Greetings all, at a start of a new shooting season, a world shoot season.

I am on my way back from round two of the South African championships which was held this past weekend at the Pietersburg shooting range, the same location as the world shoot. I traveled here to learn what the range was like, and perhaps something about what kind of shooting they do here. IPSC is truly an international sport, but, each region tends to develop it's own "trends" and style of shooting and match layouts.

From this regards, the trip was a great success. I sure did learn a lot about what to expect at the world shoot. Unfortunately, my match here was not as good as it should have/could have been.

This was a 15 stages 2 day match, with some 250 South African shooters, and very few foreigners. Being so far away from other IPSC shooting regionS, the guys here tend to compete amongst themselves mostly, in a very closed arena. I was made very welcome, and squaded with the Open Super Squad.

Day one of the match started with a stage which had 3 targets and 3 poppers out at 50m! Since the starting position was kneeling, many shooting fell forward and shot those targets prone. No point in picking up mikes on the first stage. I decided to brave it, and shot Kneeling long range, got away with it too, with the fastest time on the stage, and good points.

Unfortunately from then on, on day one, it was down hill for me. I shot a string of 4 terrible stages, which dropped me way back behind the south African top guns, who certainly are fine shooters. While I got my act together later in day one, and for day two as well, I could not catch up - due to gun problems which arouse on the second day. My competition pistols, which have not failed me before in a match, decided to follow suit and imitated my poor performance of day 1, even though I was back in form myself. The combination of my poor shooting during the first half of day 1, combine with the costly gun malfunction on day two, made it impossible for me to catch  the match winner, south African champion Eddie Smits. I finished up a disappointing 3rd, 98.5%.

But, the trip in itself was a success. To see the range, and learn about the style of shooting was well worth the effort. And the match was a good one, with interesting, and certainly very tough stages to shoot.

So what can we expect at the world shoot? Well, expect many partial targets, lots of N/S targets, and WAY WAY out there. 50m targets are a certainty. Also, it seems like prone position windows are likes here, so that too can be expected. Some strong hand/weak hand too. All in all, nothing easy, and  certainly no blazing high speed shoots.

The range itself is large, spread out, and very dusty. be sure you have your gun covers. All the ranges have 3 side burns, so shooting left and right is also done a lot. All in all the SA match designers put on tough stages, which will be a challenge even to the best shooters.

I head back to Europe tonight, to fix my guns, and train for the next match. I have a league match in Holland this weekend, and a level III match in France next weekend. The European season is in full swing.

This important opportunity to shoot in SA was made possible for me through the generous support of my sponsors, whom I am proud to represent again this season: