Greetings all,

This past weekend I had the pleasure to compete at the 5th International Munich Championships, held in Philipsburg Germany. It seems a little strange to have the Munich championships in Philipsburg, which is not too close to Munich - but I was glad for it! Not only in Philipsburg considerably closer to Holland, but the range there is probably the best in Europe! I love shooting there! You are protected from the elements, but at the time, the semi open range construction, with side burns you can shoot and multiple portable bullet traps allow designers to build any stage imaginable. The range can handle it.

several wide 25m ranges and 2 huge 50m ranges give the space needed to build any number of great stages. And there are never any shortage of those.

This was a tough match! In fact, it's been a while since I've seen a match with so much demand for accuracy - and I think it's about time we had some of that! I can't remember the last match we had 50m targets - and at this match we had targets and poppers that far away. lots of 25m partial targets and some with no-shoots. And the stage designers cleverly allowed the shooters the tactical choice of whether to shoot long distance or run up closer to the targets. So there was a tactical solutions for all levels of shooters. Lots of small plates and partial targets added to the need for accuracy even on the shorter distances, and yet there were also several stages of close up high speed blazing running and gunning type stages (within German law restrictions of course...)

All in all, I have to say the stages were very good. Some lacked a little in the "free choice" department, but on a whole - excellent! I think the challenge of accuracy added a lot as well.

My match was going well for the most part, except for a string of errors I made on the long distance targets, not giving them quite the respect they deserved, and picking up a couple of back to back misses for my troubles. I was not pleased with that of course, but I did what I could to battle through and finish strong, and in the end it was enough to win by a convincing margin.

Fellow STI Euro Team member Gregory Midgley had another great performance, winning the Standard division, while edging out German top shooter  Oliver Damm. I have a lot of respect for these guys shooting this match with iron sights. I was real pleased to have my Aimpoint's red dot there to help with the tight shots!

There was plenty of action thrown in as well, with well over 15 swingers and sliders to shoot at. A good example was stage 9, I believe, shown in the 3rd movie, right. A single steel activated 4 (!!) swingers, and required some good timing... This stages was followed by one which had 3 spinning targets, activated on a compressed air system! Very cool, and a lot of fun.

Here are the top results:

Top 10 Open

Top 10 Standard

Top 10 Production:

In just 2 days time its off to the South of France for the Med Cup. This promises to be the biggest event of the season in Europe, with 24 stages, 270 rounds and over 400(!!) competitors. I can't wait! Hope to see many of you there!

As always I have my sponsors to thank for their support
STI International
Drummen Custom Guns
Berry's Fmg
Competitive Edge Dynamics (CED)
Rescomp Handgun Technologies
Lapua/Vihtavuori
Aimpoint
 

Until the next time I wish you all excellent shooting.
Saul Kirsch

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