Shooting sports can be just for fun, but they can also be a way to practice and train shooting skills. IDPA is one of many flavors of shooting sports that is both a game and a good way to get out and train.
But in a world of fishing vests, 2011s, and strict rules, is IDPA’s juice worth the squeeze?
IDPA FOR THE UNINITIATED
The International Defensive Pistol Association was founded in 1996 by some major names in our industry, among them Bill Wilson, Larry Vickers, and Ken Hackathorn. IDPA was founded in direct response to the game-ification of USPSA and IPSC. At the time, USPSA was especially plagued with over-customized pistols that were wildly impractical for anything outside of the USPSA game.
This was the early days of red dots when the only option was to have a gunsmith build a custom pistol, then have another gunsmith build a mount for a rifle red dot, then run around with a brick-like chonker of a “pistol” that looked like something off a Star Wars set. Kind of like a modern USPSA Open Major pistol, but even larger and more unwieldy.
IDPA was designed to bring things back to their roots in defensive shooting and to do so with pistols that people actually carried and with stage designs that better represented what people might face in a defensive shooting.
30 years later, the results are arguable at best. Gamers will play the game, it doesn’t matter if it’s Formula 1, football, or pistol shooting. If there is a way to gain an edge while bending the rules, people will do it.
Today, the IDPA meta is a large compensated 2011-style pistol with a large red dot in an OWB holster, using a fishing vest (or purpose-built IDPA vest) for a concealment garment. Practical? Realistic for what and how people actually carry? Or have we come full circle, and IDPA has become the thing it was created to defend against?
Much like USPSA, IDPA is a game for a lot of people, and that isn’t a bad thing. Shooting sports are a ton of fun just as an enjoyable hobby. But if you want to get out and train with your carry gear, IDPA does offer that ability.
I dived into IDPA for no other reason than there was a major Tier 2 match being held at my home range 20 minutes from my house, and it seemed like it might be fun. My goal with shooting the match was to experience IDPA and to do so using the gear I actually use daily. My only concession was to switch from my IWB Tulster holster to an OWB holster to make re-holstering safer and easier across a long day and 11 courses of fire.
For me, the draw stroke and draw time from concealment are the same for either holster. One is just more concealed, and the other is easier to re-holster a pistol.
2025 ARIZONA STATE IDPA CHAMPIONSHIP
Having never shot IDPA before, it was wise to shoot a few local matches to get used to the style before heading into the State Championship match. Thankfully, with two local IDPA matches a month, it was easy to get experience.
The setup used was my Shadow Systems CR920XP with a Vortex Enclosed Defender CCW red dot, G-Code OWB holster, shooting 124gr MagTech ammo provided by AmmunitionToGo.com. Factory ammo on the warmer side of things put my Power Factor at 135, more than enough for Carry Optics.
While vests are absolutely the meta for IDPA if you want to go fast, it wasn’t in me to commit that hard to the gamer side of this competition. Instead, my concealment garment was what I always wear on the range — a sun shirt from Amazon. Living in southern Arizona, a sun shirt or t-shirt are year-round options.
To shoot a Tier 2 IDPA match requires having an active IDPA membership and being classified in the division you want to shoot. Both were easy to do at my first IDPA match since one of the ROs stayed after the match to run me and another shooter through the classifier (Big thanks to the RO!). If you’re wondering, I scored a second into Expert, dropping two shots in the +1.
Start to finish, the Arizona State IDPA Championship was a great match. The stages were complex at times, but not overwhelmingly so. I got lucky picking a squad at random and had theGalacticMarksman on my squad who would go on to win Carry Optics and come second overall in the match, only barely losing to another friend of mine. The winner of the match was Ben Anderson, owner of Diamondback Shooting Sports in Tucson.
Having an experienced and excellent shooter on the squad helped a lot because after the first stage, my plan was to copy his plan for target order and reloads.
The stages had everything you could ask for from IDPA. Stages with a lot of movement, stages with only a little movement, stages with moving targets, stages with moving no-shoot targets, and even a stage that required kicking down a door before engaging swinging targets.
Highlighting two stages, Stage 5: Rescue Mission was the most fun for me because it required quick shooting and shooting on the move. Having just boned up on shooting a pistol on the move at the Baer Solitions class, it was nice to put it to good use.
Stage 8: Stand And Deliver was my best performance for the day, coming in at 7th out of 106 shooters in Carry Optics (11th out of 182 overall). Not a particularly hard stage, but staying smooth and consistent without dropping shots even at ~25 yards was critical.
11 stages sounds like a lot for a single day, but IDPA isn’t the most strenuous shooting, so it turned out to not be bad at all. It was made better because there was water and snacks being handed out throughout the day. Never before have I seen a match offer snacks, but it was really nice!
Lunch provided by the match was Chick-fil-A, a quick and filling bite to eat just as the rain started to come in.
Hands down one of the best organized major matches I’ve shot.
IS IDPA STILL RELEVANT?
I’m blessed with the time, ammo, and ability to shoot a lot of different types of shooting sports. 2-Gun, NRL: Hunter, PRS, NRL22, Sporting Clays, USPSA, IDPA, and a lot more. Almost all of them are extremely welcoming to newer shooters and a ton of fun as a hobby. IDPA is no different, with some great people and a great time to be had.
IDPA also has the most bloated rulebook I’ve ever read, with some really pants-on-head kind of rules that do their best to suck the joy out of anything. IDPA isn’t fun because of the rules; it’s fun despite the rules.
Some of this is inherent to the style of the game and likely will never change, like small round count magazines and the deeply strange reloading rules. But some of that rulebook just needs to be thrown in the fire, like giving shooters a procedural error penalty for “air-gunning” when walking through the stage.
IDPA also suffers from a lack of modernization. AIWB is one of the most popular and best ways of carrying a firearm on your person, but it’s only kind of sort of allowed in IDPA, based on the club running the match. Optics are allowed, but only in Carry Optics, a division dominated by almost the same huge 2011-style pistols that IDPA was founded to refute. There are people who EDC an Atlas Athena with a Holosun 507 Comp on top, but if they number far past the single digits, I’ll eat my hat.
Fishing vests, or whatever kind of vest you want to use, are definitely the gamer meta for good reason, and that isn’t likely to change. But again, that’s really not representative of how most normal people actually carry. That isn’t to say people don’t use vests or jackets when they carry, it’s just not the most common method for most people for most of the year. If we want to really get back to basics, most people should be using a t-shirt as their cover garment.
Ultimately, these quibbles with the rules and style of IDPA are largely irrelevant since IDPA isn’t going anywhere and isn’t lacking in shooters. Could IDPA be better? Probably, but the same can be said for any of the shooting sports.
These rules shouldn’t deter you from shooting IDPA, but they are something to know about before going into it.
LOOSE ROUNDS
IDPA is fun, good training, and not a bad way to spend your weekend. IDPA isn’t perfect, but neither are we.
If you have the chance to shoot a major match of any shooting sport, I highly recommend it. While the local IDPA match near me is a great group of people and really enjoyable, there is nothing like a major match.
This was especially enjoyable for me because I shot it off-meta. No vest, no 2011, just my actual carry gun in my actual carry clothes. Finishing 29th out of 110ish shooters in Carry Optics ain’t too bad.
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