USA National Events

Practical shooting is a sport that evolved from experimentation with

handguns used for self-defense. The researchers were an international

group of private individuals, law enforcement officers, and military

people generally operating independently of each other, challenging the

then-accepted standards of technique, training practices, and equipment.

The work was, for the most part, conducted for their own purposes

without official sanction. Even so, what they learned changed the face

You may remember that in the original Dirty Harry movie, Clint

Eastwood's character visits a training center and walks down the street

of a mock city engaging hostile targets and while identifying and

sparing innocents. A lot of us saw it too, and thought, "cool!" It

looked like too much fun to be just the law enforcement work of

Competition had begun with the "leather slap" quick draw events of the

1950's, which had grown out of America's love affair with the TV

westerns of that era. However, many wished for a forum that would more

directly test the results of the experimentation that had been going on

in Big Bear, California and many other places. Competitions evolved to

test what had been learned, and just for the pure fun presented by what

quickly became a sport requiring competitors to deal with constantly

changing scenarios while shooting rapidly and accurately with full power

In 1976 an international group of enthusiasts interested in what had

become known as "practical" shooting met in Columbia, Missouri. From

that meeting came the International Practical Shooting Confederation

(IPSC). In 1984 USPSA was incorporated as the US Region of IPSC.

Membership in USPSA automatically includes membership in IPSC.

For 20 years USPSA competition has provided a test bed for equipment and

techniques, many of which are now the standard for police and military

training. Some of USPSA's top competitors are regularly employed as

trainers for elite police and military units. Today, USPSA matches are

conducted every week by the nearly 400 affiliated clubs all over the

United States. For most people, practical shooting is pure sport

conducted with little or no thought of the self-defense aspect of

firearms use. However, USPSA members are generally the most proficient