time flies! A lot has happened in between and no time for writing blog posts… I´ve used the time to restore and to work on the new blog page. As the hack of my original page has left a lot of damage, I´ve decided to build a complete new one and I was at least able, to transfer a lot of content from the old database to the new one. Unfortunately, it seems, that the nextgen picture galleries of the old blog have been damaged and so far, I was not able to transfer them. But I still keep trying to get them back working here also!
Regarding my shooting a lot has been going on – I´ve shot the German Nationals Revolver, the German Nationals Rifle in handgun caliber and finally the last preparation match for the upcoming Europeans, the Geco Masters.
All in all, the preparation is proceeding and I´ve improved my shooting a lot at the Geco compared to the Nationals Revo! But one after the other…
Nationals are always some kind of special – OK, it´s just a Level III as a lot of others. International competitors, some tough props and so on. But – it´s the Nationals… This year, we spend our family vacation the weeks before the nationals. We came back just two days before – and as we`ve been in the US this year, this meant 3 weeks no practice and a huge jet lag to cope with. Not the best preconditions. The match this year was some kind of different compared to the years before. The last years, Nationals have been sometimes a bit easy set up. Hard to describe. Not really easy, but they’ve lacked some alternatives in stage planning, interesting probs and so one. This year, the match was very challenging! Tough setups, alternatives and all in all a very challenging one. The most stages didn`t really give an advantage to the 8-round revos so shooting precise was substantial! As my preparation wasn`t the best, I had a really hard time on the first stages – dexterity and coordination weren´t the best. We had to start with an weak hand only and a stron hand only stage in the morning – man, was this hard to get down the two small poppers on 20m… 🙁
Luckily, I was able to raise my performance from stage to stage and finally, I´ve earned my 11th National title! But interesting lesson again – never give up, even when the first stages went badly. Results are calculated in the end.
2016 DM Open-Revolver-Classic results – 2016 DM Open-Revolver-Classic stageresults
Just three weeks later, Nationals Rifle in handgun caliber (9mm, 40S&W, 45ACP) took place. The last years, my Sabre XR15 9mm bothered me a lot with jams – caused by a travelling extractor pin. Before the NAtionals last year, I´ve fixed that issue and this match went pretty good. So I thought, just a minor preparation had to be enough as my main focus was the preparation for the Europeans. I took the rifle only once for practice – already in this practice session, I had again some jams – not extracting ones, this time feeding ones… 🙁
It got better with cleaning and oiling so I didn`t spend more time on that. Maybe a mistake… In the match I had to cope with jams on 8 out of 12 stages. This sucked! It was so hard to stay focused and to get along with that! Anyway, somewhen, I just wanted to finish this pain. But again – keeping fighting saved me a third place in the end! But next year, either I have to prepare better or to stay at home!
2016 DM Rifle 1500J results by tag – 2016 DM Rifle 1500J results – 2016 DM Rifle 1500J stageresults
Finally, the last big preparation match before the big one came up – the Geco Masters. As Geco is my main sponsor, of course I wanted to finish as good as possible. As my preparation with increased practice went on, I felt pretty good prepared. I´ve spent some work on shooting small and partial targets on long distances and calling my shots more than before. This payed off, as this match was a pretty hard cookie! Far away targets, some warp speed swingers and some hard to shoot small plates – very interesting! As I was focused and well prepared, I had some very, very nice runs! Gun worked good, ammo loaded with new brass, new HearthCo clips and especially adapted magnet holders worked very nice together. Though I also had 4 Mikes in this match (I´ve stayed clean the last three or four matches so far!) I finished first again by a solid lead of 11%. Of course, I´m never 100% satisfied – there’ve been some unnecessary D’s and bad shots – so still a lot of work to do the next two weeks! Onwards and upwards!
2016 Geco IPSC Masters results 2016 Geco IPSC Masters stageresults
Beside the match stuff going on, I finally got my new DAR Rifle! What a beauty! The rifle is so accurate manufactured and so tight fittet that its a pleasure to handle it! I haven’t shot it yet, but I’m sure, it will work as nice as it is looking!
I’m very excited!
