At the weekend, I shot the German Nationals IPSC Rifle. One of the highlights for me in my match schedule! Unfortunately, there are to little rifle matches around here!
Already the competitor list promised, that this will be a very interesting match. Shooters from Germany, Denmark, Italy, France, Hungary, Serbia, Slovenia, Suisse und Norway have been on the list!
I was very excited, how my match would be. I’ve practiced more for this match and on top, with the Kahles K16i, I´ve had a impressive new scope to prove oneself in a real match!
I started on saturday right on the 300m stages – first one 8 metal plates about 250m and one A3 target on 300m. I shot fast and safe the 8 plates and got a accoustic hit-feedback from every single one. So I didn’t wait for them to fall and shot the last three rounds of my mag on the A3 target (in Germany, we are only allowed, to use 10-round-magazines, so 10+1 is our limit to start). Bad decission. One plate was maybe hit too low and didn’t fell. So I had to reload and get this one with a second mag. Damned… But who cares. Two alphas on the A3 – so a full house and the time wasn’t so bad at all. Next one was 3 IPSC Targets on 300m, each one to hit with three rounds. I was able to get a really good sight picture with the 6x Kahles and shot them fast. 6A, 4C. Solid! I´ve zeroed the scope with the Geco 63grs ammo on 100m. Due to that, the small dot below the illuminated center dot was a perfect zero on 300m and for the 250m Plates, the centerdot on top of the plate was the right choice! Nice 🙂 Point for Kahles!
After the 300m stages, we had to shoot all the hoser stages up to max. 25m distances. I shot them all with 1x magnification. This went well and I had satisfying hits and times. Maybe sometimes one or three charlies to much, but nothing serious. Solid. I was able to go the speed of the top shooters of my squad which made me feel very comfortable. Unfortunately, I didn’t keep this for the last two stages of this day – the two “running and gunning” stages on the 50m ranges. Indeed, my hits were not too bad on the first one, but the time was comparable slow, which costs me several points. The second one, I decided to shoot more aggressive and faster. There was a position, were you had to shoot two bobbers at about 40m distance. I took the risk version and shot only two rounds per bobber and didn’t do a mag change. Unfortunately, there was only one hit on the left bobber. One mike. But the time was not bad, so the damage was not too big.
On Sunday, we had to shoot all the stages at the 200m ranges. Two 10-rnds speedies and two 20-rnds medium-courses. Half-targets on 50m, Plates at 100m and Poppers at 200m in different combinations have been the challenge. That was my day! I decided, to shoot these stages with the maximum 6x-magnification. A good decision! For me, it was perfect, because I could now see precise, where my hits have been when I pulled the trigger. I was able to call the shots! The result were two stage-wins! My personal highlight was a stage, where you had to shoot 5 Poppers at 200m amongst other targets. You could choose whether to shoot them standing leant against a wooden beam or from a bed some meters away. I choosed the offensive way and shot the from the beam behind. It was fantastic – hit them fast and precise and earned best time on this stage 🙂 Wonderfull! All in all, these good stages pushed me overall to a really nice 4th place. More than I expected. I was very very pleased with this result and my performance on this far stuff. Where I have to work on, is the speed at medium distance stages from 25 -50m. Trigger work needs to be improved. But this is nothing impossible.
Not to forget – before the match, Siegbert Papzien, Oliver Josi und Claus Rothweiler and me decided to sign up for the team event. Good decision. We made it! German Champions Team Score!
And finally, here are the results and a nice picture I got from Stefan Föll (www.photopsia.de):
