IPSC Equipment: Clothing

Okay so you don't have to rush out and buy a whole new wardrobe, but you do need to consider your clothing. I discovered, during Black Badge, that what I thought was functional, was too baggy and ended up hindering my draw. I also realised I needed shoes that provided pretty good grip. You also want to have seperate clothing, to prevent lead contamination. Use your shooting clothes at the range, and discard/wash directly afterwards. 

Now, again, shooting clothes simply are not available locally. So you make the next best choice. I thought I would use a spandex type, long-sleeved under-shirt, and a short sleeved outer-shirt. My first under-shirt I bought from Walmart for $13, and it was useless. It was too short in the body. Again, I did some research online and found better alternatives. For starters, the IPSC Store has a selection of shirts, but I wasn't too impressed with the pictures, and didn't want to take a chance. 

They did have a long sleeve shirt for $25, with IPSC printed on it, which I bought and it is nice, but as a tight under-shirt to keep the fabric away from your gun, it is arguable. I eventually settled on an online puchase, which worked so well that I bought a second one. They cost about $25 each.

One of the reasons I use a tight under-shirt, preferably with a slight turtle neck, is to prevent hot cartridges from slipping down the collar. This only has to happen to you once for you to understand.

To compliment the under-shirt, I kept with a sports theme and use simple soccer shirts as my short sleeved outer garment. I guess hockey shirts or anything of that nature would work just as well. Again, these are relatively tight, to keep the fabric away from the gun, and are relatively long in the body, so that they can be tucked in with ease.

For pants, which was a suggestion by Walter Hornby, I use cargo pants, where the lower portions can be zipped off in the summer. Costco had a whole lot of these for sale at about $35 each. As for shoes, a good pair of trainers, sneakers ad/or cleats will suffice. I usually don't wear a cap, but a ball cap makes sense, as it not only minimises the amount of lead dust that settles in your hair, but can also assist with the sun (when you shoot outdoors), and help prevent cartridges falling on top of you.

Finally, knee pads. You may not use these often, but if you have weaker knees, you will find them indispensible. Instead of leaning forward to shoot through a port hole, you will have the option of going down on one knee in comfort (provided you get the soft ones). There are plenty of options at the Home Depot or elsewhere, otherwise find a pair online like I did. I probably could have found a cheaper pair. These cost $35, and the stiching was a little dodgey in places, but they seem to work fine. 

So all up, including a firearm between $700 - 1,000, you should expect to spend about $1,650 - 2,000 to get kitted out.