Feb11 ARPC Match Pix: 2

The Wall

Much has been said about The Wall. Mostly, by me.

Here's more:

ARPC build a very wide bay, and found that they needed two smaller bays more. Toward this end, they built a wall of huge concrete blocks between the two halves of the bay. During most club matches, one half of the bay is used as either a safety area or remains available for the use of Club Members who are not competing. The 'other' half is used to build a stage for the monthly IPSC match.

The Wall doesn't extend quite the entire length of the bay. There were concerns that somebody might be replacing targets at the extreme downrange end of the "club" side of the bay while someone was engaging a target 'obliquely' on the other side, causing rounds to impact the berm of the club side ... possibly causing consternation or even minor injury to the club members on that side because of bullet fragments splashing off foreign objects on the berm.

To avoid even the least chance of that occurance, the IPSC stages on the 'other' side of the bay are always carefully designed so that their is no possibility of bullet impact on the 'club' side.

Thus, all of the stages presented there feature a number of targets placed so they can only be engaged parallel to the wall, and the targets are always sited uprange of the end of The Wall.

In the most common configuration, the IPSC shooter starts standing immediately adjacent to the wall, engages a few targets directly downrange, and then engages the rest of the targets at an acute angle to The Wall. Charge lines are placed, or other design considerations are imposed, to prevent the IPSC shooters or any other people in the squad from wandering past the end of the wall where they may incur injury from rounds fired from the club side.

You'll see this in the videos. I promised in Part 1 of this two-part series to show you more videos of people shooting this stage ...

And here they are.

Big Dawg shoots the stage with an Open Gun.

Doug shoots it with a Production Gun.


Fish shoots the stage carefully, but fairly quickly. (Note the magazine dropping during the reload in the thumbnail.) Because this is the last stage of the match, he is overjoyed at shooting "a non-open gun cleanly". He does a Happy Dance. SWMBO gives him "a round of applause". Fish expresses his joy verbally, and does another Happy Dance.


Fred (no photo available) shoots the stage very conservatively, in Limited 10.

SWMBO is careful to keep the gun mounted when moving between shooting positions.

Walt - has a lot of jams. This film is 7mb long, which shows how frustrating to the shooter a series of jams will inevitably be. Take a close look at the closing seconds of the film. Walt doesn't actually sweep his knee as he tries to Unload and Show Clear with a live round caught in the extractor, but it does look like it from this angle.