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.

Arrived in Calgary!

Nice and sunny in Calgary!

I flew in this morning and went straight to the range for equipment check and registration. I'm shooting my .22 Pardini FPM tomorrow at 9:00am and then at 1:00pm in the ISSF 50m event.

Resting up today and will post scores after Finals tomorrow afternoon. I've got a cool new Flip video camera that I'll be using to record some video from the range that I'll get online. We'll see how much time I have before I fly back to Vancouver tomorrow night. Then I'll fly back to Calgary next Thursday for the 10m event and stay a few days here in Calgary.

Go Team BC!

A little over 5 weeks until 2011 Canadian National Pistol Championships

It's just over 5 weeks to go until the 2011 Canadian National Pistol Championships in Calgary, Alberta. I still haven't decided if I'll break up the competition into two trips instead of staying the entire duration of the event. There are quite a few days between 50M and 10M events and I think there are at least 3 days where the 10M range wouldn't be open for practice.

Provincials were last week and I finished with a 561. Complete results can be found on the BCTSA website.

I've been watching a lot of the World Cup Series 2011 highlights on the ISSF YouTube channel.

Here are highlights from the 10m Air Pistol competition in Munich:

Completed Part A of NCCP Program plus Provincials for Western Canada

This past weekend I completed Part 'A' of the Canadian National Coaching Certification Program. Anyone interested in coaching should definitely look into this program. I'll be taking Part 'B' this Summer and on my way to being a certified coach. Beyond the multi-sport components, I'll need to get into sport specific programs offered by BC Target Sports Association.

Here is a list of upcoming Provincial Championships happening in Western Canada:

• June 3-5, 2011 - Alberta Provincials
• June 10-12, 2011 - BC Provincials
• July 16-17, 2011 - Saskatchewan Provincials

Photos of the 2011 Pan American 10M Venue

Last month I was fortunate enough to be in Guadalajara, Mexico and was able to check out the Paradero Sports Complex. It's a nice location with various venues constructed for the Pan American Games which will be held there in October 2011. Paradero Sports Complex consists of a number of buildings including the Pan American Velodrome, the Weightlifting Forum, and the Pan American Shooting Polygon.

I was able to go inside the Shooting Polygon venue and take a look. The capacity for the venue is 456 and when I was there they had 50 positions setup even though the venue website lists 40 positions. All of the scoring is electronic with monitors at each position and they're all linked up to scoreboards way above the athletes for spectators to see.

One of the most unique stadiums I saw was the volcano inspired Omnilife Stadium where my favourite Mexican soccer team, the Chivas play. The opening and closing ceremonies will be there.

I'm in San Francisco next week and then will be back to training for BC Provincials.

Registered for 2011 BC Provincials and 2011 Canadian Nationals

I'll be heading over to Vancouver Island June 10th-12th for the 2011 BC Provincial Championships and to Calgary July 29th-Aug 7th for the 2011 Canadian National Pistol Championships. I was thinking of going over to Calgary next month for the Alberta Provincials but won't be making that trip with the BC Provincials the following weekend which is the event I want to be focusing on.

In other news, I'm taking the first part of the NCCP coach training and certification program later this month!

2011 Canadian National Pistol Championships details

Details for the 2011 Canadian National Pistol Championships taking place in Calgary, Alberta can be found online here:

http://www.sfc-ftc.ca/en/calendar/competition/24.html

A few notes about the event:

• The ISSF Dress Code rule 6.4.2.1 is in effect for all ISSF matches. The complete rule book can be found here in English and in German
• All 10m, 25m, and 50m events will be shot on Megalink electronic targets. The CDN 1800 (2700) and Reeves Memorial Revolver Match will be shot on paper targets
• The tentative match schedule puts a big gap between events if you're only shooting 10m and 50m events. Currently the 50m event is scheduled for July 29-30, and 10m MEN isn't until several days later Aug 5 -- I might need to find more events to shoot! ;)

2011 Canadian National Pistol Championships Program 

2011 Canadian National Pistol Championships Registration Form

I'll definitely be there!

