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That is great sport, but almost impossible to on any scale larger than a half-dozen shooters, unless you have a range geared for it. We try to have surprise stages at our matches, but it requires blocking the entance of the bay, and it is really slow until enough people have shot it to fully "staff" the stage.

This is done occasionally at every IDPA club that can manage it. Our CAS annual match even had a surprise event jungle run.

It is not done more because it is difficult to set up. You have to have a range bay to isolate. It runs slower. The CoF writer and the RO cannot fairly compete.

It is a good test of your alertness.

By the way; try it on an indoor range where you have control of the lighting, too.

We also shoot surpise stages at my club,but like everyone else says it is difficult to do. I can't imagine running an entire match like that

We throw in a no-light surprise stage in our indoor(winter) matches.It's really a hoot,but leads to a lot of pi$$ing and moaning.Some guys just dont get the fun part I quess.Toss in some kind of "trigger"(a door or something)that flips on a couple of spotlights aimed at the shooters face on the last target array and you'll have NO friends left whatsoever.

thanks for the feed back!!! we are tring to work out the bugs if we get it worked out you will hear more about it .some of the trouble we are having yall have toulched on i guess its more training than competing the idpa clubs i shoot with are very closeminded about suprise stages (big time complaining!) but after you have watched 30 shooters go through a stage it is more about gaming than what you would realy do if it hit the fan. one of the things we did try that worked was to change shot count per target it takes a head shot or 2 center mass hits to "kill" the target no bill drills here verry fue reloads low shot counts and mostly tring to get out of the fight than playing rambo. just tring to make it a learning sport more so than game our bigest prolbum is the first through sees all the last doesnt but,all get to learn thats what we are upto.please send any ideas that might help and email me if you are in the dallas tx area adn want to give it a try

Seems to me like what you are looking for is actual training. IDPA and IPSC are very good at teaching gun handling skills, but crap at tactics.

Karl Rehn is up in Austin and he teaches a lot of force on force classes.

I believe he has also tried something like this at matches.

We do surprise stages every once in a while, but they are time burners. With 30-40 people at a match, the day gets long in a hurry. I know, if they had stuff to do later in the afternoon, they should have stayed home. But, most folks want to be out the gate by 3:00.

Good luck to you. Let us know how it goes.

Tom
AF Shooting Team

At the last monthly IDPA match in Michigan for 2001, three of five stages were "shoot houses".

These are made of 2x4 frames covered with blue tarps. The shooter goes in the front door blind and encounters hallways, doors, windows, etc. and lots of bad guys.The shooter must employ cover, reloads with retention, slice the pie and all the usual IDPA tactics.

This makes an excellent match although the set up crew has an inkling of what to expect. This is fine with me. If someone doesn't like it, then they can come to the range the day before and set up a stage. The shooters who have shot the stage already are on the honor system not to divulge to others what is behind the front door.

This club has a big crew of enthusiastic volunteers and this helps makes it work.

[This message has been edited by banjobart (edited 12-09-2001).]