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A Man, A Plan, A Canal, Panama!


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The Central Texas crew, including yours truly, heads off to Panama tomorrow. If the hotel's got internet, I'll try and do a little commentary and pictures if possible. I was lucky (or not) to get put on the Open Super Squad along with some French guy named Eric :o, so we'll see how it goes. There's a pretty good contingent of good US shooters going, so it'll be fun no matter what. I just hope they have some cangrejo and snappy hats.

Rumor has it everybody's favorite IPSC whipping-boy Vince will be there too, so I'll be sure and pass on the :wub: from BE-land :D:D

http://www.copacolumbus.com/ -- it's quite a match web site, but you'll want to turn down your speakers before the music drives you batty.

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Ok, pictures are on the way (as tropical internet goes, this isn't bad, but it's still a long wire back to the US)-- I'll put up what I've got and work on match video and pictures of tropical babes in the pool at the hotel later.

http://www.shred2.net/~shred/gallery/Panama

The trip down was pretty easy for me.. some others had problems.. one had their bag w/gun left behind intentionally by the airline (Continental "It'll be here tomorrow sir, I hope that's not a problem" :angry: ) or weren't allowed to bring ammo because "it wasn't in a metal box" (yes, all the arguing and TSA regs to the contrary, the airline (COPA) required a metal box for ammo)

I'm liking Panama. It's obvious the economy here is working pretty well-- big buildings downtown, decent roads and so on. Weather-wise I walked out the door at 6:15 this morning and thought "Houston.. this must be Houston.. in July.." Hot-n-humid, but most of the iced-up US folks are happy about it. We're on the morning squad and it was overcast most of the morning.. the afternoon guys get to sleep in, but they get full tropical sun to deal with.

The range is nice. It looks like a tropical golf course-- green everywhere and lots of shade for the shooters to hang in. It's a 10 minute bus ride from the hotel which is just across the waterway from the range. Big boats going to and from the Panama Canal go by every so often.

We shot 6 stages this morning and I think I got Eric on one, but I heard they're throwing that one out for excessive prop breakage :(. Otherwise, Eric is spanking the rest of us-- he's very solid while all the rest of us have made our share of mistakes. It's too bad JJ and Jake couldn't get here to keep him hopping.

Standard and Production look to be fun races. Phil, Mike, Travis, Estuardo, Angus, Dave and Julie, plus a bunch of others I can't remember.

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What are the walls made of ? Seems that every pic I see of IPSC stages ,the walls are made of green or black see through mesh? What is it? How is it made? Looks like they would be very easy for one person to move around. Maybe some close-up pics of framework? TIA

DaG

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Funny you ask about the stages.. since they're short on berms at this match, they tear down the stages every night and build new ones for the next day.. I just missed a picture of some guys welding up a swinger for tomorrow.. nothing like just-in-time props..

Anyway, the walls are all garden mesh, with welded steel tube frames (obviously don't put shots close to the walls). I think they bolt, strap and/or weld them together as needed. You see that a lot at these matches-- the stages and props (sometimes even the target stands) are custom built for that one single stage.

Some more boring photos of the range (including a glimpse of the elusive Quicksdraw) are on the way.. From all the babe-requests, I'd say y'all need to concentrate on your shooting :D

Btw, interim results (and pictures-- including some shooter-babes, though my un-photogenic self has so far slipped by) are posted on the http://www.copacolumbus.com site. Looks like I have a legitimate and non-thrown-out stage win... Of course I had to reshoot that stage, with a prone port, 3 times. Yee Haa. Maybe I'll get Vince (he just got here, 36 hours out of home, I sent the BE :wub: along :blink: ) to hang the medal on me and give me a peck on the cheek :o

Day 2 and Eric maintains his thrashing of us all. I probably gave Nicolas a bunch of points today (we were .1 point separated 2nd and 3rd yesterday), but the shooting was fun. The boom-kart stage is a trip. Start seated in car, foot on brake. On signal, retrieve pistol and take your foot off the brake.. Crash through the doors (manliness points for shooting the far plate through the gap in the doors-- you have enough time for one shot) and shoot close targets left and right, then slam on the brakes at the end, clean up 3 plates and one more paper. Not a lot of rounds, but a fun ride.

Almost all of us got to reshoot stage 10 today after Eric figured out we could shoot under a wall and hit a popper low, but still drop it, thus skipping a position... the assembled ROs didn't like it (after we'd almost all shot like that) and put the kibosh on it and made us reshoot.

Oh yeah, a couple of pictures are of the huge, whole, roast pigs (3) they had on the range for lunch today. Don't look at those if you're a vegitarian, but it was tasty. There are also some good empanadas, chorizo and pork kebabs and the usual gringo food available.

Btw, the TechWear shirts (and similar Under Armour) really rock for this kind of weather.

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More range pictures on the way, plus one of the free rum-n-coke sample stand in the grocery store.. we like this country.

End of day 3, match is in the bag. All I know right now is the #1 & 2 in Open, and I'm neither of them, though I have a shot at 3rd. Nicolas Blum shot well today and earned that 2nd. Eric of course walks away with the win.

Fun story-- on stage 17, there's a swinger, 3 poppers, 2 plates and another static target, all at about 12 yards-- the squad declared the manly way to shoot it was draw to the activator, shoot everything and finish on the swinger while it's in the open on it's first pass. Eric was the only one that succeeded-- he ran the stage in 3.04 or something equally heinous (nobody else broke 4, cause we had to either wait for the swinger or take targets after it).

Anyway, the guys threw down a bet. This stage was at the front of a metallic silhouette range. There were still two ram targets set waaay downrange (100m?, 150m? 200m?). So, with $1200 on the line, the bet is Eric can't shoot the stage and a ram before the swinger disappears on it's first pass...

He got two shots off at those rams, but didn't stick the hits..

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End of day 3, match is in the bag. All I know right now is the #1 & 2 in Open, and I'm neither of them, though I have a shot at 3rd. Nicolas Blum shot well today and earned that 2nd. Eric of course walks away with the win.

[Texas Drawl]

Son, ya' did Texas proud! Good Job!

[/Texas Drawl]

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Am I seeing this right? The French guy got beat by less than a match point?? Wow... ;) Guess he's not as invincible as some seem to believe :)

Uh... hold it. Those have got to still be interim overall results... Cause Chris Thomas didn't beat Eric on any stage that I'm seeing... ;) Looks like maybe a couple of stages are missing for all but a couple of competitors or something, and he's one of them... Oh well. Maybe that French guy really *is* invincible... :lol:

Edited by XRe
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Emailed with Angus Hobdell of CZ-USA, he said he and Sevigny were battling it out in Production. He said he was talking to a Columbian shooter, reloading is Illegal there. He also said that Panama is expensive, $80.00 for 1,000 fed primers and a used Glock costs about $3,000.00. They are shooting then tearing down six stages per day, which allows no shooter to reshoot the same stage, he thought that was interesting. Anyway, does anyone have the current overall standings by class ?

TY !

Jkushner1

:)

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