pretty difficult, to publish articles in two languages, when you’re short on time… But I´ll try it anyway. At least, a short version.
Usually, three or four weeks before the Nationals IPSC Rifle, I switch from Revolver to Rifle and start to practice. Also this year.
I´ve started two weeks ago with a practice session with a club mate. Everything went fine, except the fact, that I couldn`t get a JP Carrier running jamless. No big deal, I switched back to my milled and enlightened standard carrier. Gun worked, everything fine. But then, in the next session some days later, the gun stopped to repeat. Found at home a broken gas ring.
A call to DAR and two days later, I had a full carrier maintenance kit in the mail and I could change the broken ring. Awesome Service!
So far, so good. On this weekend (one week before Nationals), I went to PBurg, to check the setting and zero the gun also on 300m. At Pburg, I had to find out, that I still had a manual action rifle… took off the handguard and found a broken gas block! Sh…
At home again, I took off the comp to detach the gasblock and found by incident, that also the comp was broken! A quarter of the fist baffle was missing completely! Holy sh. Not, what you need just one week before nationals! (btw – the replacement of Seekins is already on the way to me – their Service is also very good!)
So this week got a bit hectic. Organizing parts (again, perfect service by DAR), getting help by friends (thanks Dirk and Markus for the rifle and the comps), putting together the rifle, etc.
Friday (you remember – one day before the match) I went to the local range to get the gas block adjusted and the rifle at least zeroed on 50m. Short version – I wasn’t able to get the beast running properly. So I took the borrowed gun, mounted my spare Kahles K16i (on my STI I have a new K15i in between) and zeroed the DAR on 50m. Additionally, I measured the velocity of the Geco 63grs .223 load also with the DAR Rifle to be able to calculate zero points on 200m and 300m with IStrelok (Ballistic Iphone App).
So I went to the nationals with a borrowed gun, zeroed on 50m…
That was pretty exciting – starting on a stage with 5 Poppers on 200m distance. Short version – gun worked flawlessly, poppers fell – great! Also the other 200m stages went nice and I shot decent times and good hits! The last exciter was the 300m stage – but also here, the POI was exactly there where it was calculated – 8A, 2C – good time! Awesome!!
In the second day, we had all the hoser stages between 3 and 50m. Also here, I was good on speed and had nice hits. No Miss, just a handfull of Deltas and times always with the top shooters in our squad! The only drawback, I had at our final stage – a 40rnds stage where 4×10 rounds was the best way. Unfortunately, my Magpul mags seems to be no longer reliable – two times, I had a empty chamber after 8rnds. The last two have been tilted…That cost me valuable points. But who cares after an awesome match after all this hassle with broken parts!
Finally, I finished on a more than perfect 3rd place national and 4th international. And with the team Kahles, we won the match!
Now, I´m even more excited and I can’t await to get my own DAR finally!