Hello all from beautiful Budapest, We have just concluded the 2002 MAG Trophy Championships here outside Budapest. What a great match this has been! This is my second year attending this event, and I am happy to say I won it, again! The MAG Trophy is establishing it's name as one of the best matches in Europe. It's a sanctioned level three, and attracts all the top shooters from Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czech, and most all the shooters from Central Europe. Plus a good number of Western Europeans as well. Although Budapest in a long way from France, Holland or Belgium, those who made the trip were not disappointed. 16 very well designed courses of fire, plus a warm and friendly atmosphere, contribute to make this match the success it is. The match did not start very well for me. Our first stage had 4 sliding targets, 2 moving right on a cable, and 2 left, activated by 2 steels. It looked simple enough, but I misjudged it badly. I thought I had enough time to move the right and engage some static targets behind a barricade before the right sliders, but I was wrong. And this mistake cost me a good 3 seconds on the first stage. Not the way you would like to start a match. But, I pulled myself together, choosing not to dwell on my error, and focus of the rest of the match, which went well from there on. Of particular interest was stage 2, which is shown in the attached Video. The clip does not really show the complexity of this stage, which I studied for over an hour before deciding on how to shoot it. There were dozens of options. The complexity was caused not only by the stage layout, which forced the shooter to move forward and then back, but also by the activated targets: A left steel concealed a right target, and lifted up another, while a right side steel concealed a left target and revealed another? Very tricky, with many possible solutions. My tactics proved solid, and I was able to cut 3 seconds off the time of all other competitors, except for German Champion Christian Wilda, who shot it as I did. The end results were: Saul Kirsch 100%
Christian Wilda 90.65%
Andreas Schute 86.76%
Timo Kosiol 84.24%
Guenter Webber 81.69% After driving well over 1000km the past 2 'eekends to matches in France, we flew to Budapest. So now, I can look forward to a 2 hour flight, rather than a 15 hour drive back to Holland. I have my sponsors to thank for this: The Makoff-Reifman Foundation
Drummen Custom Guns
Arredondo Accessories
Winchester Ammunition
Vectan (Nobel Sports)
Rescomp Handgun Technologies
Aimpoint
Bul Transmark Ltd My next match is the Dutch Open, in two weeks time. After that it's back to South African for the next round of the Nationals there Take care all, Shoot fast - and all A's! DvC Saul Kirsch  |
