Equipment is checked and ready!

Got to the range early today and beat the rush to get our equipment checked and verified. It got really busy later that morning!

Rifle shooters waiting in line to get their equipment checked

I'm officially competitor #1124 for this competition and can now also be found in the ISSF shooter database -- I need to update this with some info! :)

Afterwards, headed downtown for food and to check out the Duomo di Milano which was started in the 1300s! You can even go up on the roof and wander around. Win!

Standing in front of the Milan Cathedral -- free concert happening too!

Arrived in Milan

I made it to Milan, Italy after a long travel day flying YVR to FRA, then almost missing my connecting flight to MXP. Frankfurt is crazy busy!

Once I got to Milan I ran into fellow Canadian shooter Lynda Kiejko and started to see a lot of other shooting teams from other countries. The ISSF had hosts near baggage claim who helped us navigate and get our gear cleared with local police.

We took a bus to the shooting range where we checked our pistols and ammunition in and got Team Canada checked in. It's pretty cool seeing all the teams from various countries around. We had Mexico and Malaysia on our bus with part of our Canadian team.

After arriving at the hotel we began out on a search for pasta -- everything was closed within a short walking distance. Sunday night at 6pm... closed? what? :) Luckily we found a place and ate some tasty gnocchi.

...*yawn*

sleeeeeep...
..
zzz..
..

Back to the range this morning for equipment check, official training, and opening ceremonies later today!

Less than 4 weeks until the ISSF World Cup in Milan

Really looking forward to representing Canada and shooting at the ISSF World Cup in Milan, Italy next month. Even better is shooting a week later at the ISSF World Cup in Munich, Germany -- this will be the last stop in the World Cup circuit before the Olympic Games in London.

These 2 events will be my first outside of North America and my first 2 as an official team member of Canada's National Development Team. I'm scheduled to shoot 10M indoor and 50M outdoor events - both are Olympic events.

Still waiting for my new grip for my gun. I may have to wait to switch over to it until after I get back from the World Cup events because I won't have much time to get it setup and practice with it before I leave. Hopefully it clears customs this week!

Training has been going really well... I won't go into the details of it now. :)

2012 BC Airgun Champion!

The BC Airgun Championships were this weekend in Richmond, BC and I became Provincial Champion with scores of 556/600, 562/600, and 565/600. I'm still sorting out some issues with my gun's grip and it seems like I need to tighten the screws on the grip about every 10 shots or so.

New grip has been ordered anyway! :) Should arrive in April giving me a few weeks to train with it before the World Cup in Milan, Italy this coming May.

Also, before I forget here is a photo of our BC Team at the Canadian Airgun Grand Prix last weekend in Toronto wearing our awesome new BCTSA sponsored jackets:

(L-R) John Lublinkhof, Jessie Lublinkhof, Mathew Klein,
John Berta, Edmond Lee, Al Harding

I finished in 4th at the Grand Prix, which was a decent result considering I was dealing with technical difficulties.

Afternoon gun repairs

I'm in Toronto at the 2012 Canadian Airgun Grand Prix and had a 'everything that can go wrong will' type morning. My new batteries in my grip for my electronic trigger gave out after my 3rd shot so I had to get the screwdriver out and replace the batteries...good thing I pack spares! ;)

Several shots after starting my competition the electronic target carrier hooked on to the front sight of my gun and carried it about 4 feet down range before swinging off and crashing back down to the floor. No good comes from watching a highly technical precision crafted piece of machinery falling several feet. *cringe* ...disastrous. =/

It all happened in a split second...I press the button for the target carrier to go down range, it stutters a bit, swings over and hooks my front sight and drags it off the table. The next second is filled with not being able to do anything and a slow motion, "Noooooooooooooo". I finished the match as best as I could but was way off my average as I wrestled with some tools on the firing line to get things fixed.

Grip off to check for damage

I spent a couple hours with the grip off clearing out the broken wood chips from inside the gun. I'll most likely need to get a new grip.

On a positive note, it looks like our BC team is currently in 1st place. I'll get some photos of the BC Team with our awesome BC Target Sports sponsored jackets.

Back to making some minor adjustments to the gun.

2012 National Dev Team... time to step up!

I made the 2012 National Development Team! Yes!

Busy next few months...

February 11-12
I'll be taking my Level 1 Technical of the NCCP Coaching Course. I took the A+B components last year and now an opportunity to take the Level 1 Technical has come up so I'm going to do it. Details are available on the BCTSA website.

