A VISIT TO A REALLY BIG MATCH!
by Mako Koiwai
As a hobby airgun shooter, I shoot 10 meter air pistol, air pistol silhouette and field target air rifle. I had always wanted to 
attend a really big match. At the end of May 2000, I was finally able to justify to my practical self a visit to such a match. I was going to be in Europe anyway for a long-delayed get together with friends and family that I had grown up with while living in Germany during the sixties and seventies. Munich was going to be just down the road and there just happened to be an ISSF World Cup match scheduled for part of the time that I would be in Germany.
I checked my current status with U.S.A. Shooting and realized that I still wasn’t part of the U.S. Team. Oh well, perhaps I could still “attend” as a spectator. An email to the German Shooting Federation confirmed that I could just show up and watch. To shoot at this match you had to be invited by your national team. One of the only nice things about shooting not being that “popular” at the moment was that even a World Cup event, second only in importance to the Olympics, was completely open to the public. Try walking into the locker room at your local NBA finals for a chat with a potential Olympic gold medalist!
On the fifth of June I drove up to the entrance of the Olympia-Schiessanlage Hockbrück on the outskirts of Munich, parked my loaner car twenty five feet from the main entrance and walked into target shooter paradise.
Built for the 1972 Olympics this shooting complex still looks brand new and is in fact possibly the best and most modern ISSF international shooting facility in the world. The Olympic shooting facilities for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney Australia are newer but not necessarily better. The facilities from the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles have unfortunately been allowed to deteriorate to the point were you have to watch out for pot holes and hope against the real possibility that your target retriever might break during the middle of a match forcing you to scramble for another lane. Of course the Wolf Creek Olympic ranges built for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic games are still very nice and the best we have in the United States.
Part of the reason that the Munich Olympic shooting facilities are kept up is because they also house the German state of Bavaria’s Sport Shooting Federation headquarters. Whereas hunting is very regulated and expensive in Germany, target shooting is very easy and popular. Virtually every village has its shooting club. These “Vereinen” don’t just exist for shooting but often are the center of an extended social environment.
The Bavarian Sport Shooting Federation is just one of twenty state organizations. I’m not sure about the other states but the Bavarians put out a glossy 100+ page magazine full of articles on history, equipment, training, standout individuals and pages of club results.
The first day of a World Cup event is reserved for technical inspection of weapons and equipment, plus training sessions. Spread out among the various buildings were lines of participants having their gear checked out by ISSF representatives. This is the boring downside to international shooting. Even though you are now a national team member you’ve got to do your own standing in line. Weapons are checked for dimensions, weight and trigger let off.
The first shooting I saw was Free Pistol training. The building I entered was just amazing, perhaps even more impressive because I had recently shot in a PTO (USA Shooting Preliminary Tryout) match at the former Los Angeles Olympic ranges. There seemed to be an infinite amount of shooting stalls stretching to the horizon. Actually there are 100 shooting positions but with the generous spacing, all of the monitors and spectator seating the facility covered an enormous amount of space. Forty of the positions allow 
shooting out to 300 meters (325 yards). There is seating for 500 spectators. Each shooting position has its own monitor which allows the competitor to see his target hits. Above each position is another larger monitor so that the spectators can see the same results, plus there are other monitors spaced among the target monitors that show live placement of the participants during actual matches. Virtually every shooting position was occupied.
As I walked down the elevated spectator part of the facilities I knew who I wanted to find first. US Shooting team member Bill Demarest had days before set a new world record in Free Pistol shooting while participating and representing the U.S. of A. at the World Cup matches in Milan, Italy. I had never meet Bill before but I had recently started to shoot at matches put on by the Black Mountain Shooting Club. These PTOs are where Bill shoots when he isn’t going to the big matches. I wanted to be the first representative from the home club to congratulate him.
I watched Bill practice for a good half hour. It was good to see that Bill was human. It didn’t look like he was having the best of practices. Bill spent a surprising amount of time trying out different shooting hats, visors and shooting glasses attachments. Even though there was still training time left Bill finally packed up his gear and left the firing line.
I introduced myself and congratulated Bill. I think Bill was quite surprised to find a fellow American, not to mention fellow Black Mountain Shooting Club member, overseas. I told Bill that I was planning an article for U.S. Airgun magazine and I suddenly felt like the big time international reporter. We were both happy to have another American to talk to. Bill explained that he spends a good amount of time finding the right combination of sight settings, shooting glasses and visors when shooting at a new range that might have very different lighting conditions from his usual practice range.
Seemingly like shooters everywhere, Bill was just a regular guy happy to talk 
about his sport. Of course, Bill might be a regular guy but he’s also a member of the U.S. Shooting team and you don’t get there by just being a regular guy. Bill trains very hard, virtually year around, shooting the equivalent of two 60 shot matches six days a week and keeping very fit with running, biking, in-line skating and light weight lifting. Besides Free Pistol, Bill shoots Air Pistol (along with Mike Douglas, he will be shooting air pistol on the Olympic team at Sydney, Australia). Bill shoots a FWB P34 lent to him by Beeman Precision Airguns.
