New IDPA Rulebook Rant

The title of this post was a bit misleading because I wasn't really planning on ranting about the new rules, just going over them and talking about them, but within the first two minutes of my scan of the book I already have to call out the Tiger Teams.

Why in the word would you make one of the most important gunhandling rules even more relaxed? I'm talking about having your finger in the trigger guard when it doesn't belong there...read this crap


S5.1.  The first occurrence of improper finger placement will be a warning with the “Finger” command given.  The second occurrence in a single match will result in a Procedural Error.  The third occurrence in a single match will result in a Failure To Do Right (FTDR) penalty.  Disqualification from the match will result from subsequent occurrences. 

That is unbelievable to me.

Moving on, another interesting thing to note is that ALMOST crossing a muzzle safe point (but not actually crossing it, which is a match DQ) now results in a warning, followed by an FTDR.

Next on the list of odd, stupid or potentially dangerous new rules is S14.

When a shooter is about to run into a barricade, potentially trip or fall, or do something unsafe, the SO will physically intervene when possible, to prevent a potential accident.  Because the SO kept the shooter from having a safety issue due to a shooter’s error, there is no reshoot. 

If a shooter is about to eat dirt, the best thing that can happen is for the shooter to keep his finger outside of the trigger guard, and to continue to eat dirt. If an SO grabs his arm, shirt, or otherwise it could cause all sorts of other problems. Forget that noise.



Speed round! (Quick things I noticed that I will post here but won't really talk much about)
No shots on scenario stages further than 25 yards, 6 shots only at 35 yards maximum for standards stages. Sissies.

Sanity has prevailed and it is no longer legal to require someone to load an empty magazine from lose rounds during a stage.

SSP guns now have a max weight of 43 ounces. Will we see more CZ Shadows now?

Match bumps now count as your classification requirement for the year.

No staged long guns allowed anymore

Holsters and pouches now must be behind the hip bone, not behind the centerline of the body

They made the classifier times significantly lower in SSP, and rounded the numbers off in the other classes.

and finally...

The words "round dumping" do not appear anywhere in the rulebook.