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Last weekend, I shot the 2nd MOS Level III match in Philippsburg. Unfortunately, I couldn´t start at this match last year (it was held at the same time as the Europeans have been in Serbia). I´ve hear a lot (good) about this match, so I was very excited, what to see there. Of course, this match should also be the next step in preparing for the upcoming Worldshoot next month! My expectations have been fully pleased! Smooth excercises, fast to shoot with a high round count. Bear traps, long courses for running&gunning, very fast shorties – just a pleasure! I managed to shoot the most stages fast&accurate  – except one, a short course, consisting of a plate rack with 5 plates behind two Noshoot-Poppers and two classic targets, I screwed up completely. I missed the plates, hit one of the NS-Poppers and all of that in a horrible time. However, the good ones prevailed and so I won the match with 3,4% advantage in front of my teammate Markus. I we can manage to show this performance at the Worldshoot, I dare saying we will be right there with the top shooters!

And here the results:

2011_2nd-MOS-LevelIII_overall

2011_2nd-MOS-LevelIII_stages

Today, I´ve tested my new compensator for the X15. Karl Hamann (-> www.waffentechnik-hamann.de) modified a Bennie Cooley compensator that I could clamp it on the barrel of the XR15. So no modifications need to be made on the XR, just clamp it and you are done! The comp works very well. The recoil and the muzzle flip are very reduced!  

Here´s a short movie sequence of the comp (see the gas flow from the comp):

On the last weekend, I started at the German Nationals Revolver and
Open. Both matches have been held as completely separate matches
(separate stages, all divisions etc.). Due to that, you´ve been able, to
shoot both matches on one weekend. I decided to shoot the revo nats on
saturday and on sunday the open match with the revolver as practice.
Due to the fact that we came home from vacation no more than a week ago, I
was missing lots of practice and still suffered a jet lag. On top came,
that we had to bring our match ammo for shipping to Rhodes with us to
the nats. One week was quite little time to prepare all the stuff,
reload, practice and of course, work a little bit in between…
Preparation for the nats could have been better…
Therefore it was inevitable – I lost several points on the first stages of the match.
Legs like a lead weight and reactions as a granny. Luckily, it went better from stage to stage and after noon and a red bull (last hope…), I was also able to win some stages and to recapture point by point.
After all, the bad feeling of the first stages prevailed and I went
home, believing to have lost the title this time. Think, I have to work on
that….because after some calculations at home, the situation doesn’t look as bad!? Anyway – obviously, it worked anyhow and the matchwin was mine!

To complete, here are the results:

2011_DM_Modified_Revolver_results 2011_DM_Modified_Revolver_stageresults

2011_DM_Open_results 2011_DM_Open_stageresults

On Sunday, I´ve shot the AREA 7 match for rifle in pistol
caliber. Summary of the day: It was a lot of fun shooting this match
with a rifle and I´ve learned a lot about my Sabre Defence XR15 in
9mm…

But more about the history and the details: After shooting this match
last year with a HERA Glock Conversion Unit and seeing ARs shooting
this match, it was clear immediately, that I also “need” such a rifle!
Ok, following german gun law, I first had to get a permit from my
sports association, than get the legal permission for buying such a
rifle from the official department. That was not the problem. I´m
shooting regularly and fullfill all the legal needs for such a
permission. The bigger problem was to find a proper rifle. The
background – in Germany rifles like the ARs needs to have a approval by
the “Bundeskriminalamt” (comparable agency to the “FBI” etc.) to be
legal for sports shooting. The only 9mm AR having this approval is the
Sabre Defence XR15 16,75″. Unfortunately, they are now longer available
new here. So I had to look for a used one. Luckily, early this year, I
found one at least. Due to handgun matches and not enough spare time, I
could only manage to practice two or three times with this rifle. It was
very funny shooting this rifle although it had a lot of malfunctions
(feeding / ejection jams). I then got a hint, that I had to modify my
mags by bending the lips down and to build up the feeder a little bit to
get the rounds more horizontally. Done that (finished Friday before the
match…), I was able to fire 150rds without a single jam. Fine!

The first stages of the match also went fine. Gun worked and I was
able to shoot some nice stages. OK, made some small mistakes due to not
enough practice, but that doesn´t matter  because could easily fixed by
practicing more…
But then came the sobering. Suddenly, the gun
jammed every single shot. On this stage, I had a single action gun.
After finishing this nightmare, I disassembled the whole thing and
finally, I found the prob. The extractor pin had moved in the bold and
released the extractor. No proper extraction possible. Cleaned it and
pushed the pin back into his right position (don´t know if it was broken
or really that short, that it has space enough to move?). After that –
everything was fine again and the gun went fine. OK. Result could have
been better, but as written on top: had fun, learned a lot!

overall_2011_buechse

buechse_2011_nach_LV

stage_2011_buechse

Yesterday evening, I´ve got a nice email from Robin Taylor of the  Front Sight Magazine – Robin was taking pictures at the Steelchallenge in Winterswijk to write a article for the Front Sight Magazine . Thes pics were part of the result:

[Zeige eine Slideshow]

Great Pictures! Thanks a lot, Robin!

Just found out, why the cylinder of my 586 sometimes didn´t close as smooth as usual while shooting the Infinity Euro Open.  The reason was a broken firing pin! Luckily, the breakage was at a point, where the rest of the pin was a little bit thicker than the firing pin hole so it stayed in position and ignition was possible!

But now the best: I´ve written a mail to Randy Lee of Apex Tactical (www.apextactical.com)  immediately, telling the problem. I´ve just wanted to order some new pins. And guess what wrote Randy to me? New Pins will be on their way to me right on tuesday as a replacement!! This is what I call a perfect customer service!

First – this Match is always a pleasure to shoot and one of the favourites in my match-calendar! Why? That´s easy to answer – this match is pure fun – very smooth to shoot, nearly always more than one way to solve a stage, build, to think about! Fantastic! Organization was well prepared, Score sheets already in right order at each stage etc. etc. This match has it´s own spirit! But enough about this already very well known match and more about  my shooting :

This year, I shot the match in the prematch, because we wanted to start a vacation on saturday (after all, we couldn´t go, but this is a different story). My first stage was Stage 17 – a 32 rounds long course including 3 moving targets, enganged by a popper, to shoot after changing position while reloading. They could be seen in the end-position only from far behind. I was the first on this stage and decided to shoot the offensive way, after engaging them by shooting the popper, change position and reload and shoot all three targes through the front window as foreseen. But – I was too slow and got only 5 shots on the mover before it went away. Shit. Plan B – shoot to the end of the stage and then move all back to the start and shoot the last moving target from behind. Unfortunately, I overlooked a wall and crashed with my gun into it and felt down. Puh, luckily, gun pointed to save direction and I could continue shooting the stage (after realizing all what happend, what tooked my some seconds)  – and the match! The next stages and the whole match at all went quite well and I could get back what I´ve lost there. All in all, I did quite well and had some very nice runs. The match was a lot of fun! Of course, there´ve been also some stages, where things went not so fine, but – who cares 😉

I can write this now very relaxed. At matchday, I had the strong feeling, that my teammate Markus was often a little bit better than me – a few seconds faster here, better hits there etc. Of course didn´t I give up and continued positive thinking, but in the evening, after the last stage (and more than 420 rounds fired that day!), I thought that I finished only second. First, when I got the verifiers, I realized, that it was me, making the big points, winning the major stages. So in the end, I finished first, 1.15% before Markus! 🙂

Infinity Euro Open 2011 – I´m coming!

And here are the Results:

Infinity Euro Open 2011 – Overall

Infinity Euro Open 2011 – Stages