THE UKPSA JUBILEE GRADED PRACTICAL PISTOL COMPETITION

UKPSA IPSC Grader

THE UKPSA JUBILEE GRADED PRACTICAL PISTOL COMPETITION

At the start of June 2012 the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth will celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of the ascension to the Throne of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Events will take place across the Globe to celebrate Her Majesty’s 60 year reign. The UKPSA organised a graded practical pistol competition to commemorate the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee. On the 12th May 2012 the UKPSA Jubilee Match, the first graded practical pistol competition to take place in the United Kingdom in four years, was held at the Ulster Small Arms Shooting Club in Kilkeel, Northern Ireland. The USASC range is situated with the majestic back drop of the Mountains of Mourne towering above the range in south County Down.




Open Division competitor Jim McEwan engages targets through a low aperture.

UKPSA members had been asking for the return of graded practical pistol competition that was properly run to IPSC rules. The UKPSA responded by putting together a Handgun Commission, which was tasked with carrying out the necessary organisation to both plan and run a graded competition.

A properly run graded IPSC competition requires properly trained and qualified match officials to ensure the smooth running of the event. To ensure this the UKPSA had organised an IPSC Range Officer Training Seminar in March that was conducted by UKPSA Trainers Martyn Spence and Jim Gibney. They put a group of 12 new range officers through the IPSC two day training course, which is a blend of both classroom work and practical training in situations that they will encounter in a competition. Martyn and Jim also re-qualified UKPSA members who were previously range officer qualified.



IPSC Ireland member Andrew Pedlow took first place in Standard Division

In the run up to the match date the USASC designed and build and assembled all the targets and props required for the stages of the match. The competition consisted of seven stages. These consisted of two long stages of up to 31 rounds, two medium stages of up to 22 rounds and three short stages of up to 12 rounds.

The stages used a blend of shoot and no shoot targets and reduced size targets to increase the difficulty. The use of walls and barriers with apertures at different heights increased the difficulty of the stages. Each stage had both full size targets, which allowed you to speed up your shots and a combination of partial targets, with many obscured by no-shoot targets and reduced size targets, which meant that you had to slow it down to ensure that you got the hits and avoided getting misses or hitting the no-shoots. The degree of difficulty in shooting these stages was comparable to the degree of difficulty that you would experience in an IPSC Level III competition on the European IPSC competition circuit.

 

UKPSA Regional Director Vanessa Duffy was one of the contingent of UKPSA members who travelled over from GB to participate in the competition.

The newly qualified range officers ran the stages under the control of Range Master Jim Gibney. As the score sheets were being processed through out the competition, the prize giving took place very quickly after the last competitors shot their last stages. At any graded practical pistol competition the IPSC Divisions of Production and Standard are always the most popular and this competition was no different. A series of commemorative plaques and prizes were present to the winners in the respective IPSC Divisions.

In Standard Division IPSC Ireland member Andrew Pedlow took first place. Paul Kirkpatrick was only 1.56% behind in second place and Robert McKee took third place. In Production Division David Thompson came in first place, with David Cumming and Colin Beattie in second and third place. As well as Standard and Production Divisions two other IPSC Divisions, Classic and Open, were also represented. Jim McEwan took the top spot in Open Division and Rob Adam took the honours in Classic Division.

 

Engaging targets through an upper aperture Paul Kirkpatrick was second in Standard Division, only 1.56% behind Andrew.

As well as attracting UKPSA members from Northern Ireland, UKPSA members from Great Britain also travelled over to participate in the competition. We also had a group of competitors from our neighbouring IPSC Region in the Republic of Ireland who also participated in the match. This is the first of a series of graded IPSC Practical Pistol Competitions that will take place in Northern Ireland in both 2012 and beyond. Another two Level II graded IPSC practical pistol competitions will take place in July and August at the USASC range. Many thanks to all the competitors who attended the match and to all the range staff for their hard work and enthusiasm that was put into running the competition.

 

Classic Division is a new IPSC Division and is limited to the M1911 pistol as used here by UKPSA Chairman Rob Adam.

Results from these Graded Level II Matches will determine the 2012 United Kingdom Champions for the IPSC Handgun Divisions and results will be used for selection to the UKPSA National Handgun Squad and will be taken into consideration for the allocation of places for the IPSC European Handgun Championships that will take place in Portugal in 2013. Later this year the club will start the construction work to add additional shooting bays to their range and in 2013 the club will host a United Kingdom Open Level III Championship IPSC Competition.



All the stages had a series of full sized or partial targets at long range or with difficult angles in which the competitor had to engage the targets above, through, below or around the various props used.