Polite Society match

[tobeat1]

Howdy all! This Febuary 22-23 there is going to be a Polite Society match at Rangemasters in Memphis, TN. Rules are similar to IPDA including mandatory use of cover and the "3 second rule". Targets will be 3D reactive targets that will only go down if hit in the vital areas. CNS or COM shots should take them down from what I was told. Anyway, I was just curious if anyone has shot a match with the 3 second rule. From what I understand it means you can only expose yourself for 3 seconds while shooting from behind cover. I am used to shooting IPSC and steel matches so I am not all that familiar with IDPA matches. Any pointers or suggestions would be helpfull.

[Jim Watson]

I shot the Rangemaster (Memphis) Polite Society match in August and the Rangemaster Tactical Conference the previous February which was kind of a kickoff for the Polite Society. I have also shot some Tactical stages at Steel City as Ron Holland develops a P.S. program at Steel City, Birmingham. Marty Hayes is running them in Seattle; I don't know who all else.

Polite Society shooting is not IDPA (or IPSC) it just uses some IDPA procedures for convenient administration . It has fewer rules, but those are strict.

The three second rule applies like so:
You may only expose yourself from behind cover to Threat targets for a maximum of three seconds at a time. You should still make proper use of cover and not expose any more of yourself than necessary to engage the threat. You may have as many exposures of three seconds or less as you need to neutralize all the threat targets. You will be scored your actual exposure time from the restart buzzer to your last shot if under three seconds. You may take a peek from behind cover to locate threats without firing, but will be charged three seconds. You may not reappear at the same location twice in a row. You score the total time for all exposures, of course. You gotta be quick to get more than one threat per three second exposure.

If you are on the move, the three second limit does not apply, go as far as you can as long as you are shooting all the way. But the clock is running. In most stages you can move from cover to cover without shooting but will be charged three seconds.

A target un-neutralized or a exposure over three seconds gets you a ten second "failure to live" penalty. Hitting a Non-threat draws a twenty second penalty.

Except in Standards, reloads behind cover are off the clock.

My and others's description of that August match are at
http://www.1911forum.com/forums/show...ty+Rangemaster

Steel City is holding a Polite Society Match on February 8, 2003, two weeks before the one at Rangemaster.

Official match notices for those are at:
http://www.scssa.org/idpa/polite_society.htm
http://www.rangemaster.com

[tobeat1]

Thanks for the information. I guess I will try to make the Steel City match to get in some practice. It sounds like this is going to be a blast. Hope to see some of you guys there!

[Tim Burke]

I went to the 1st PS match. I highly recommend it. It's worthwhile to hear how it's going to be scored, but I'd suggest that you just shoot it like it was real.

[HighVelocity]

Are the PS matches still being held anywhere? I know this is a VERY old thread.

[Jim Watson]

Not in the original format that I know of.

The Rangemaster Polite Society Shooting Match has been absorbed into the annual Rangemaster Tactical Conference, with even more emphasis on tacticality. It will be in Tulsa, OK this year, moving from Memphis to a bigger facility. Go to
http://www.rangemaster.com/
and call up their latest newsletter.

John Luering, who was running original format Polite Society shoots in Georgia passed away just about the time they were going good and nobody picked up the load. Ron Holland only did a couple in Alabama.

Marty Hayes at Firearms Academy of Seattle did them for a while but I don't see anything about it on his www now.