Fun fact! Did you know that Brian met Carolyn, our photographer and marketing person, for the first time at an IDPA match in southern California back in 2015? At the time Carolyn was a new shooter and she was weary about shooting a competition. Brian and Henry convinced her it was going to be a great learning experience. We recommended competitive matches as a way to practice and improve shooting skills, whether you are new or an experienced shooter.

Tactical Handgun Match hosted by Threat Scenarios on May 4 & 5 at Linden Gun Range is coming up and we wanted to revisit the reasons why shooting a competition can make you a better shooter.

Psst! FREE Monarch Defense shirt offer at the bottom of the page!

Test a variety of skills at an affordable price

By far the best deals in firearms events are competitive matches. For the entry fee, you’re able to shoot the stages and each stage is set up to execute a variety of skills such as shooting from behind cover, shooting from different position, identifying shoot or no-shoot targets, identifying pass-through targets and so on.

It really is a test in that you only shoot the stage once. There’s a pressure to perform and you have to give it your all in one go. The score is calculated based on time and accuracy. This objective way of measuring means that you can track your performance over time.

Dealing with mental stress

A difficult thing to replicate in training is mental stress that happens when we encounter a real life-threatening scenario. In training we try to add stress through physical stressors such as sprinting or mental stress through manufacturing malfunctions or aggressive commands.

With competitions, the added layer of stress closely emulates the stress of a real scenario. While shooters do get the chance to inspect the stage at the beginning, the actual deed of shooting through the stage can be challenging. You need to rely on skills you’ve practiced and might struggle through remembering what to do and how to do it safely. Much like a real life-threatening situation, you will have to work it out as it unfolds and have to rely on being able execute what you know.

Observe and learn from fellow shooters

Shooters are split up in to squads to run the event smoothly. Most likely you will be squaded up with some people that you don’t know and that you’ve never shot with. (You can squad up with your friends as well.)

Shooting alongside others, especially those who are more experienced, is a great learning opportunity by observing the different ways shooters progress through the stage. Watch for their footwork as they move from obstacle to obstacle, how they transition from shooting a target to another target a significant angle away from behind cover, how they handle multiple shots on target and so on. Don’t be shy about asking questions too. Matches are filled with friendly like-minded people.

Before you go…

We mentioned above that Tactical Handgun Match hosted by Threat Scenarios is happening on May 4 & 5. We hope that some of our students will take this opportunity to expand their firearms training and shoot a competitive match.

To sweeten the deal, we are sending a FREE Monarch Defense shirt to anyone who signs up for the match with code MonarchTHM (while supplies last) Online Registration here.