As I have progressed from a competition shooter to my clubs active competition organiser I have heard some weird stories about how some competitors will go to extreme lengths to afford themselves any advantage.

I have learnt that targets and props must be staked down to prevent certain shooters from moving them a short way to get an advantage and several other methods of what is really cheating.

On such tale is told of the shooter who ordered, but did not pay for or collect, match ammunition while attending an event. When he reached the chronograph he claimed he was shooting match ammunition, therefore did not need to go through the chronograph stage. The Match Director heard of this and informed the Range Master who chose to give the shooter the benefit of the doubt.

As my club is preparing to hold our IPSC Handgun nationals, starting in a weeks time (next Thursday) our small group is putting the final touches to the stages. Last Sunday we were joined by the Match Director (who is located in Auckland). He had an interesting tale to tell us.

He has been informed of the names of no less than four shooters who are planning to try to beat the chronograph. They have each set aside one magazine loaded with rounds that will make power factor but plan to shoot weaker ammunition in the competition.

Now I just cannot see how they will get away with this. Every time I have been approached by match officials collecting ammo for the chronograph I have just raised my hands and invited them to pull a magazine, any magazine, from my belt. That way the selection for testing is completely random and out of my control.

To my way of thinking the only score I have to beat next week is my last years' score, which will not be too hard as I crashed and burnt big time at the last Nationals. If in the process I get a medal that's a bonus.

As for those who plan to cheat. Well a procedure is being put in place whereby a few stages before the chronograph two match officials will be collecting ammunition from magazines dumped during the stage from each shooter.

I guess it will not go down well with those who think they can beat the system.

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View from down under

A long winded, but interesting video. Especially about how competition ruins the productive nature of the shooting sports far too often, focusing more on winning than practicality, and the lengths people went to gain an advantage, like attempting to spy on randomized target set ups so they could gain an edge. People lose sight of the real point, fail to learn the proper lessons, take the sport in the wrong direction.

People have asked me why I haven't gotten into competition myself, I like it enough and have a lot of talent as an offhand shooter. Part of it is living in the middle of nowhere with a well structured but limited budget, the other part is the nature of the competitors that show up and the shenanigans they pull, the attitudes that come with it. I would love to learn form other people and watch, but I think I would get awful sick of the nonsense in not too long.

That is simply Human Nature .
Check out the story of Jacob and Esau in the book of Genesis
This has been going on since day one and it will never stop....
Cheaters just have to cheat ...it's in their DNA .

Mamma raised us with some simple rules..." You don't lie , you don't cheat and you don't steal and Your word is your bond ".
I try to live by those rules because that's the way I was raised .
Gary

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Certified Cajun
NRA Member

Wow. I would like to compete beyond the level that I compete now, which is a few guys scoring targets unofficially and off any records at my local range. I've been wanting to start a shooting club. To me, it would be an opportunity to make some like mind friends, learn a few things, and have some fun. It seems to me that even if one of these cheats won, his spoils would be deminished in his own eyes, and he would feel that he robbed his friends. The one he is cheating the most is himself.

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Hillbilly

The video struck a chord with me as I got into IPSC in 1983, and even in the middle of fly over country it didn't take long for the fols with race guns to suck all the fun out of shooting with your duty gun.

Around 2001, a local club I was affiliated with that held monthly practical pistol matches affiliated with IDPA. Initially it was great, and it served as a training venue for the more motivated law enforcement members in the area. Unfortunately, over the course of several years I saw much of the same creeping bias toward competition versus practical application that I saw in IPSC. For example, I don't care how much of a speed loader or moon clip is covered, open topped carriers are just not practical in the real world, and when I saw "that guy" show up, I knew we were pretty much done.

Locally, a couple of the ranges hold less formal practical competition shoots, and I they do provide a great opportunity for people to bring whatever they shoot and get good practical shooting practice.

Unfortunately, they are not well attended. I also noted that some of the attendees won't return if they don't shoot well in comparison to the one or two shooters who may have some competition shooting background.

I'm gravitating toward "fun matches" these days. Not sanctioned and just a bunch of folks trying to beat themselves. If I do better than I did last time, great! If not, then I had fun trying.

We run a long range silhouette match where the only real rule is safety. We have people show up with high-zoot benchrest 22s and others with something akin the Grandpa's old Stevens. You can guess who turns in the higher scores. It's a hollow victory, though since everybody knows how they did it. Some folks get bored with good scores and go to lesser equipment or more difficult shooting positions - to challenge themselves. It's all good fun and the only prize is looking at yourself in the mirror.

Our weekly Bullseye matches are much the same. We grin when somebody does well and we grin when they don't. Plenty of jokes like "the targets just won't hold still!" None of us will set world records, but we have a lot of fun trying. A serious Bullseye shooter would just get bored beating a bunch of us rubes. For us, we enjoy trying to better ourselves in a tough discipline.

After many years of in and out of competition I have come to the conclusion that there are essentially three types of shooters at the matches, with some overlap. There are the I WANT TO HAVE SOME FUN shooters. There are the I WANT TO PRACTICE SOME VALUABLE REAL WORLD SKILLS shooters. And then there are the I WANT TO WIN WIN WIN shooters. Keeping your head balanced in the right place can be hard.

