IPSC - IPSC Shooting, IPSC Accessories, IPSC Equipment

THE EUREGIO OPEN, Belgium 2004

Hi All,

It has been a good number of years since the last level three shot in Belgium, so it was with great interest that I made my way to the sprimont shooting range just south of Liege. I must say - It was a pleasure to shoot a match so close to home - only 150km from Eindhoven. It seems these days that I am doing more and more 1000 km drives to matches - and it does wear you down?.

The 14 stage level III matches was shot in one day, with each shooting having the choice of shooting on Saturday or Sunday. Most chose Sunday, as there were more than twice as many shooters on Sunday than on Saturday.
I was there Saturday as well, to see the range and make some sales. I did not know there would be so fewer shooting Saturday - or that would have been my choice day to shoot? I expected it would be busy and hectic on Sunday. I was wrong.

The following day I left Eindhoven early to be there on time for the 8am start. I was expecting a long day - with over a 100 shooters expected to shoot 14 stages in one day. I guess waiting is part of this sport - so I come with the attitude that I am there for the whole day - and I don't care how long it takes.
Well - the match organizers did a super job! The RO's kept the small squads moving through the stages smoothly, and there were no delays. We were done shooting by 5pm - a good hour and a half a head of schedule! Well done guys!

And the quality of the stages was very good as well. The organizers did a super job of utilizing the range space they have - interlacing stages in some cases, and having some ranges run 3 stages side by side. The design was good - and I believe represented well what we can expect to see at the Europeans in a couple of months: Lots of partials, lots of windows and left/right shooting. This match had all that.

A cool small stages had the shooter sitting in a swing. (stage 11, see clip on right side) On the beep, before loading the gun, which was empty, the shooter had to pull on a rope which released the swing and set him swinging rather violently. From that moving swing, you had to shoot 9 mini popper, which thankfully were not too far away. The catch was that behind the middle one was a NS target? I shot the best time, with one extra shot. Guess where that extra shot went... Yip - Murphy rules!

Another excellent stage was big field course number 10. this 32 rounds stage was laid-out in a huge bay with a permanent maze of truck tires forcing the shooter to run through corridors, shooting targets left and right. You probably had to run 50m or more to complete this stage - so the best time shot on the stage was Eric and I - we were in 0.1 of a second at 28.50? we both dropped 5 points, so he won the stage by a hair.

I felt that I was shooting a very good match. The increased practice I have been going is beggining to show, and I feel more comfortable and confident again. Unfortunately I had some gun problems which cost me too much time to allow me to stay up there with Eric. I had to settle for 2nd to him yet again.

top 10 in Open were:

1 1297,2331 100,00 22 Grauffel, Eric FRA FFT
2 1187,6287 91,55 82 Kirsch, Saul ISR ISR
3 1088,2623 83,89 127 Obriot, Emile FRA FFT
4 1086,4902 83,75 112 Schneider, Patrik SUI CH
5 1068,7487 82,39 66 Schulte, Andreas GER BDS
6 1060,1984 81,73 75 Eggert, Timm GER BDS
7 1055,6736 81,38 160 Roorda, Richard NED NPS
8 1046,2575 80,65 147 Boittiaux, Bertrand FRA FFT
9 1042,4151 80,36 143 Avonds X, Alois BEL S BPS
10 1034,6057 79,75 195 Testa, Eddy FRA FFT

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