Welcome to another installment of my series on USPSA! While I am nowhere near an expert at USPSA, I have been teaching people how to shoot for quite awhile. Over the years, I have learned quite a few things that I think you might find interesting and perhaps even useful. If you like the content, subscribe to the blog! Our shop is the most direct way to support, and has a ton of neat little knickknacks and books and such.
Let us imagine for a minute that you went out and bought a pistol. The reason why you bought a pistol doesn’t really matter. Perhaps you decided you wanted to get your concealed carry permit. Maybe you are a professional who carries a pistol for work. It could even be that you bought a pistol because you saw it in a movie. It does not matter to me why you bought a pistol, I am just happy that you bought one (theoretically).
Now let us suppose that you bought your pistol, and you decided that you should take learning about the pistol seriously. A good move, in my opinion, and you dedicate some time to learning the controls on your pistol. Then you go to the range and spend a significant amount of time and money on ammo and range time putting holes in paper. Going to the range is fun, but standing in one lane and shooting the same target over and over doesn’t really get your juices flowing.
Then you stumble across my blog, and you read about USPSA. You think that USPSA sounds fun, but when you pull up videos on YouTube of people participating in USPSA matches, it is intimidating. Those competitors are moving quick, shooting fast, and you can’t quite figure out how they keep everything straight. Then you notice the gear. Fancy equipment hanging off belts and multi-thousand dollar pistols with compensators, optics, and extended magazines in the hands of every shooter. You have a pistol and a holster. How could you keep up with that?
The good news is you already found this blog, and are reading this particular post. The other good news is that you don’t have to keep up with the Master Class shooters! The third good news is that I have the equipment you need, on the cheap, to get you started.
Getting started in USPSA is fairly straightforward. For this article, I will assume that you are well on your way to mastering the safety features of your pistol, and are very familiar with the four rules of Gun Safety:
1: Treat every weapon as if it is loaded
2: Never point a weapon at something you are not willing to hurt, mangle, or destroy
3: Keep your finger straight and off the trigger until you are ready to fire
4: Know your target and what is in front of it and behind it
Since you have mastered all that, we will focus on the required equipment you need to get setup for USPSA. Other practical pistol disciplines will be similar, but all have their own quirks, so be sure to research before heading to a match.
Really all you need to get started in a USPSA match is eye and ear protection, a pistol, a holster that matches that pistol, some magazine pouches, and a belt. That’s it. That’s the whole article.
The end!
Just kidding. We’re going to talk a bit more about gear, specifically gear that you can buy that is “dual-use,” which maximizes your value. I will focus on gear that is most at home in the “Production” and “Carry Optics” divisions, which are the two you’re most likely to start in.
What do I mean by dual-use? For our purposes, dual-use equipment will simply refer to gear that works well for competition and another pistol use. For instance, you might want to consider a belt that works well to hold your holster and magazines, but also works well as a concealed carry belt. Or, if you are using USPSA competition to hone your skills for tactical/duty use, then I would suggest you buy gear that mimics your duty set up.
Let’s start with the belt. Your choice in belt matters, but not that much. You want it to be rigid enough to hold up your loaded and holstered pistol, plus your magazine pouches and loaded magazines. The belt also needs to be flexible enough that you can run, bend, squat, and kneel without being too uncomfortable. Sure, you can go with a competition focused belt, and spend hundreds of dollars just on the belt. Or you can just throw on whatever belt you have lying around.
When I first started shooting USPSA, I either used my issued USAF nylon duty belt (free if issued, otherwise $8.99 on Amazon), or a leather Columbia belt that I got for Christmas. After a little while, I bought a dedicated gunbelt, a Magpul Tejas, then bought a belt from a leather worker at a famer’s market in Portland. The point is, you can really get started with any semi-rigid belt that fits your magazine pouches and holster.
The next most important thing is your holster. You should get a high-quality holster, and you possibly already got one when you bought your gun. The good news is that, as long as your holster attaches to your belt at or ahead of your hips, pretty much any quality holster will pass muster. There are just a few things to avoid: Universal nylon holsters, floppy leather holsters, shoulder holsters, small-of-the-back, cross draw, and “drop-leg” tactical holsters. Per USPSA regulations, the butt of your pistol grip has to be at least as high as the top of your belt, unless you are Active Duty Military or Law Enforcement using your duty holster or similar holster.
What I recommend buying is a good kydex (plastic) holster that meets your other needs. You can shoot USPSA from concealment, so if you really only want to buy one holster, you could buy a good concealment holster and use it for both everyday concealed carry and USPSA. If you are military or law enforcement, I highly recommend that you buy the commercial equivalent of your duty holster and use that as your USPSA holster.
If you are looking for a holster on the cheap, you can head to Ebay and look for lightly used examples. Hopefully you purchased a pistol with a lot of aftermarket support, like a Glock, Smith & Wesson, Walther, Beretta, etc., otherwise, you might have to find someone to make a holster for you. Whatever you do, do not buy a flimsy, nylon, “universal” fit holster! There are plenty of holster manufacturers out there that sell quality Kydex holsters at fair prices.