If you want to meet some real cheaters just attend a Boy Scouts Pinewood Derby.

I certainly hope so.
I admire a competitive contestant who prepares well and seeks every small tweak within the rules that helps him win; I despise a cheater who knows he's cheating and tries to sneak around the rules.
Cheaters deserve to be named and banned.

If you don't have rules for formal shooting, then you shouldn't score the targets. Or list the results. And certainly not give recognition or awards.

I intensely dislike the "informal" matches that inevitably turn into "Bubba's Range, Bubba's rules" and "Bubba and his Buds win".

As an IDPA match director for 15 yrs, we took delight in running a personality neutral match, the rules are the same for everybody, does not matter who you are. The range owner, the USPSA match Director, and one of my own IDPA assistants joined the list of DQ'd for cause. If an SO failed to call a penalty on me when I was shooting, I'd call it myself. We developed a group of shooters who could shoot "clean" at higher matches, and knew the rules very well.

Anybody who had to throw a fit when a penalty was called was DQ'd for Unsportsmanlike Conduct and had to leave the range.

You know, our matches got a lot more polite and enjoyable.
And the new, younger match director is doing a great job continuing the tradition. Yes, we lost a few shooters, but nobody seems to miss them.

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Science plus Art

I guess some folks reckon others' opinions of them as more important than their own knowledge of themselves. Doesn't fit my way of thinking, but I suppose there's a lot of what passes (in some circles) as thinking, these days.

??

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Formerly Model520Fan

When I'm shooting a match, I will fight for all the points I actually shot (if necessary). I want no more and no less than what's on the target. I will fight for all the points anyone else actually shot. No more and no less. That's the only fair way to do it. If someone is caught cheating, they're out, now. Most of the guys I shoot with are the same, and we all have a good time. Whoever shot the best that day is the winner and everyone is happy for them.

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protocalldesign.com

There are shooters that cheat, golfers that cheat, the allure of that $10 plaque is overwhelming for many. As an AMD, I have put on a couple sanctioned idpa matches. The best trap for the cheater is to pull their mags randomly after the match has started. Like after their first stage, then as they line up for the briefing on the next stage, pass out baggies & ask for 5-7rds from a mag on their body. Chances are if they just shot, they have topped off with ammo for the next stage. If they step away to get to their bag, stop them & ask for the mag off their belt. Get a DQ for ammo is embarrassing, they wont likely repeat it. Yeah sneaky but hey, you are trying to catch a cheater right.

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NRA Cert. Inst. IDPA CSO

IDPA really is the venue for those wanting to run carry gear. It is built around that concept. Sure people will show up & game it but so what, that shouldn't affect your practice time, which is what I look at idpa as.
This year I have been shooting my ccw exclusively in local & sanctioned matches where allowed. I don't win often but am enjoying the practice.
BTW, nothing wrong with proper open top mag carrier for ccw/competition. Properly adjusted, the mag isn't coming out on its own.

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NRA Cert. Inst. IDPA CSO

What you don't understand is cheaters don't see it that way .
Do whatever it takes to win...
getting the prize is all that matters .

Notice how many people see nothing wrong with paying money to get their kids into a fancy school...who are they hurting ...really ...their very own kids are learning that cheating is the way. That's so very sad .
These parents need to go to jail for being poor parents ...there outta be a law .
Gary

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Certified Cajun
NRA Member

Ah yes, the "I wanna trophy" folks who'll do anything-except practice and improve-to do so.

I can still recall a couple of slightly related incidents. One was when the .38 Super major era began, but this wasn't an isolated incident. There'd be one box of ammo for the pendulum/chronograph and then the other box (all coming out of the same carry bag) that actually got shot in the match. If you watched the ejection patterns you could tell who was making major and who was faking major.

The other was a shocking (but not surprising if you knew the competitor) case where a either current or soon to be (looong time ago) Champion got a reshoot of a stage where he'd blown a round off a target. He viewed the target, agreed he'd missed (impressed us) and went on his way. Just before the tear down of that stage the Match Director gave him a do over because of a "his target wasn't properly scored" competitor protest. I was the paster on that run and joined the RSO and score keeper on the stage jumping on the MD over that. Didn't do any good. Never shot at that range again.

Originally, IPSC was fired from concealment/duty gear with duty guns. Then the games began. The closest curent thing to that concept is Tactical Police Competition. There are some ranges who've decided to use the courses and rules to put on matches for non-LE. It's duty gun, duty gear. At the formal matches triggers get weighed and guns marked so there can't be any parking lot substitutions. Not surprisingly, they still get gamers.

After the last match I shot, several squad members at their first formal match came to me (obvious gray haired old man) to complain about a couple of our squad mates. They were severely discouraged/ticked. I told them that type of personality existed all over, ignore them. I then complimented them on how they'd done. Good gun handling, good movement using proper tactics-all of which the match was supposed to reinforce. Hope they continued to compete. Really, you're competing against yourself. The overall score is just to gauge how you're progressing against (hopefully) the best.