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.

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.