Q&A With 2017 IPSC World Shoot Production Shooter Matt Hopkins

How did you train leading up to the World Shoot and how was that different than training for USPSA?

My training did not change leading up to the world shoot except for changing the targets I shoot to the Classic targets instead of the metrics in practice and I practiced more partial targets with no shoots on them instead of more open metrics for USPSA.

Now that you have shot the World Shoot, how do you wish you would have trained differently?

The only thing I would have changed in my practice is shooting low ports and ports where you have to squat down a little more than standing and shooting.

How does the lack of pre-match stage inspections and shorter walkthroughs (3, 4, 5 Minutes) affect your match?

It doesn’t have much of an affect if you know what to do to prep for it. You have to do recon before you shoot the stages. That doesn’t mean that you just look at the stages from the back. You find video of people shooting the pre-match and watch everything you can get your hands on. Another thing our house did was sit down each night and talk over the stages that we were going to shoot the next day with the other competitors in our house. We all shared video and talked out the different plans for each stage. I wasn’t surprised during a walk through and I had a plan before I even got to each stage on how to shoot it.

Did you have to modify your gun to make it IPSC legal, and if so how long did you train with that configuration?

No, I run 100% IPSC legal guns for all competitions.

Does the mixture of short, medium and long courses affect your approach to the match?

It does not change how I think about stages at all. One of the common misconceptions is that points down or lost on small stages cost less than on the long stages which is absolutely untrue. A mike costs the same on any size of stage and with the amount of small stages you can’t just lay up on them or you will cost so much since there are 3x the number of small stages in an IPSC match.

What surprised you at the World Shoot?

Nothing was really surprising this was my second world shoot and my 4th big IPSC match.

Do you plan on shooting more IPSC matches?

Yes.

What advice would you give someone interested in shooting a match internationally?

I would encourage everyone to shoot outside the USA because it is an entirely different sport outside the USA and the experience is worth it and it will make you a better shooter.

Matt Hopkins

www.HopkinsShooting.com