Well, what can I say about the Czech Republic. Get on a plane and go if you can! It is amazing. First thing is that most people seems to really like Americans - not like some of the attitudes that you run into in other countries. The only argument in two weeks that I got into about politics (not IPSC politics of course but real world politics) was with a Norwegian. I do love people that debate with comments like “well we don’t like that” (about the war) and then you ask them why and generally the conversation flow with an idiot goes like:
Them: “The war isn’t right.”
Me: “Why not?”
Them: “Because that is not the way you’re supposed to do things!”
Me: “According to Whom?
Them: “Well its just not! That isn’t the way you act in a civilized world!”
Me: “You actually think those people are civilized? What definition of that word do you use?”
civ·i·lized adj
1. having advanced cultural and social development
2. refined in tastes
If you notice interestingly enough there is not any discussion in the definition as to treatment of others or of world politics but generally users of the word have never looked it up.
My favorite political argument happens when you debate with someone from a neutral country. That is an easy one to end really quick! Try something along the lines of, “Like your country does a f**king thing about anything in the world!”
Oh, sorry for the tangent… back to the CZ!
Flying to the Czech Republic with guns was exceedingly easy. All you need is an invitation to the match which I printed out at home from the http://www.CZEO.CZ website and then go to the police station in the airport and they will get you checked in and issue you a firearms transportation permit. Took about 15 minutes and I was out of the airport. When you are in the country for competition there are no fees for the permit. The people in CZ seem very positive about guns and sport shooting. Didn’t meet anyone that didn’t think that shooting was cool. Now I did spend some time working on my flight schedule so that I didn’t have to go through JFK, Boston, Heathrow or Amsterdam. Ended up with a great flight from Phoenix that had one plane change in Newark, NJ then straight on to Prague! Took four and half hours to Newark and about 7-8 to Prague. Same on the way back. Flew Continental (which pretty much sucks – smallest seats I have seen yet) to Newark and CSA (Czech Airlines) over the pond. The staff at CSA was significantly more polite and nicer than the people I dealt with at Continental. On the way back they even upgraded me to business class when I showed them the trophy from the championship!
Here are some general pieces of advice that will help make your trip smoother.
Electrical Plug-ins – make sure to have an adapter for everything you want to plug in. A power converter might not be a bad idea. Look at the back of your adapters to see if they are rated at up to 230 volt. Just Euro adapters may not work. You may want to find an electrical store the first day or so when you arrive in Czech and see if you can get one of the multi-plug style of adapters. FYI do not plug in more that one device without having an actual power converter (about $80) otherwise it can make pretty blue sparks and be rather exciting. Just get the adapters, they should cost about $5 each.
Don’t take air conditioning for granted. It is only hot here for a few weeks a year so most places don’t have it. If it doesn’t say it on the hotel reservation, you aren’t getting it. Open up the mini-bar for some cooler air if you need and ask the front desk if they have a fan. ☺ Of course the second week I was there it hit 38c (100F) and about 80% humidity.
Good luck with the road systems. Just finding the street signs and then figuring them out can be quite interesting. In Czech, they are about 9” x 18”, off red, and up on the sides of the buildings. Sometimes. Most of the signs are understandable even though they are in Czech. Driving through the country is actually exceedingly easy. I made it from Prague to Krumlov (about 130 miles) with no problems at all and it was a really nice drive. Inside of Prague I would just recommend taking a taxi or figuring out the public transportation system. Taxis can be a rip-off no matter what country you are in, including America. Get a taxi provided by the hotel or place you are at. The others are rip-offs generally. Make sure you get the price in advance for where you are going otherwise you will have a surprise in store for you when you get there. Also, if you get a street taxi, make sure it has a meter and then make sure they use it. We have gotten out of several taxis because they refused to use the meter and just told us a price that was usually $8-15 more than it should be!
There definitely could be a book written on the driving over here! (One on drinking too! That one might end up being a series with no end in sight!) It looks like a huge continuing game of chicken between cars and car versus pedestrian. It is quite a bit of fun to ride around with one of the locals like Martin Alusik, my host in Krumlov. Getting the right cab driver in Prague can be a kick too! The stop lights go Red, Yellow, Green, Yellow, Red. Makes a lot of sense when you get used to it. It would be nice if they would place them so you can see them. In a car you end up looking to the upper right of your rear view mirror to see the light.
Ground floor is actually 0 and in the old buildings don’t stand too close to the door of the elevator. In the first hotel I was in, the door stays and you actually see the different floors as the elevator moves. Most of the buildings have been upgraded to the newer style of elevators.
