New Shooters
Introduction
Traditional shooting practice limits you to slow, deliberate, and intermittent shooting at bland, non-reactive targets. Practical Shooting frees you from those limitations, emphasizing both movement and as much speed as you desire. The Steel Challenge, well, challenges your swiftness and accuracy with arrays of reactive steel targets that clang loudly with every hit. For even more movement and speed, USPSA mixes static, reactive, paper, and steel targets to test your vision and reflexes. SWPL’s outdoor ranges are designed for Practical Shooting, allowing you to move and shoot safely. And though SWPL is a private club, club membership isn’t required to shoot The Steel Challenge and USPSA matches.
If you’re new to shooting, we recommend either the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) First Shots Program or the National Rifle Association (NRA) First Steps Basic Pistol Orientation to get you started. Once you’ve mastered gun safety and handling, you’re ready for the Steel Challenge, or USPSA, or both!
The USPSA matches consist of 200-250 rounds fired in Six Stages, one of which is a Classifier. Each stage is its own bay, with a unique stage design and course of fire. The stage designs and classifiers change monthly. You’ll draw a handgun from a holster, pluck it from a table, or swiftly raise your carbine from a ready position, then walk, run, crawl, dive, and climb through varying and challenging courses to score hits on cardboard and steel targets. You can…Stand still. Go slow. Go fast. Go left. Go right. Sit. Stand on one foot. Stand on the other foot. Hop. Kneel. Reload. Don’t Reload. Change hands. Anything goes…as long as safety rules are followed. With few restrictions on how targets can be engaged, it’s up to each competitor how to complete a stage. If merely hitting targets wasn’t enough…all courses are timed. If you haven’t tried practical shooting before, it’s an entirely different game. You can shoot a centerfire revolver, semiauto handgun, or a pistol-caliber carbine. Bring a holster to carry your handgun, or a rifle slipcase to carry your carbine. Add spare magazines, moon clips, or speedloaders to feed your firearm … and lots of ammo!