International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC)

IPSC – www.ipsc.org   

International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC) is the world’s second largest shooting sport association and the largest and oldest within practical shooting. Founded in 1976, the IPSC nowadays affiliates over 100 regions from Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania. Competitions are held with pistol, revolver, rifle and shotgun, and events are divided into different divisions based on firearm and equipment features. While everyone in a division competes in the Overall category, there are also own separate awards for the categories Lady (female competitors), Super Junior (under 16 years), Junior (under 21 years), Senior (over 50 years) and Super Senior (over 60 years).

IPSC’s activities include international regulation of the sport by approving firearms and equipment for various divisions, administering competition rules and education of range officials (referees) through the International Range Officers Association who are responsible for conducting matches safely, fair and according to the rules. IPSC organizes the World Championships called the Handgun World Shoot, Rifle World Shoot and Shotgun World Shoot with three-year intervals for each discipline.

IPSC was introduced in Malta by none other than its former president Nick Alexakos, who visited us in July 2008 and ran a specialised Firearms Safety Course and a Range Officer Seminar for AMACS members. The first event was a shoot held in July 2008 and we have not looked back since.

This shooting discipline has a growing number of participants, in spite of the limited facilities available, and its ardent followers train weekly come rain or shine. IPSC shooters have participated in several international IPSC events during the past years, giving a very good account of themselves and flying the Maltese flag in these prestigious events.

This sport shooting discipline will reach the highest level of results when Malta finally gets proper shooting facilities.