Greetings from the 2003 Shot-Show, held in Orlando Florida. I am fortunate enough to be here with BUL, and to have been a competitor at the 5th annual Florida Open last weekend in Frostproof Florida. The Florida Open is a match run by Frank Garcia at his International Shooting Academy range. This range complex has lots space for building really good, interesting stages. And Frank does - he puts a lot of thought into each stage - and if you ever want to shoot a match where each and every stage is a challenge - this is the match to go to. True, only 10 stages - but the smallest one was 26 rounds and a total round count of over 300... The stages were challenging, but not by means of really small partial targets or very clever props. All the targets were wide open, and there was not even a single No-Shoot in sight. Everything is pretty straight forward, "shoot 'em as you see 'em". Except, well, that you see 'em EVERYWHERE!! Nothing easy about this match. It was built is such a way that a beginner shooter could shoot it without difficulties, and yet a more advanced shooter could find himself scratching his head going "How the h_ll am I gonna to shoot this one?!" This match always attracts many of the top US shooters, as well as a good number of international competitors, both from South America and Europe. This year there were just shy of 300 competitors, from over a dozen countries, including Germany, Holland, France, Israel, Venezuela, Ecuador and many others. It promised to be a great weekend of shooting - and it sure was! Each of the 10 field-course style stages offered the competitors multiple option tactical decisions, and it was interesting to see how the various top shooters in the Super Squad analyzed the stages to come up with the best solutions. 5 minutes preparation time after the walk-through would never be enough to learn the stages well, so most the competitors were on the range the day before the match, walking the stages and drawing maps of correct target positions (no stage-layout book is available in this match) The super-squad had some top shooters on it: 2-time world champion Eric Grauffel, Junior world champion Chris Tilley, US Army super star Max Michel and others. This made for a tough and interesting match. And of course Eric's father Gigi was there, with his new Palm computerize scoring system (www.autoscoringsystems.com) to run precise, up to the minute, scores for us all. We knew final scores on each stage as soon as the last shooter we were tracking shot. Max and Eric both came out strong, shooting well on the first 2 stages, while Chris Tilley and myself were a little slow to get started. (well, it was EARLY! It was still dark when we got the range at 06:30). I found myself needing to make up some ground on stage 3. With each stage being worth about 150 points, you can find yourself 40 points back very easily... I shot a really good stage on #3, and felt that it would be a stage winner that would enable me to make up some serious ground on Eric and Max. And so it did. I watched Max have a terrible run, 2 seconds of the pace, and loads of points down. I was helping paste his targets thinking "YES! I'm back in it". Max is a good friend, and I hate to see him screw-up, but, well, we are all competitors too. But then, just before the RO's could see and score the last of Max's targets, it was prematurely pasted by no other than my good friend and fellow Israeli shooter, Micha... "RESHOOT" - calls out the RO. Max was really happy - Eric, his Dad and I were not so happy. But, I guess it's all parts of the game, and innocent mistakes do happen. The match went on to develop into a real battle for the top 4 slots. Eric shot a great match and steadily built up a lead (As he too often does). But Max, Chris Tilley and I were left to battle it out for 2nd to 4th positions. During the last 4 stages on day 2, we must have changed places half a dozen times, and I was pleased and proud to be able to edge out these two great shooters for a 2nd place finish. Chris Tilley, the current Junior world Champion shot an amazing match, leaving all of us wondering on some of the stages what other sport we should move over to... And he is only 17 years old... The top 10 were: Place Name USPSA Class Division Points Stg % 1 Grauffel, Eric F38440 GM Open 1389.0315 100.00% 2 Kirsch, Saul F44236 GM Open 1293.8426 93.15% 3 Tilley*, Chris TY38861 GM Open 1265.7067 91.12% 4 Michel*, Jr, Max TY26022 GM Open 1252.2895 90.16% 5 Trout, Mathew A40855 M Open 1195.2544 86.05% 6 Burkett*, Matt L2135 GM Open 1177.1186 84.74% 7 Colon*, Carlos TY37618 A Open 1133.9357 81.63% 8 Christen*, David TY43272 M Open 1108.1123 79.78% 9 Bednorz, Don TY10095 GM Open 1101.4330 79.30% 10 Nied*, Lawrence F22513 M Open 1083.4191 78.00% The Limited match was hard fought too, with young top-gun Blake Miguze edging our Todd Jarrett for the top spot in Limited. As always, I have the generous support of my sponsors to thank for being able to shoot all these great matches: Arredondo Accessories
Rescomp Handgun Technologies
Vectan (Nobel Sports)
Aimpoint
Bul Transmark Ltd
Drummen Custom Guns Well, I hope you enjoyed this report. I wish you all safe, fast and accurate shooting, DvC, Saul Kirsch | 
