Greetings all, This past weekend was held the 10 annual Dutch Open, at the Druten and Ochten shooting ranges in the Netherlands. The Dutch Open has become a fixed event on the European schedule, being one of the last major matches of the season. Using mostly indoor ranges allows the organizers to schedule the match late in September, as poor weather would have little affect. The match has steadily built up a fine reputation, and this year attracted competitors from 9 countries! A large contingency of Irish competitors added their numbers to the event, and as always had a grand time. A fine group of shooters, who are always very welcome. The Dutch Open offers excellent stages! Although indoor ranges are considered very limiting in stage design, the team who build this match work around this problem using lots of portable bullet-stops, which allow for shooting right and left. And even though all shooting bays hold multiple stages - you would never know it from the stage design! Excellent and diverse stages, offer a challenge to all level of shooters. A fine match indeed. This year the match was not as difficult as it had been in previous years. I remember years were stages were so tactical as to be real brain teasers. This year, it was more "shoot 'em as you see 'em" which is actually preferred by many competitors. Personally I missed some of the tactical stuff. That's not to say the stages were boring by any means! There were excellent stages, some truly original stuff: On one stage, the shooter had to sit on the ground behind a car trunk, with the gun in the trunk, empty. The shooter started with his foot on a switch, and had to release this switch before moving to open the trunk and retrieve his gun. BUT - when the switch was release it turned on powerful lights in the trunk which hit the shooter in the face just as he reached for his gun. I've never seen this before, and it was an original touch, and a rather intimidating one at that. Another excellent stage, into which went a huge amount of work was the castle stage, stage 3: The stage was based on a medieval theme, with castle built on the range: the shooters started by pushing down a popper with a pike, which opened a window in the castle wall revealing a target. Then, the shooter had to pull his horse by it's rains a few meters, to release another window in the castle wall for the 2nd target. After that, cross a swinging bridge while engaging plates, shoot targets left and right, pull a rope and shoot some strong hand targets, then go through another doorway, which releases a swinger... in short - a fantastic stage - with beautiful construction and decoration. truly a world-shoot level stage! Wish I had shot it better...:( As always the match was run on schedule. In fact, a head of schedule. This allowed for an enjoyable relaxed atmosphere amongst the competitors, and everyone had nothing but praise for the experience. I can certainly recommend this event to anyone looking to shoot a fine level 3! Don't let the indoor venue fool you - this is as good a level III as you will find anywhere! I had the privilege of shooting on squad 4 with the Dutch National Open team and all the top Open shooters in the match. What a great squad. We had a fantastic time together, and saw some top level shooting. Some mistakes too, of which I had my full share. We ran our squad's scores on the DAA Score Keeper thought the match, which added interest and tension in the event, as we knew the points all the way through. Although I did not shoot my best match, at the end of the day (2 days actually) I was able to come out on top and win the event, 3rd or 4th year straight, so all's well that ends well. It was good preparation for the next and final major match of my season, which will be the US Open in Tulsa Oklahoma 11-14th of October. I plan to do a "day by day" match report from there, with videos and pictures, so stay tuned for that. Here are the top results: Top 10 Open 1 | 100,00 | Kirsch, | Saul | ISR | 2 | 92,10 | Faro, | Rien | NED | 3 | 83,31 | Van | Noord, D | NED | 4 | 83,13 | Moesman, | Edwin | NED | 5 | 81,91 | Keppel, | John | NED | 6 | 79,09 | Hendriks, | Tom | NED | 7 | 78,67 | Graf, | Harry | GER | 8 | 78,60 | Koolwijk, | van, Jacky | NED | 9 | 78,11 | Wit, | de, Ron | NED | 10 | 75,81 | Linow, | Michael | GER | Top 10 Standard 1 | 100,00 | Madsen, | Bo Stampe | DEN | 2 | 99,51 | Schutz, | Michael | GER | 3 | 88,35 | Bot, | de,Adrie | NED | 4 | 86,93 | Van | Noord,Ruud | NED | 5 | 83,96 | Schouwink, | Peter | NED | 6 | 83,31 | Joaquin, | Chris | GER | 7 | 82,34 | Slim, | Marcel | NED | 8 | 81,91 | Schindler, | Ruediger | GER | 9 | 78,85 | Eggert, | Kurt | GER | 10 | 77,53 | Thompson, | David | GBR | Top 10 Production: 1 | 100,00 | Schmidt, | Tino | GER | 2 | 99,83 | Roorda, | Richard | NED | 3 | 99,47 | Lentz, | Arne | GER | 4 | 84,83 | Dunkley, | Bob | GBR | 5 | 73,81 | Kraaij, | van, Jo | NED | 6 | 67,90 | Andersen, | Rene | DEN | 7 | 64,91 | Ligtmans, | Johnny | NED | 8 | 64,62 | Maiberg, | Dagnis | EST | 9 | 64,41 | Geijn, | v.d. George | NED | 10 | 62,58 | Gill, | Graham | GBR | As always I have my sponsors to thank for their support
STI International
Drummen Custom Guns
Berry's Fmg
Competitive Edge Dynamics (CED)
Rescomp Handgun Technologies
Lapua/Vihtavuori
Aimpoint Until the next time I wish you all excellent shooting.
Saul Kirsch | Movies  
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