[HankB]

Your current handguns will fit right in for IDPA with no modification. Courses of fire for IDPA are probably going to be far more realistic than IPSC courses of fire, at least in terms of representing possible "real life" self defense scenarios.

On the other hand, round counts in IPSC courses of fire allow for more "trigger time" and you'll get a LOT more practice reloading, especially if you shoot a revolver.

There are four categories of handgun in IDPA, and the amount of customization is strictly limited. IPSC has more categories, some of which allow for absurd mods and silly holsters that don't even make a wink at practicality.

IPSC seems to have more really top-notch shooters than IDPA does - even though they tend to use "raceguns" an IPSC Grandmaster is going to be very, very, good.

In terms of rules, our local IDPA club will cut newcommers a lot of slack on things like procedural errors, use of cover, and so forth, and we'll let a newcommer watch a couple of other people run through the course of fire first before putting him on the line. But much as I hate the term, there really is "zero tolerance" for safety violations.