Just home from the Extreme Czech Euro Open which was held this week in Cesky Kromluv, as it is every year for the past 5 or 6 years. This match has become one of the biggest in Europe, perhaps the biggest, attracting shooters from all across Europe, from Spain to Sweden. This year, the organizers took on an even bigger challenge: they decide to host the largest match in IPSC history - 40 (!) stages. Of course, this number in itself was enough to attract an even greater number of shooters, and this match was well attended with some 350 shooters from over 20 countries. Even a huge delegation from Thailand arrived in full force with National colors, adding to the international flavor of this event. The range used for this match is a beautiful place, but extreme in it's own right. It's a large military tank range, vast open fields and woods. Really very beautiful, but an area which offers NO facilities out on the ranges. No cover no water, no chairs. You bring what you need - or you do without it. Fortunately, this year it was dry, no rain at all, This is the worst range in the world to be on in the rain, but this year - not such problem. In fact, the weather was so warm, it too contributed to the extreme nature of this event. 4 full days of 10 stages per day, in temperatures constantly above 35 degrees, and sometimes more like 40? By the end of the day, you could feel it. Coming in to the match I had my doubts as to how good the quality of the stages would be. The range does not offer very good ground surface, very rough and bumpy. Also, the props used have not always been so great, and this was somewhat of a problem at this years match too. But, I must say that all things considered, the design of the stages was excellent, offering a challenge and interest in most of the 40 stages. No huge stages, the biggest being 26 rounds, but still, lots of fun. As always, the safety angles are very tight on this range, and they need to be. There are no side walls to the stage areas, only a big open field, so you can certainly not have a 180 degree safety angle on any of them, as then you would be pointing your gun directly at the next stage, which could be 500m away, but still. I think some effort could have gone into removing "DQ traps" in the stage designs, especially considering the positions of the safety angle flags. But, I think there were fewer DQ's this year than in previous years. A big problem on the match was the poppers, and the range masters were running from stage to stage shooting calibration shots, mostly knocking them down, and scoring a miss for the unlucky shooter. The design of the poppers was such that in some cases they would life up in their stand, rather than tilt back, and then sit back down and not fall. Depending on where you hit them. The hinges of the poppers were in "V" shaped sockets, rather than holes, this allows them to move, rather then rotate back and fall. Add to this was the fact that the ground is so uneven it's impossible to stand the steel in one place and prevent it from moving the entire match. One stage had a steel target standing on a pile of rocks? So there were many complaints about this. On our squad we had a good number of shooters shooting Minor - and they had to hit the steel 4-5 times in some cases to get it down. My match went well. I shot on the Israeli squad, with friends from back home, and had no reference all match as to how the other top competitors were doing. At the end of every day I went to work my Double-Alpha stand, so I had little time to check on other shooters scores. This was actually a very relaxing experience. Most big matches have a "super squad" and I shoot with all the other top shooters on the same squad, and it is impossible to avoid knowing the results as you shoot through the match. Especially today with the availability of the ASS (Auto Scoring System), we pretty much know the final score as soon as the final shot is fired. At the end of a good match, I could manage 2nd place after Eric Grauffel (94.4%), who won another. Czech champion Martin Kamenicek was 3rd with 90%. Top 10 in Open were: 1 100.00 2850.6894 62 Eric GRAUFFEL
2 94.36 2689.8083 221 Saul KIRSCH ISR
3 90.10 2568.5407 172 Martin KAMENICEK CZ
4 86.37 2462.1778 294 Eduardo DE COBOS
5 85.72 2443.6189 42 Frank WITTERS
6 84.36 2404.9149 168 Miroslav Havlicek CZ
7 83.98 2394.0014 66 Eddy TESTA
8 83.77 2387.9907 160 Tommi MARTTINEN FIN
9 83.66 2384.8007 159 Vesa JUMPPANEN FIN
10 82.50 2351.8106 262 Narongsak KAEWMUANGPET As always, I have my sponsors to thank for their support:
Drummen Custom Guns
Nobel Sport
Arredondo accessories
Rescomp Handgun Technologies
Aimpoint
BUL Transmark
Competitive Edge Dynamics (CED)
Mpro-7 This weekend I will attend the German International in Berlin, followed by the Dutch Open in early September, leading up to the US Open. I will report. Meanwhile I wish you all excellent shooting. Sincerely Yours Saul Kirsch |
Stage 1 for most shooters coming from Germany into Czech... Average time on this stage: 7452.6 seconds 
The Double-Alpha Academy booth at the match. This match was well sponsored by companies offering products. 
This fire truck came by every few hours to settle the dust - and it sent all the shooters running for cover and trying to keep their range bags dry. Not funny! 
Three brass in the air. 
Keeping the gun pointing safe was critical in this match with tight safety angles. 
Move move move.... 
Lots of start positions unloaded. Just to make sure even the open guns got to make some loads. 
My short and not very impressive show in the shoot off this year. Well, single elimination - anything can happen. Miroslav went on to win the shoot-off, beating Eric 2:0 in the finals. Movies:
Fast Bobber (1MB)
True Jungle run (2.1MB)
Windows (2.2MB)
More Windows (1.9MB) |
