The story behind the 5x5 Classifier

Rob Leatham running the 5x5 at IDPA Nationals

Every year at IDPA, every match director can count on the fact there will be competitors registered for their match needing to shoot a quick classifier so they are eligible to compete at a sanctioned event. This is often imposed on the MD as if it was their problem to solve and it was an imposition on clubs and MD’s to accommodate these shooters. Setting up the 3 stage classifier and running a small

number of shooters often caused problems when clubs did not have this on their calendar.

Another issue was feedback from MD’s around the country how they found running the classifier as a match was a tedious chore whether they did it only once a year or multiple times. Regardless of that fact, members who wanted to shoot in multiple divisions need to shoot one or two classifiers a year if they have not been to a sanctioned match in the division they are entering.

The 5x5 drill was a drill designed by Bill Wilson using the original IDPA target and scoring system. What made it interesting at the time it was created, was Bill Wilson created brackets that helped a shooter understand where they were in terms of skill based on their score. It is a relatively simple drill to run and could accurately rank shooters. A number of videos can be found online by top named shooters demonstrating this drill.

At the 2017 IDPA National Championship in Cresson Texas, we wanted to run this drill using the new scoring system of 1 second per point on the new IDPA Targets adopted by IDPA at the beginning of 2017. This opportunity is the one time each year where all of the best shooters in IDPA can be found in one place and so a side-match was set up for competitors to shoot the drill for score.

A few weeks later, this drill was broken into two separate Standard Stages and embedded into a Tier 4 sanctioned match with over 200 competitors. These stages were extracted from the results and recompiled along with the scores from the Nationals and other test events resulting in a test baseline of over 600 entries with shooters from every division and skill level.

Using this data, we were able to recompile a new set of very accurate classification brackets that have been validated with the existing classifier found on IDPA.com.

After doing so, a proposal was forwarded to the executive board at HQ to adopt the 5x5 as an alternate classifier that clubs can administer to members and have their scores uploaded the same as they have done with the current 3 stage classifier.

Club contacts uploading to IDPA.com will be asked to choose which method the system will use when accepting scores. The choices will be Standard (3 stage classifier), Abbreviated (5x5) or PCC Classifier.

The classifier integrates into the IDPA classification system and ranks members based on their performance and records the date of the classifier for use when determining shooter eligibility at a sanctioned match.

It is easy to set up and run for clubs. Alternately it can easily be embedded into matches for classifying members while shooting a match. This increases the opportunity for a match promotion in addition to the awards handed out at the end of a match.

IDPA will support all three classifiers for members starting in January 2018.