2019 Practical Pistol Reunion – Los Alamitos Pistol Course

On Sept 21-22, 2019, many of the key figures in the early days of Practical Shooting reunited for a weekend of shooting and socializing. The event was hosted by Bill and Joyce Wilson at the Circle WC Ranch. Part one of this blog post series has more details about the event and who attended.

As part of the event we shot a four stage match built from courses of fire from the pre-1985 days of practical shooting. One of them was called the “Los Alamitos Pistol Course”. The match was shot from open carry, with everyone shooting 1911 pistols from holsters in common use prior to 1985.

Type: PAR time standard exercise

Targets: 3 standard IDPA silhouettes spaced 1 yard apart edge to edge

Scoring: 5 points, 4 points and 3 points. Complete misses and/or overtime shots are -5 points each

Possible score: 210 points (42 rounds)

Procedure:

Stage 1: 7 yards. Draw and fire 2 rounds on T1 (left target), repeat on T2 (center target), repeat on T3 (right target). 2.5 second time limit per string

Stage 2: 7 yards. Draw and fire 2 rounds on each target (T1-T3). 5 second time limit

Stage 3: 7 yards. Draw and fire 2 rounds on each target (T1-T3) using the strong hand ONLY. 7 second time limit

Stage 4: 10 yards. Begin with 6 rounds ONLY in the pistol. Draw and fire 2 rounds on each target (T1-T3), mandatory slide lock re-load and re-engage with 2 rounds on each target (T1-T3). 14 second time limit

Stage 5: 20 yards. Shooter starts behind a barricade, on signal draw and engage T3 – T1 with 2 rounds each from the right side of the barricade. 10 second time limit

Stage 6: 20 yards. Shooter starts behind a barricade, on signal draw and engage T1 – T3 with 2 rounds each from the left side of the barricade. 10 second time limit

This course is a good example of qualification courses common to the late 70’s and early 80’s, with shots in the 7-25 yard zone and moderately fast par times. Over time, 25 yard shooting was replaced with 3 yard drills with faster par times, to more closely model the kind of shooting that commonly occurs in actual pistol fights. This 42 round course uses most of a box of ammo and would be a good foundation for a practice session, with its distribution of draw work, one handed and barricade shooting, and incorporation of one timed reload. To make this course of fire more challenging, replace the par times with time plus scoring (IDPA style), trying to run the drills as fast you can without shooting outside the zero ring.

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