2011 Canadian Airgun Grand Prix Results

Here are the complete results for the 2011 Canadian Airgun Grand Prix.

2011 Canadian Airgun Grand Prix Results

Finished as Top Canadian

After my new high score of 571 / 600 on Saturday I shot a 567 / 600 for a combined score of 1138. This put me in 2nd behind Trinidad and Tobago's Roger Daniel who shot 574 and 577 for a combined score of 1151. Roger's score put him 13 points ahead of me going into Finals, which is too far ahead to be able to catch up.

I'm pretty happy with my results this weekend finishing as the top Canadian shooter and second to Roger who has been to the last two Olympic Games in Athens and Beijing.

Next up for me are the BC Airgun Championships being held near Vancouver on March 4 - 6, 2011.

New personal best in 10M Pistol

I arrived in Toronto late Thursday to some light snow and cold weather. Really cold compared to Vancouver. ;)

Today's weather:
Toronto: -15°C
Vancouver: 7°C

The nice thing about the Canadian Airgun Grand Prix is it's shot in the conference area of the hotel so there isn't much need to go outside.

I shot this morning on Relay 3 position 23 and got into a good rhythm and shot my way to a new personal best of 571 / 600. That's 95.17% and a healthy 8 points ahead of the Olympic Minimum Qualification Score of 563 / 600. A solid improvement over my 2010 average of the low 560s (93.50%).

Here is how my scores break down:

Started out slow but around the 6th shot I started to get my shots closer to the 10 ring. Between shots 39 and 59 I shot 17 10's (including ten 10's in a row between shots 39 and 48).

This score currently puts me in the lead, but there are still quite a few shooters left to shoot today including shooters from USA and a team from Trinidad.

I shoot again tomorrow morning at 8am EST and then Men's 10M Finals are scheduled for the afternoon.

More updates to come!

Finally made the switch to air... no more CO2

I finally retired my CO₂ Steyr LP 10 and have picked up a Steyr LP 10E. I had that last Steyr LP 10 since 2001 and it replaced my Walther CP3 Match-MV which I had for over a decade before that. Classic!

There are quite a few technical changes from the last decade that have gone into the latest LP 10 iteration which are new for me. For starters there is the change from CO₂ to compressed air, the 8 duct compensator, the electronic trigger, and the ball bearing trigger.

I've started to train with the new LP 10E and getting the sights and trigger setup to something similar to my last LP 10. The electronic trigger is smoooooth! I've tried out electronic triggers in the past but until this year was always all about the mechanical triggers. This Summer at Nationals, when I tried out the new Steyr LP 10E from Air Guns Plus!, I was convinced it was time to switch to electronic.

My first competition with the Steyr LP 10E will be at the 2011 Canadian Airgun Grand Prix in Toronto, Canada on January 21, 22 and 23, 2011.

2010 WCAGC Match Winner!

Busy week! I was down in Redmond, WA at the Microsoft campus on Friday and then drove back, in time for a few hours sleep before flying to Calgary Saturday morning.

John Berta and I were the BC Team that attended the 2010 Western Canadian Airgun Championships. We took a 7am flight out of Vancouver and drove from the airport straight to the Calgary Rifle & Pistol Club and were shooting our first match of the day a few minutes later.

I shot a 560 / 600 and a 564 / 600 which put me in 1st place going into Finals on Sunday. I was 14 points ahead of 2nd going into Finals so there wasn't a lot of pressure -- but it is Finals and anything can happen. ;) Ultimately, I pushed a bit further ahead and locked in the 'Match Winner' title.

Here are some photos of the scores for 10m Air and 10m Rifle Finals:

10M Pistol Men

10M Pistol Women

10M Rifle Men

10M Rifle Women

Impressive, as always, are the World class rifle scores that Cory Niefer shoots... 594! 54 10's out of 60! Awesome.

Thanks to Bernie, CRPC, the range officials, and volunteers for hosting an excellent match in Calgary.

My next competition is at the 2010 Hibernation Match in Richmond, BC in a couple of weeks.