Dear Friends, 

The 3rd STI Open match was held this past weekend at the fantastic shooting range in Phlippsburg Germany. Many of you will remember this range as the venue of the 2001 European Championships - but if you have not been back since then - I am not sure you would recognize it. Back then in 2001 it was a nice range - very big and with huge potential. Well - over the past three years that potential has been realized, and this range is now second to none in Europe! It is simply beautiful - with over 16 shooting bays ranging in size from small to very big. Most of the range has side bullet-stops as well as back stops, so you can really shoot 180 degrees on all the range. This is usually reserved only for totally outdoor ranges, while this range is partially covered, and all the ranges are close to one another. This construction gives you best of both worlds: you can still design whatever stage you want, allowing shooting in all directions, and the shooters can enjoy the relative comfort of have the ranges close to each other, and under cover, out of the rain or burning sun. It is in my opinion, the best shooting range in Europe!

I think the STI Open has become one of the best matches on the European calendar. This in mainly due to the excellent stage design and construction. And of course the central location and fantastic range.

The team who design this match seem to think the same way I do about what makes a stage successful: It's not the props of fancy construction, and not even the round count. It is the OPTIONS! A good stage in my opinion, is one that you need to start looking at and thinking about the day before you shoot. It's one that the first time you see it you say to yourself "How the h_ll am I supposed to shoot this one?!". The second time you look you begin to see the options. And then more options - and you have to start considering and trying to calculate what the best way to shoot really is.

Of course building such stages is harder than building a stage where the props and barricades allow for only one practical solution. You need to have a range that will allow for all angles of shooting as well - an option available in Philippsburg. Many hours of work went into to building some of these stages, I am sure, and the result was grand. Some stages were shot in 3-4 deferent ways in our squad alone, and I am still not sure that my tactics were the absolute best choices I could have made.

I solute the team who put this match together - and recommend this match to all shooters for next year.

The one down side was that we were requested not to take pictures or video during the shooting. So unfortunately this report cannot include the usual photos or clips. I promise to make it up to your in the next reports.

My match went well for the most part. I did have some gun problems which I later discovered were related to some high primers I had in the ammo I loaded the day before the match. I guess I did not spend as much time as I should have screening my match ammo. Also, taking apart my Dillon 1050 the day before, and then loading the match ammo may not have been the best idea... Seems I did not reset the primer height as I should have. Anyway- you live and learn.

So a couple of jams cost me points, but other then than I shot clean, with a total of less than 5 D's, and excellent points on most stages. German top shooters Christian Wilda and Timo Kosil were hot on my heals the entire match, but stumbled here and there picking up misses. Young Maximilian Wiegan really did well to finish a very close 4th, almost beating Timo for 3rd! Well done Max. I am sure we will hear much more from this kid in the near future.

The top 10 in Open were:

  1 1523,6883 100,00 19 Kirsch, Saul ISR
  2 1427,2187   93,67 78 Wilda, Christian GER
  3 1385,8465   90,95 156 Kosiol, Timo GER
  4 1377,0056   90,37 16 Wiegand, Maximilian GER
  5 1368,7427   89,83 131 Weber, Günther AUT
  6 1326,3686   87,05 291 Kraushofer, Roland AUT
  7 1306,8873   85,77 251 Eidenschink, Bernhard GER
  8 1301,8731   85,44 165 Schneider, Patrik SUI
  9 1271,9009   83,48 164 Schulte, Andreas GER
10 1262,1849   82,84 119 Nothnagel, Nils GER

And since I have no pictures for this report, I may as well give you the top Standard too:

  1 1485,2223 100,00 47 Midgley, Gregory SUI
  2 1413,4677 95,17 27   Pesce, Fabrizio ITA
  3 1368,4938 92,14 180 Kraus, Klaus-Thomas GER BEZ
  4 1334,0083 89,82 69   Boit, Julian FRA
  5 1326,3384 89,30 205 Kummer, Steven GER RO
  6 1313,7487 88,45 237 Heller, Peter SUI
  7 1304,0853 87,80 222 Uitert, John van NED BEZ
  8 1301,8820 87,66 231 Lacroix, Christian BEL BEZ
  9 1259,5475 84,81 225 Materna, Constantin GER J BEZ
10 1258,4758 84,73 130 Sieber, Gernot AUT

As always, I have my sponsors to thank for their support:
Drummen Custom Guns
Berry's Fmg
Competitive Edge Dynamics (CED)
Mpro-7
Arredondo accessories
Rescomp Handgun Technologies
Aimpoint
BUL Transmark

Until the next time, I wish you all great shooting!

 DvC
Saul Kirsch