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We've been doing the Short Range Match for over a year and I am very pleased at what it has become. You can shoot any pistol, loaded to capacity, that you legitimately carry. If you carry a 50 Desert Eagle then come on out! If you are ever in San Antonio or Austin on the second Sunday of the month please come join us at Cedar ridge.

I wanted to share some comments from one of our regulars that really captured the spirit of the Short Range Match; he said it very well.
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Eric, your short range matches are the best practice for concealed carry license holders outside of expensive courses. Your focus on real world incidents and realistic shooting scenarios using carry-type weapons makes these events invaluable.

IDPA competition has frankly gotten to be a sport first and practice for concealed carry a distant second. As IDPA competitors we tend to focus too much on getting the best score within the rules. The way you would shoot a stage if people were shooting back at you is far different from the way you would shoot that stage to get the best score under current IDPA rules. While I enjoy IDPA competitions myself and have no problem with people who compete in IDPA primarily as a sport, we do tend to get into bad habits such as walking slowly to get zero down hits on targets. When people shoot back, you tend to run faster and shoot one-handed so you don’t get shot. Doing so is going to reduce your IDPA score substantially, but if the main object of the exercise is not to get shot while getting hits on the bad guy, running and shooting one handed are good examples of how to do it. This is not just speculation, since these are things revealed by the work done by different groups that do Airsoft-based force-on-force training such as Suarez International.

Perhaps one day IDPA competition will find a way to calculate into scoring how many hits would happen on a competitor who is walking slowly and shooting two-handed at all times. This could be deducted from the score to make IDPA competition more like the real world, but until IDPA figures a way to do this we have your matches. No caliber restrictions, no rules against RMRs, relaxed but safe rules on holsters, no rules against shooting a particular pistol as long as it is something you carry. Your matches allow us to compete more like the way we actually carry.

While your short range matches are not going to replace formal handgun training courses, or for that matter, IDPA competition for the pure sport of it, they provide additional and I think much needed opportunities for better concealed carry skill set development. They are the cheapest way for law-abiding people with CHL's in the San Antonio/Austin area to practice and sharpen our gun handling skills in the context of simulated real world concealed carry situations. Mark N, 10 Aug 14 Short Range Match