Greetings all,

I just got back from the Italian Championships which were held this past weekend and the magnificent shooting range in Terni, north or Rome.

What a great match! This was more than just your normal level III match. The Italian federation were celebrating 20 years of existence, and they decided to do so in style by inviting the European shooters to a bonanza of a match. Too bad that only a few foreign shooters were there - they missed out!.

Even without that many international competitors the match did not lack in quality of shooters and tough competitors. The Italians have an amazing depth of top shooters in all divisions, which few regions can match, and that is apparent by the results as shown below. The Italians claimed  most top spots, even with the presence of top international shooters like Production World Champion Adam Tyc, who could finish no better than 3rd. Standard too was dominated by Italians, despite the presence of world class shooters like Gregory Midgley, Jorge Ballesteros and Ralph Jensen who finished 5th 6th and 7th. In Open I had a real battle on my hands, and managed to edge out Italian champion Edoardo Buticchi by just a couple of percent. What can I say, the Italians and tough to beat! Especially at home!

The range is huge and set up on a majestic hill side, offering a spectacular view of the country. We would have been able to enjoy the view more, if not for the heat which sent everyone looking for cover constantly. Some more shade would have been welcome. Each stage did have one big party tent, but with 12 or more people trying to find a spot to sit beneath each one - it was crowded. M

The stages were good - and with a twist. Because of the historic perspective of the match, the match designers decided to take us back in time, to the days when targets were bigger, had head boxes, and there were plenty Virginia count stages. Certainly a challenge, which many a competitor would rather forget. It did require some control!

Accuracy was not overlooked in this match. There were lots of very small square plates to be shot at varying distances ,sometimes as far as 20m away. Not easy, but certainly challenging. And there was lots of shooting! 21 stages, totaling just over 400 shots! It's so much more fun to shoot a match with 400 rounds than just 250 which many level III matches offer these days. There were lots of big courses, medium courses and just a few small courses. A great balance in my view!

While the stages were challenging, they did lack a little in tactical options. Which such an open wide range, which can allow for 180degree shooting on almost every bay, I would have like to have seen more multi solution stages. as it was, practically all stages were shot just one way by all competitors.

Day one for me started a little slow. While I did not make any major errors, I just could not seem to get myself going. I had lots of extra shots on the small plates, and I was not getting the points I would have liked to. Still, sometimes you don't connect as well you'd like, and you just have push through, avoiding the big errors, and knowing that tomorrow is another day and things will get better.
That is how it was for me, and on day two I started to put up more respectable scores. In fact,  I shot all but the last stage on day 2 without adding a single shot, which for me, what a good sign, especially after all the extra shots fired on day 1. So I was feeling well in control.

On day three, I planned to just keep on doing that. shooting clean, not pushing too hard, and staying safe. I knew I had a comfortable lead at this point, and I just had to protect it for the last 7 stages. But then, just as I started to think I could cruise to the end - disaster struck on the 2nd stage of the morning: It seems that I did assemble the base pad on my long mag correctly, and so a few shots into the stage, the base pad popped off my magazine, mid shot, and all the bullets went tumbling to the ground. I saw the exact same thing happen to Todd Jarrett at the limited Nationals last year...
Needless to say, I was not happy. It took me some time to figure out what went wrong, and then get the tube out from the gun and reload. when all was said and done, I had probably lost more than 5 seconds, and over 40 match points! My cushy lead was not so comfortable anymore!

So, after berating my self for a stupid mistake for a couple of minutes. I forced myself to leave it behind me, and focus on the next stage. I shot well and clean with no penalties to the end of the match - and won. But certainly, I will always check the assembly of those base pads from now on!

The end results were these:

Top 10 in Open:

Top 10 in Standard
 

Top 10 in Production:

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

Videos:
right click on the image and "save as"

Saul on stage 10

Fabrizio on stage 11

Greg on stage 11

Irene on stage 11

Ralf on stage 11

Saul on stage 8

Saul on stage 9