Sorry I am a little late with this match report... As soon as the match ended I was off on a week vacation, and have been catching up ever since. The German International Open in Berlin was a fantastic match. It was so well organized and ran so smoothly - it actually felt to me like a weekend off. Specially coming after the EXTREME Czech Euro open, which was anything but easy. In Czech, there was a stressed schedule, very hot weather, long distances to walk, and ROing which was OK for the most part but not 100%. In Berlin - it was a model competition. The only thing lacking there were a 100 or so more competitors, as the match managed to attract only 140 or so shooters. But those who did show up were in for a treat: Nicely designed, fun to shoot stages, an easy "start at 09:30 done at 4pm schedule", a perfectly equipped shooting range - and the best weather we could hope for. Like I said - simply a fun well run and perfectly organized match. Excellent ROs too. On each stage there was a qualified AROA RO, and you got the impression they knew their stuff. Very few problems if any came up. If you have never shot at the range in Berlin - you should. if only for the experience of shooting on the beach... The semi closed ranges there have a floor of DEEP beach sand. So deep in fact, that if you drop your magazine reloading - you may never see it again. The score keepers were very good at watching the shooter reload, and seeing where the mag dropped.. Unless you knew where it was, it could remain berried in the sand for all time... The stages were designed to offer a good challenge to all shooters. Nothing too difficult if you wanted to shoot safe, and plenty of places you could decide to push hard if you chose to do so. Of particular interest was one stage, where you activated a sliding target by shooting down a popper, and you had about 3.5 seconds before it appeared in a doorway. You really wanted to shoot it in that doorway, and not at the end of its track, where it was visible again. The trick was that although it was slow to appear, when it did appear in the door it was there for less than 1 second, so you had to get there in time. There were 4 possible targets to engage between the steel and the slider...
I timed it again and again, and felt like I could make all 4 targets before the slider - but, there would be no time to waste and little room for error. In the end, I decided to play it safer - and shot only 3 targets between the activator and slider.. Of course - I ended up waiting for it. But, I shot clean and won the stage all the same. The top 10 in Open were: 1 1229,3394 100,00 146 Kirsch, Saul ISR
2 1137,6554 92,54 90 Kosiol, Timo GER J
3 1073,0947 87,29 58 Reibl, Timo GER
4 1021,8878 83,12 30 Holden, Andy GER
5 972,7856 79,13 11 Schulte, Andreas GER
6 970,0158 78,91 154 Lindenmayer, Oliver GER J
7 948,6750 77,17 60 Pedersen, Frants DEN
8 914,9554 74,43 119 Kummer, Patrick GER J
9 910,0020 74,02 76 Meyer, Wolfgang GER
10 898,4200 73,08 51 Risse, Thomas GER 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 Next weekend is the Dutch Open, and then the US Nationals. So I am busy. I will report again; and meanwhile I wish you all excellent shooting. Sincerely Yours Saul Kirsch | 
Who said there is no beach in Berlin ? 
The Double Alpha booth in Berlin. Sales and course promotion. 
Aiming hard ! 
Running in the deep sand. Hard work without a doubt. 
Stacked targets here too. you really need to aim on these. It becomes too easy to put 3 on one and 1 on the other. 
Top three in Open. Movies:
Charge (2m)
Strong hand (1.8m)
Windows (2m)
Time the slider (2m) |
