted this once before, but if you really want to have some fun, use either an airsoft or a VERIFIED empty pistol for dryfire practice. The television is your target. Watch some of the police or crime shows and shoot when you would be justified under the law. You can make any rules you want for who and what to shoot for IDPA practice too, but as a general rule, shooting tv criminals would give you the sudden appearance of the threat, the reaction time, the accuracy, etc.

Obviously, you must be very careful and verify the weapon and status, preferably having someone else check it too. One mistake like that is all you get before it gets expensive and possibly dangerous (depending on your living situation).

I know a guy who shot his TV.

But yeah, anyone who gets seriously into competition is going to need to do a lot of dry firing practice. Double check . . . TRIPLE CHECK that it's empty, then have at it.
Keep in mind that if you're running around your house shooting at various light switches and other targets of opportunity, you're pointing at walls that, in most cases, will not stop a bullet. You're doing things that most of us were taught not to do. BE CAREFUL. If you mess up and try it with a loaded pistol, at best you're going to look like an idiot and at worse . . . well, it could be really bad.
But dry fire practice at home is the way to go.

When you actually shoot a match, figure out which things you had problems with, then dry fire/practice those particular things.
TraCoun

Do not dry fire at TVs, computer screens, light switches, photos of MIL, etc.
Universal firearm safety rule #2 is "NEVER POINT A GUN AT ANYTHING THAT YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO DESTROY."
It doesn't have any exceptions for dry fire practice or "it's OK, the gun isn't loaded" times.

Since dryfire is a serious physical training technique that we use to increase our skill with a deadly weapon, we need to be serious and conscientious when we do it.

If you want to practice dryfire at home, first find a safe backstop. It may be a fireplace, an exterior wall with brick or stone, a large filled book case, whatever will contain a bullet if one gets fired. Set up your targets on your safe backstop, put all live ammo in a separate room, triple check your gun and mags for live ammo and start doing drills.

Here is good printable IDPA target
http://www.tgscom.com/images/sharedimag ... Q/idpa.pdf

I heartily recommend the dry fire drills in Steve Anderson's book, Refinement and Repetition. The drills are mostly designed for USPSA but work great for IDPA. If you don't have a timer, you can use a web based timer from Matt Burkett's web site.
http://www.mattburkett.com/flashfiles/dryfiredraw.html
Turn up the sound on your computer and set the par time for your drill. Do NOT aim at the targets on the computer screen (rule #2)

Do not allow any interruptions. If the phone rings or the Avon lady stops by, let them hang. If you DO get interrupted, go through your safety checks again when you start dryfireing again.

Finally, when you are finished practicing dryfire, take down your targets, put away your gear and resist any temptation to do "just one more time" dryfire. When you are done, you are DONE.
You have to have a hard line delineating between dryfire practice (It's OK to pull this trigger while practicing) and normal walking around CHL time (This gun is loaded hot and ready to shoot). There have been tragic accidents and deaths from "just one more time" dryfire practice.


Gringop

TraCoun wrote:When you actually shoot a match, figure out which things you had problems with, then dry fire/practice those particular things.
TraCoun

Excellent advice, Marc.

Here is a list of items that can be improved by dryfire.

Stance, draw, grip, sight picture, trigger control, splits, transitions, barricade shooting, slide lock reloads, tactical reloads, movement between shooting positions, loaded table starts, unloaded table starts, getting out of a chair, shooting on the move advancing, shooting on the move retreating, strong hand shooting, weak hand shooting, draw to kneeling, draw to prone, re holstering, and confidence.

I probably left something out.

I've never shot a competitive match in my life. But I would think this might help: SureFire has a free shot timer app for the Apple iPhone.

http://www.surefire.com/shottimerFAQ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/shottime ... 05845?mt=8" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I've used it a few times now and, after some tinkering with sensitivity levels so that it hears better while wearing it's Otter Box protective case, it works well. I shot with another forum member recently and we used his iPhone with SureFire shot timer and it was quite eye-opening (I was REALLY bad the first time under pressure of the clock). We did this on some family-owned land, drawing from holsters, moving and shooting etc.

But I've since tried some basic timing practice at a public range. Since I couldn't holster draw, I simulated the timing by setting my pistol on the bench muzzle pointing down range. I pressed the button to engage the random-start timer and left my arms low beside my body. When the buzzer sounded, I picked up the gun and place two shots in the chest and one in the head (Mozambique Drill). Here's an example of the results, which you can EMAIL to yourself (how cool is that? )

Shot # Elapsed Time Split Time
1 1.72 1.72
2 2.00 0.27
3 2.65 0.66

No idea if this time is "good" or not. I'm only competing with myself to get faster and more accurate at this point. These were fired with a Glock on a 7-yard full-size DPS style silhouette target and I only kept timer results which coincided with what I considered to be well-placed shots.

Anyway, if you have an iPhone (or some other similar phone that might have a shot timer app) try it out. Adds a whole new level to training.