Bill and I walked out to where the vendors had their tents and trailers set up. Bill wanted to get a new Anschütz hat and of course I had to buy one also. I was surprised to see the current world record holder in free pistol having to pay for his own hat even if he does shoot a Russian Toz 35. I wanted to tell the Anschütz rep, “Do you know this is the new world record holder!”
Further conversation with Bill reveled to me that being a member of the U.S. Shooting team is not all a free lunch. U.S.A. Shooting does cover Bill’s traveling expenses but I was surprised to find that Bill had to take leave without pay while representing the U.S. The big American corporation that Bill works for does not support its Olympic hopefuls. Pretty shameful! I wish I had paid for Bill’s hat.
I next checked into the airgun shooting hall. Another amazing sight. Both sides of 
the vast hall contained fifty 10 meter shooting positions. Again each position had its own target monitor and overhead spectator monitor. Behind the shooting positions were wide benches for equipment and chairs for resting.
Although one still punches paper while flinging pellets down range the black center of the target contains no markings. The black dot that you aim at is actually part of a continuous roll of black paper that simply records that your pellet hit your target. The actual position of the hit is determined by tiny microphones and a computer that triangulates the impact point. One almost instantly sees ones hit as a virtual hole in a computer generated target on one’s monitor. A computer and a printer keep a log of everyone’s score.
By the way, the white area around the black hole is paper. If one has a real flyer and scores outside of the virtual seven ring it makes an actual hole in the white paper. This embarrassing hole is there for everyone to see and it never goes away during the match. With this crowd you didn’t see many sixes but I did see a few during practice.
The 10 meter practice session was wonderful to watch. 610 participants from seventy countries were taking part in these Munich World Cup matches. These national team members would participate in 1,102 match starts, and it seemed that most of them were in the 10 meter hall while I was observing. The crowd was dominated by the bright and colorful leather 10 meter rifle outfits. It was interesting to see such contrasts as the Iranian women wearing traditional drab Arabian robes and scarfs over their leathers shooting next to towering blond Swedes in their colorful uniforms. This is the way wars should be fought. Losers buy the beer or in the world of international shooting, more likely decaf cokes.
After the 10 meter practice session it was time for lunch. A short line past a 
cafeteria style serving set-up in this shooting facilities permanent restaurant and I was having lunch with shooting members and officials of the U.S. team. Besides a good meal, I learned about the history of U.S.A. Shooting, the N.R.A.’s role in developing new talent and the problems of getting adequate funding in an area of sports that has contributed so much to our Olympic medal count.
During the afternoon I checked out the sport pistol and rapid pistol training sessions but what was really fun was hefting all of the latest guns that were on display at the vendor tents. Where else could one try on for size all of the latest Feinwerkbau, Anschütz, Steyr, Morini, Hammerli, and Walter pistols and new aluminum stocked rifles? Their catalogs made the best souvenirs.
Since the first day of a World Cup isn’t too busy I had plenty of time in the afternoon to drive the short distance to downtown Munich to check out some of the sights, do a little shopping and have a great meal at the picturesque Ratskeller restaurant below the famous city hall. Roast suckling pig, extra crispy skin with two types of dumplings, gravy … yummy!
On the second day of the World Cup matches I spent time observing more of the air rifle and pistol training plus watched elimination rounds for free pistol and sport pistol. I also checked out the Ladies Running Target Cup. Apparently running target Rathskeller a full on recognized event for women yet. So a non-ISSF Ladies Cup running target match was held. Even a world class facility such as these only have five running target shooting bays. Competitors shoot in turn. While one person is shooting his match the next competitor can take non-shooting practice swings at the same moving target while remaining hidden behind a partition on the shooting line.
Again some of the best time was spent talking to members of the U.S.A. Shooting teams. In what other sport is it so easy to spend time with the top athletes? U.S.A. pistol team member Steven King showed me the shoot-in card that H&N had given him. The major pellet providers, RWS and H&N provide pellet matching services. You hand them your gun and they will try out a variety of pellet sizes of their premium competition pellets for you. You get a card showing the results of the best pellets and as a competitor you get twenty 500 pellet cans of the matched pellets for free. As a spectator I got to buy the same pellets at half price. Even the other U.S. team members where impressed by the 10 shot one hole group with very slightly chipped edges that were obtained by Steven King’s Steyr LP10 air pistol.
The one disappointment I had was that I LP get to stay around until the air gun finals. The otherwise perfectly organized Germans had accidentally emailed me that the air gun finals were going to be on the seventh of June. In fact they were to be held on the 10th of June and I couldn’t stay in Munich until that date.
Even without seeing the finals this visit to a World Cup shooting 
event was a trip of a life time. I would highly recommend that anyone with an interest in target shooting should try to make it to a big international event such as this one. I can’t speak for the other World Cup events, but in Munich you have complete access to all of the ranges and competitors, everyone seems to speak English and you are very close to downtown Munich, the fabled castles of Bavaria and the beautiful cities and mountains of Austria. There’s plenty to do for the whole family.
After getting to spend time with our shooting athletes who devote so much of their lives representing our country I would like to say that they deserve more support. If you shoot, please join U.S.A. Shooting!
U.S.A. Shooting
One Olympic Plaza
Colorado Springs, Co. 80909
(719) 578-4670
www.usashooting.org