February 23-27
Going to Toronto, Ontario for the Canadian Airgun Grand Prix -- North America's biggest ISSF air gun competition. HUGE THANK YOU to BC Target Sports for funding assistance to attend!

Last year I finished as the top Canadian shooter, this year I plan to beat my scores from last year.

March 2-4
A couple weeks later I'll be attending the BC Airgun Championships in Richmond, BC. If you're planning to shoot make sure you register early -- Forms are on the BCTSA website! If you're interested in what this sport is all about, feel free to stop by and watch.

...and then I'll be going overseas to one of the ISSF World Cup competitions this year!

Going to the 2012 Canadian Airgun Grand Prix in Feb

2012 is here! It's been awhile since posting up an update. I'm getting caught up on a few things after a busy last few months.

My next shooting competition will be the 2012 Canadian Airgun Grand Prix in Toronto Canada on February 24-26. Event details can be found here and on the events Facebook page.

More details to come!

Made my cut score, finished 10th overall!

What an amazing two days of shooting. I saw both Will Brown and Alexander Chichkov break their own National Records. Will shot a 585 besting his previous record of 582 which he set in July at the USASNC and Alexander (who was shooting next to me today) shot a 575 beating his own record of 570  he set at 2011 USASNC. It's hard to believe these guys are juniors!

I'm happy with my results and was able to shoot a 567 which easily beats the cut score to qualify for the 2012 Canadian Development Team. Definitely some more work to do and I picked up on a few things I can be doing better. It's always good to watch great shooters -- they're doing something right! ;)

Results from 2011 Champion of Champions ISSF 10M at Fort Benning

I made it to Atlanta and Columbus Sunday night... what a long day travelling from Vancouver! The next day I went to Fort Benning and got lost trying to find where the event was -- there are a lot of ranges there all named after people.

Here are the results from the first match this morning at the 2011 Champion of Champions event at Fort Benning, Georgia:

Click to view a larger image

The score is high enough to make the necessary cut score for the 2012 Canadian National Development Team. Exciting!

One more day of shooting to go...

Completed Part B of NCCP Coaching Program

This past weekend I finished the Part 'B' component of the Canadian National Coaching Certification Program. Next up I will be taking the sport specific requirements to work towards becoming a Provincial Coach for target sports.

Next week I'll be at the "Champion of Champions" shooting match at Fort Benning, Georgia looking to shoot the minimum qualification score to qualify for the Canadian National Team. This will be my first time shooting in the USA since hitting a 'local' match in Custer, Washington back in the early 90s.

Results from Canadian Nationals

Busy week! Here are the results for the 2011 Canadian National Pistol Championships 10m event:

10M Air Pistol Men - You can find my results under the 'klasse Master' section.

After the first qualifier I was in 2nd place and 3rd going into Finals. I missed 2nd place by a single point! ;)

All other results can be found on the PistolCanada.ca website.

Back in Vancouver for a few days

I'm back in Vancouver for a few days before heading back to Calgary on Thursday for the 10m ISSF event.

The 50m event went okay. I would have liked to have shot a bit better but the scores were better than Provincials and my Finals score was better than last year. The 50m event hasn't been my main focus and a lack of nearby ranges makes it difficult to train for.

Pardini FPM, Knobloch shooting glasses, and some Fiochi ammo

The nice thing about Nationals this year is it's all electronic. Each position has a monitor that shows all of your shots as you shoot them. You can see a shot by shot breakdown of all of the results on the Alberta Handgun Association website.

The range was really bright and I was definitely not used to that considering I rarely get out to an outdoor range, let alone when it's incredibly sunny. So I had to make a quick MacGyver modification to my shooting glasses with a piece of packaging from my ammo box and some chewing gum so I could darken my left eye blinder.

Blocking out the sun with gum and cardboard...

I wasn't the only one who had to make some mods; my teammate Edmond Lee had problems with his Toz Free Pistol. He got 34 shots into the match before his gun broke down but was able to finish after borrowing another Toz and then my Pardini.

Results are posted right away from the shooting positions, to a laptop, to the Internet. All results can be found here: www.pistolcanada.ca. Our BC Team, consisting of Edmond Lee, John Berta and me, won Gold in the Closed Team aggregate, and I picked up a Gold in the Sharpshooter class in the 50m event.

More next week when I'm back to Calgary for the IISF 10m event.