Russia hosted the first ever Rifle World Championship, practical rifle shooting according to the IPSC rules.

TFB flew to Moscow, armed with a Troy rifle and a camera, to document the occasion and to compete in the main match. 30 stages of world class practical shooting and some 570 competitors from around the World.

My aim was no less than to win the Open Manual division, and I have spent about 2 years preparing my gear and myself.

The location was about 60 km west of Moscow, at the newly built Patriot Park.

Patriot Park can best be described as a Disney Land for people interested in military equipment, like battle tanks, attack helicopters, air fighters and firearms.

The area is absolutely huge, words cannot describe it. From the enormous main parking lot it takes about 10-15 minutes to get to the shooting ranges. I need a Satellite picture to begin to describe the size of this place.

Below: Satellite image over Patriot Park. Yellow marker is the main parking area. The area displayed is about 5000 x 5000 meters. The shooting bays are in the lower right corner and not built when the picture was taken. There is room to build more…

Russia has created a Valhalla for sport shooters, I am sure there is no other place like this on Earth. If there is, I’d like to know and to go there too.

Or what do you say about 30 shooting bays in-line, with ranges from 50 to 300 meters?

In construction, there’s a 1400 meter long range. Great for Snipers.

Below: The Legend Jerry Miculek, with family, was there of course. Jerry won the Super Seniors Category, and Lena Miculek won the Ladies, with Ashley Rheuark second. Jojo Vidanes finished 1:st in Senior Semi-Auto.

Each shooting bay has its own “hangar”, so you and your gear is always protected from the sun or the rain. There is also space and seats for spectators as well as a protected hut for the Range Officer.

Below: Mother Russia greeted us with strong, cold winds and hail. Luckily the weather improved.

However, any shooting is always done under the sky, and you feel pretty small as you see the range extend 300 meters in front of you, with high walls on either side.

There are cameras on the side berms, pointing down at the shooter. There is also a main camera, with a powerful zoom, looking into the shooting direction. All these cameras can be displayed on TV sets inside the hangar, and the Range Officer can also chose to display the best shooters and their hit factors on the stage. Pretty cool if you ask me.

Below: IROA – The best Range Officers in the World!  The canvas in the background, which covered a large portion of the berm were said to be 4000 USD each. That’s a lot of canvas…but it looked cool.

At the entrance of the shooting bays, you could conveniently find shops for drinks and food as well as toilets. Toilets are always a bit of a problem at events like this, too few and never cleaned. These toilets were as spotless as they get, with constant cleaning.

As if that was not enough, there is also a Kalashnikov Center nearby, which hosted one of the shooting areas. This Center was more of a place for VIPs, and I felt a bit bad walking around on the polished marble floor with my spike shoes. I’ll return to this Center in future article, please stay tuned.

In World Shoot, you shoot a minimum of 30 stages. This concludes to 5 days of shooting times 6 areas per day, and a random day off. You shoot half-days, either mornings of afternoons every other day. After 6 days of shooting the results can be calculated, and the winner announced.

With an abundance of shooting bays, the organizer offered several test fire ranges. So if you were a bit uncertain of your zero you could buy a paper target and zero at 100 meters, or shoot steel at 270 meters.

Below: Another World Class IROA Range Officer from Norway.

Most long range targets were at around 270-290 meters, so I as well as others took the opportunity every day to do a functional test of our rifles after cleaning as well as knock some steel to get the confidence that everything worked.

Below: A competitor from one of the 4-man strong Military Teams.

The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation did everything they could to offer an unforgettable week of rifle shooting, and they surpassed our expectations.

After the Main Match the results were in

Below: Team Finland – World Class Shooters who occupied the Podium big time. Out of the Top 7 shooters 5 were from Finland in Semi-Auto Open. In Standard they had 50% of the Top 10.

The US Team. How many do you recognize?

 

Below: TFB represented by undersigned on the Podium at a Rifle World Shoot, with a bronze medal! Surrounded by Russians in the Open Manual division!

Below: A member of Team USA (senior).

Below: A member of the Italian Senior Team in Semi-Auto Open running on a bridge.

The heart of IPSC rifle competition will be the “Patriot Park” shooting range, designed for practicing sports rifle, military training, demonstration and testing of small arms. It’s ideal for competitions and training in practical shooting.

For readers of TFB it comes as no surprise that the Finnish shooters are world class. We have covered both Raine Peltokoski and Teemu Rintala before.

Some of the Results from World Shoot:

1 Rintala, Teemu FIN

2 Peltokoski, Raine FIN

3 Laukia, Jarkko FIN

4 Ackehed, Olle SWE

5 Leppanen, Kim FIN

6 Vinduska, Vaclav CZE

7 Jokinen, Tuukka FIN

8 Korba, Rastislav SVK

9 Humar, Martin SLO

10 Yackley, Timothy USA

Full list here.

STANDARD SEMI-AUTO — Overall Match Results

1 Ostgaard, Haavard NOR

2 Hautamaki, Sami FIN

3 Vehvilainen, Timo FIN

4 Hyyrylainen, Isto FIN

5 Gubich, George RUS

6 Nazarov, Anton RUS

7 Shutov, Aleksandr RUS

8 Vainionpaa, Atte FIN

9 Vezzoli, Roberto ITA

10 Kaislaranta, Mikael FIN

Full list of results here.

 

In Open Manual I managed to get to the Podium.

Below: Heavy statue of Kalashnikov-shooting sport shooter, IPSC President Medal (Bronze) and Bronze Medal to TFB in Open Manual, with a Troy PAR!

 

Customized Troy 223 PAR in Open Manual, with a Zeiss V8 1.1-8x in a Spuhr mount. Pilla eyewear and PMAGs with Taran Tactical. Even in manual, a few extra rounds can come handy and the extensions look good.

Paper targets at 270 meters from this awkward shooting position.