You are going to walk A LOT. There is so much to see that you will want to bring several pair of comfortable shoes.
Light cotton or the new fabrics like the UnderArmour stuff are needed in the summer. Be ready for humidity. I wasn’t! If feels hotter at 80 degrees here than 105 at home in Arizona. The weather changes quite a bit but is normally really beautiful. A sunny day in the Czech Republic is one of the best things in the world with the history, the views and the great people!
During the day don’t worry about looking like a tourist, just keep your pockets buttoned and look around. At night look like you know where you are going even if you don’t and if approached by a streeter, ignore them and keep walking. Don’t stop and get into a conversation as you may end up missing some items that you started out with. (You can also use the fake out of not understanding or being deaf. Yelling WHAT??? Repeatedly and really loud is pretty funny. (F.O. works well too if you have a big bald goateed guy like Matt Kartozian with you from CustomGlock.com) If someone looks like a dirtbag, they probably are. The government isn’t supposed to use profiling, but you sure can.
When or if you can’t carry a gun, you can most likely carry an Emerson mini-commander or tanto. They are my favorites since you can use the wave and open it on the draw instead of adding a second motion. If needed, most likely you will need it right now and your other arm may be busy. Best option would be to have one on the left and the right side. FYI if you put it behind your belt buckle/zipper area you will pass almost any frisk or pat down. Best spot is to actually put the clip over the zipper with the knife inside the pants. Remember to take it out or move it prior to sitting down or it may get, umm, extremely uncomfortable. Most of the searches are pretty pathetic as they never checked boots or shoes either. If you see a good search going on in front of you in line you can actually check your knife or whatever with the staff and they will return it on the way out.
Get your money out of an ATM (bank-o-mat) and you will usually get the best deal on the conversion without any issues. Max your withdrawal if you use an ATM since your bank will give you the actual rate on the money exchange but may charge a $5 foreign currency fee.
See if the hotel has a vault to store your weapons in and check the bag daily to make sure it is still there. Remember that a pelican full of guns is probably more than most make in a year and could be quite a tempting target. Most of the hotels seem to have a secure room available for free. The rooms generally have a small electronic safe that you set the combination on. Keep a photocopy of your passport, drivers license, all credit cards, travel itinerary, plane tickets, and anything else that may be a nightmare to get replaced. Also keep the numbers of the US Embassy, CC phone numbers, etc. that may be hard to look up without the use of the internet.
Getting a local cell phone is also beneficial if you are in the country for a bit. If you have a GSM phone that takes a chip it really easy. Get your phone unlocked and get your PIN, Puk and Puk2 codes. T-Mobile gave me the codes while I was in the CZ for unlocking my Nokia 6600 which was very cool! Check the pricing on a SIM card and how many minutes you get along with talking to a couple of locals about which one has the best service. If you need to call Internationally with it find out how much that is going to be. For me with the OSKAR service it was eleven crowns a minute (roughly .40 cents). At the cell store they not only install the chip but set it up on their network and tested it. Took about 5 minutes and we were done. Call and reset your voicemail message on your US phone to notify people that they can send SMS or call you directly on your new number.
Okay enough of that stuff and on to the shooting!
The match:
Pre-match testing: I knew my handgun and rifle ammo were dialed but checked them anyway since the airlines might have decided to have a catapult contest with the bags. (My current record of baggage abuse was from America West Airlines and the huge dude unloading the plane was able to throw the big Pelican double rifle case with 20K in guns into the third baggage cart. EVERYONE on the plane knew I wasn’t happy about that!) Now the problems started showing up with the shotgun ammo that was provided. The new Practical Slugs didn’t have enough power to cycle the customized Grams Benelli. Most people don’t know that I don’t shoot reduced recoil slugs most of the time. I think that last case I bought was a year or two ago. (To the ammo manufactures, work on a slug that is 64mm long, 1 or 1 1/8th oz. at 1350, then call me!) The shot shells didn’t cycle well either.
Now the way it works for the scoring in IPSC three gun is that all guns compete separately. So basically it is three separate matches that are combined at the end for a final score. Even shotgun stages don’t mix slugs with shot! Whatever gun is the most modified is the overall class you are in. Say you have a production pistol, open rifle, and standard shotgun. The scores would work something like this:
96% Production Pistol Final Overall
100% Open Rifle Final Overall
70% Standard Shotgun Final Overall
= 266 total “points” towards your overall finish in Open Class for the Aggregate.
If you knew who was going it could be a pretty easy match to sandbag the divisions and get a title.
The match was shot independently, with all rifle stages being finished on day one for all competitors and then shotgun the next day followed by handgun and closing ceremony the last day.