Finally, and probably least important, is your magazine holders. I say these are least important because you can technically shove all your spare magazines in your pockets and compete. That’s not ideal, but it is within the rules. I recommend that you maintain the ability to hold at least four magazines (one in the pistol and three on your belt), but I like to keep five on me during each stage (one in the pistol and four in my belt). Do I always use all five magazines? No, but it happens often enough to justify the extra weight. I also like to use two pouches that hold one magazine and one pouch that holds two magazines. Placing the two single magazine pouches forward on my belt of the double pouch provides for a little extra mobility.
Pretty much any magazine pouch you can fasten to your belt will do. Competitors typically use open top pouches that rely on simple friction to retain their magazines, as opposed to “duty” style pouches that might have an added retention strap to hold the magazine in place. It is highly unlikely that you will be tripping and falling down a mountain or wrestling with a suspect during a USPSA match, so the added retention isn’t necessary.
Surplus magazine pouches are very widely available on eBay, so if you are balling on a budget, don’t feel like they aren’t viable options. While the retention might slow your reload down, you can either learn to work around it, start a stage with the retention disengaged, or modify the pouch to remove the retention entirely.
So all you need is a pistol, belt, holster, and magazine pouches. Let’s make a couple of assumptions and build you a couple different competition rigs for Production (or Carry Optics) division, maximizing on “dual use.” First, let us assume that you bought a Glock 19, one of the most popular and highest recommended pistols available. Next, let us assume that you have a belt that is good enough for now, or you have the $10 to buy a nylon “tactical” belt off of Amazon. Third, let us assume that you want to carry a total of five magazines during your USPSA stages (one in the pistol and four on your belt). Finally, I will assume that you are able to suss out ear and eye protection without my assistance.
I’ll start with the competitor who wants their USPSA set up to mimic their concealed carry set up. Whether you want an inside the waistband or outside the waistband holster is up to you, you can use either for USPSA. You can pop onto eBay, search “Glock 19 holster,” and get a veritable flood of options. Another option is to head to a reputable holster manufacturer’s website, and place an order. One of my first holsters for my own Glock 19 was from Bravo Concealment, who sell bundles. For less than $150 you could get a holster and four magazine pouches. Boom. One stop and done.
Perhaps you intend to carry your Glock 19 in a good holster, but you probably won’t carry a spread of four magazines every day. That’s reasonable, and perhaps you only want to use your concealed carry holster and don’t really care about the type of magazine pouches you use for competition. At that point, the world is your oyster, and you can grab whatever pouches you think works. You could head back over to eBay or Bravo Concealment, grab your desired holster, then pop over to the Norseman Creative shop and pick up some surplus magazine pouches to round out your setup. Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy.
Now let’s tackle the setup for a competitor who wants their USPSA setup to be closely aligned with their “duty” rig. Whether this competitor is military, law enforcement, or a responsible, prepared citizen, they are looking at a more “overt” setup than a concealed carry setup. This set up is actually closer to what you might see on a serious USPSA competitors belt, as USPSA and other competition shooting has really influenced “tactical” shooting trends over the past several years.
So lets assume you want a retention holster and pouches to hold four spare magazines. You should start with what style of holster you are going to be issued or expected to use on duty. Retention holsters are more expensive than most concealed carry holsters, but here again, eBay can really be your friend. A good Safariland holster can be found for upwards of $250 new, but far less on the used market.
You can also try to find a holster that is “close enough” and go from there. For instance, when I started shooting USPSA, the Air Force was issuing Safariland Model 6005 drop-leg holsters, but I bought a G-Code XST holster that used the same retention method because a commerical 6005 cost $250 and the XST cost $80. The Air Force was also using Blackhawk! Serpa holsters for a long time, so I bought one to compete with for $20 off Amazon. I do not recommend Serpa holsters due to their retention method, but they are out there and relatively cheap.
Now, the magazine pouches. I honestly recommend you go peruse the Norseman Creative shop, as we have quite a few high-quality and inexpensive magazine pouches for sale. I would recommend that you buy one double magazine pouch and two single magazine pouches and set them up on your belt in the same spot every time. This will make your reloads more repeatable, and therefore faster with practice.
In reality, it doesn’t matter too much what you use for competitions. I recognize that it does take a little bit of extra gear, and everyone is on a budget. I just recommend that you get out and try practical pistol competitions, and if you love it, you can go down the rabbit hole of gear and guns and ammo.
Keep in mind that I started shooting USPSA in earnest with a version of my duty pistol (a Beretta M9), and some surplus gear. As time went on, I changed bits and pieces of my setup, but even now, a decade later, my belt setup is largely the same as it was. Making smart investments in equipment will yield equipment that will last for a very long time, and you can girl-math your way into convincing yourself the gear costs only pennies per use, making it virtually free!
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