What is a Pistol Carbine?

A Pistol Carbine is a Conversion Kit Assembly, whereby a standard production pistol will fit into.

The idea behind a pistol carbine was to have a frame assembly or conversion kit that a standard pistol would fit into to enable better accuracy and control while shooting fast and on the move at short to medium distances.

Originally the first production Pistol Carbine Conversion Kit was designed by CAA Tactical in Israel for the BUL Cherokee & Glock 17 pistols.

Now many manufacturers make them for just about all common pistols that are manufactured throughout the world today.

How it all started

The Rotorua Pistol Club was at the forefront in getting Pistol Carbine approved to shoot in NZ.

Back in 2011 Don Perry, President of RPC approached both Pistol NZ and the NZ Police to see if both parties were where amenable to approving the new sport of shooting, Pistol Carbine?

A meeting was held at the RPC range with all three parties involved.

The Pistol Carbine Conversion Kit was demonstrated, and the parties where showed the benefits of such shooting.

Pistol NZ endorsed the discipline and it was subsequently approved by NZ Police.

It was slow to catch on with some clubs, but with Pistol NZ having it as a Division in Steel Challenge it started to gain some momentum.

Then Rotorua Pistol Club run an IPSC type pistol carbine match (just with a slightly different scoring system, to speed the match up) called “King of Carbine”.

This was a huge success with shooters, now, all you get is shooters screaming for more matches.

So, where to from here?

Rotorua Pistol Club will continue to run the “King of Carbine” Match annually around March of each year.

The Club also has Pistol Carbine matches on the calendar on a monthly basis, all IPSC type matches.

With Steel Challenge also on the calendar every month, where Pistol Carbine is a Division within, you can see Rotorua is well into shooting Pistol Carbines.

Another plus for the Sport of Pistol Carbine is that Juniors can take part, they find it reasonably easy to control and shoot accurately.