Match Day One: Rifle! 104 Rounds
Lots of walking and most of it seemed uphill. Found some muscles in my calves that I think have atrophied! The stages were anywhere from 50-300 yards apart. No private vehicles were allowed down the range roads. Luckily it was only 1 gun per day.
Started out strong with the first 5 stages. The coolest stage I shot started with two sets of three targets, then a 70 yard run and offhand four poppers at 110 yards. Nailed all four with one shot each. That felt good! The rifle match kind of went down hill from there. The next stage was just a little rough and off my pace and then I went collectively stupid. Still not sure what happened. 3 misses on two targets at 35 yards with a C-more on a JP. There was some brush in front of them so it may have deflected the rounds, but on the left target I burned four rounds at it and it was clean. The C-more may have been hitting high at that distance too, still don’t know. Will try to figure it out when I get back home. At an IPSC match you can’t afford that when there are only 8 stages and 100 rounds. Hell, you can’t afford C’s with a rifle since it is scored minor. When you have stages that are 20-30 seconds and only 15-20 rounds, you have a very low hit factor. C’s end up being worth between one and two seconds each! It was a real mental change up from the matches that score two hits or one A like the International Multi-Gun (IMG) rules. I am still irritated at myself because of the last rifle stage of the match. Two targets at 50, then 5 poppers at 145 yards. I know I could hit those off hand and was stressing about using a long bipod because of the grass in front of the targets with the angle you had to shoot at them. Ending up having a ton of extra shots since the rounds were just zipping off into space from the grass. Didn’t trust myself to just stand there and shoot it. The poppers were set pretty heavy and didn’t always go down with the first hit with 55’s. Will remember next time to take some 77’s with me so I don’t have to worry about the energy delivered on target. They smack the targets so much better than 55’s it is amazing. I ended up second in the rifle match because of my own stupidity and not making sure that my standard set of ammo is available. I re-shot the last stage of the match for fun and with a bunch of extra shots (repeat hits – the poppers were set pretty heavy) still bested my time by four seconds. Ended up second to Raine Petrolsky out of Finland. He shot a solid match and deserved it.
Match Day Two: Shotgun! 108 rounds
Oh, crap here we go. So, Raine out of Finland (sounds like a movie doesn’t it?) picked up ammo for our shotguns in town. How exciting going into the first slug stage not knowing if it will work or if the slugs will hit anything. Only had two or three jams and 5 extra shots on the long target. Pretty rough start for the competition after coming off of a frustrating day with a rifle. Slugs that aren’t sighted in and don’t work add a massive amount of time to your shooting! I was almost ready to call it a day by the third stage with more slugs. Only one stage went well and that was a shot stage that just rolled smooth. Everything else just felt rough and awkward. To hit the 50 meter slug poppers, I was aiming about 2 poppers low. Ironically I ended up winning the Open shotgun division.
Match Day Three: Pistol! 109 rounds
Okay, back to a gun that I have my own ammo for and that I know works. Martin Kamenicek from Team CZ was my main competition and it was a great match. He only shot the Open handgun match in preparation for the upcoming World Shoot. I think he finished 2nd to Eric at the last WS. Great guy and an awesome pistol shooter. In fact everyone on team CZ were very personable and great representatives for the company. We were pretty close, about 3-6 points apart, going into the 7th stage when I slipped a bit and felt my knee tweak. It was one of those forward and back movement stages. When I was moving rearward I grabbed the wall with my hand just to keep upright. Brought the gun up for the next port and didn’t drill the 20 yard movers very well. Had a miss and was about 2 seconds behind Martin. With only one stage to go, I was kind of toasted out of the match having lost over 30 points. I sucked it up on the last stage just listening to my iShuffle and some violent music. With the knee hurting I knew the only thing that would get me through the uphill run was adrenaline. Since it was the last stage and I had three weeks before my next competition to heal up I went for it and got Martin by 1.5 seconds, if I remember right. At that point, I was glad the competition was over. Marin ended up beating me in the handgun match by about 5%.
The closing ceremonies, which were held at the range, they were fully catered with a band and fireworks! Pretty darn cool way to finish up a match!
Thanks to CZ the major match sponsor for helping such a great event get off the ground! Thanks to the match staff and RO’s for all the work and making it through the first European 3 Gun Championship! Great job! I can’t wait to shoot the match again next year!
Now I am off to Prague (Praha) for a week of partying and being a tourist!
To team CZ and everyone else going to the WS, good luck!
By the way, over 400 pictures will be posted on http://www.mattburkett.com later today!
