Day 1
Well, things sure got off to a bumpy start. I awoke at 6am to clean my gun and dry fire before breakfast. The day before on the range, I was demonstrating the recoil master, so I had my gun in parts in my range bag. In the morning I took out the parts cleaned them, and when I can to assemble - "where's the d_mn slide stop??!!". Now of course, this is not just the regular "borrow one from anyone" slide-stop. This is the "one of a kind, only I have it" version. A custom slide-stop made for me so I could use the CR speed Aimpoint/Bul mount, while fitting the scope way back. Well, no slide stop! I looked and looked, getting more and more aggravated. "no spare?" you are thinking? Well, sure, there is a spare in my #2 gun, except that that one is 1050km away, in Eindhoven.... This was the first match in years I came to with only one gun. Just before leaving I discovered that I broke some screws on my scope mount on my practice gun, so I left the gun at Home. It never crossed my mind that I would need it for parts.
So, there I am, no slide stop, thinking "now what?!". Well, after thoroughly searching the range bag, hotel room floor, car - I realize I must have dropped it at the range.
Well, to cut a long story short, I raced over to the range, and John found that little pin in the grass, where we had parked the car and disassembled the gun. What luck.
There are some lessons to be learned of course: - The rarer a part is, the more chance of it getting lost/broken/damaged.
- Stay away from custom parts whenever possible.
- Always carry spare parts - and follow rule #1 to decide which parts to bring.
- When in doubt - look through the grass.
I got lucky! So, we arrive at the range, quickly find the renegade slide-stop which had decided to spend the night on the range in preparation for the match, and off we head to stage one, where squad one was set to start. Now, this match is held in the South of France, where they claim to have 345 days of sun a year. Naturally, it was poring! No cover on the range, and all you can think about is how to keep yourself, and your range bag dry, using only what you have, a coat, a plastic bag and an umbrella. Not much time to think about the 32 target Jungle run that awaited us. And just when I thought the weather could not be worse - the wind came up, and the rain started coming in sideways. What fun.
Well, the weather came to its senses later in the day, and by noon the sun was way up drying out soaked competitors and RO's. As mentioned, our first stage was a 32 round, 32 target (!) jungle run, one hit per target, which also included a swinging bridge. With all the mud on it that bridge was double the challenge. Fortunately the targets were not too difficult to find, and although it was 32 targets, they were easy enough to remember and shoot on the run.
Day one developed into a real challenge for the super squad, with many top shooters present, the likes of Eddi Testa, Stepahen Cortanier, nd of course Eric. I started a little slow, but built up to a good rhythm, and go into day 2 trailing by about 25 points behind Eric, and a couple behind Eddi. Thanks to the Auto-scoring-system, the days of wondering "who is leading this thing?" are over. We know the points as we go, real time. Day 2 One day 2 the weather was more what you would expect from the South of France. Sunshine all day, and comfortable temperatures of 25-30. A little wind and dust in the afternoon had everyone running to dig out their gun covers, but other than that it was perfect. We started on stage 12, which was a big 32 round field course. Targets on right and left as you moved down range. The targets were sneakily hidden behind barricades so that you didn't see them until you were right on them. And of course, if you made an extra step before engaging them - you would break the 180 and be DQed. So it was a challenging stage which required more than a little preparation. This stage saw the end of Eddi Testa's challenge, who was shooting a very good match to that point. He ran by a bank of 2 targets, totally forgetting about it, and scoring 4 misses and 2 penalties for failure to engage. The rest of the squad survived the stage, with Eric winning with a 15.00sec run. I had a not perfect run, with 15.60. From there we entered "9 round alley" where we were scheduled to shoot 9 round stages one after the other, with the occasional 16 rounder thrown in. It was a real wake-up-call to shoot again with some of the word's best.You really realize that one extra shot on a steel will cost you 5-10% of the stage? Someone else will shoot it clean. It's a realization I forgot about shooting 2 weeks ago in Israel. Day 2 ended with Eric building on a solid lead, and myself secure in 2nd ahead of Spanish young star Jorge Ballesteros. Day 3 Another perfect day welcomed the competitors of the 3rd med cup on day three. All squads had 3 last stages to shoot, and for us that meant 2 16 round stages and 1 long 32 round stage. Since Eric was some 60 points ahead of me, and I was 70 or so ahead of Jorge Ballesteros, the match was pretty much over for us, and all we had to do was not screw up too big. There were no surprises, and the rankings remained as they were at the end of day 2. It was great to see the interest all the shooters had in the super squad, and we probably had 200 spectators watch us shoot our last stage, the long 32 round. This was a particularly fun stage, where the shooter ran forward shooting close and mid range targets, including 2 shot from inside a cooper tunnel, while moving through it. Eric won the stage, although things almost went VERY bad for him shooting one very late shot as he ran by a target at full speed. I shot a solid stage, although a few extra shots on steel in the last position cost me time I could ill afford to loose. The prize ceremony started right on time, at 3pm, with almost all the 300 odd competitors, from over 15 countries, present. The prize ceremony was efficient and well run with a very respectable prize table, by European standards. It was a fitting ending to a very successful event. This match certainly has established its place as one of the best in Europe. The end results, top 3 were:
Eric Grauffel, France 100%
Saul Kirsch, Israel 95.5%
Jorge Ballesteros, Spain, 89.5%
For me, its a long 10 hour drive back to Holland tomorrow. But it was well worth the trip. As always I have my sponsors to thank for there support: Drummen Custom Guns
Nobel Sport
Arredondo accessories
Rescomp Handgun Technologies
Aimpoint
BUL Transmark
Competitive Edge Dynamics (CED) Until the next time, I wish you all excellent shooting, with lots of Double-Alpha's DvC
Saul Kirsch
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