Lapua Athlete of the week is today’s birthday boy, the ever-young Kevin Nevius of Lapua Team USA! Kevin is probably one of the kindest and most humble souls in competitive shooting, with a big heart and a great sense of humour. This guy is impossible not to like but nearly impossible to beat! Here’s his story:

“We didn’t have any firearms around when I was a kid, and you know what happens when you tell a child that they can’t have something, right? So as soon as I turned 18, I was like “Man, I’ve got to get myself some guns!” My brother, who was quite a bit older than me, had already done the same and gone and bought quite a lot of firearms. So we’d go out and do some long-range varmint shooting. We were out on my cousin’s farmland and shoot groundhogs to up to 1,000 yards, and we got pretty good. So that lead to competitions, which also lead to small bore competitions. I mean, high-power and smallbore are not that different. Of course, the recoil is different, but the holds and sight picture are the same, as well as settings and so on. And the real blessing of being a part of the Lapua team is that I have access to both sides.

2016 was a really good year – at the Nationals, I finished in the top ten in the High Power and the Smallbore Prone, so I’ll be going to Bisley, England in August this year to represent the U.S., so that’s a blessing. I also had the opportunity to do some load development using the new 6,5 mm 136 grs Scenar-L, and I got a really good load with it. So at the National Mid-Range match, I managed to shoot a new National Record with it! So I was really pleased. So far, this year’s also been a good year so far with some good results at regionals, which is good for building up for Bisley. And it’s always nice to check out new shooting arenas like Camp Atterbury, which is hosting the NRA National High Power Rifle Championships this year.

Regarding Lapua product favorites, I’ve got to say the 6.5×47, I just adore that. When it came out a couple of years ago, and I had the opportunity to build a couple of prone guns around it, it was just… wow. It is just an awesome cartridge. Low recoil, great bullet choices, great case cases. Awesome! Since all my high-power is between 300 and 1000 yards, that cartridge is right at home there, even at the 1,000 yards’ mark.

For young and upcoming shooters, I’d say focus on the technique. In shooting, most of the influence on the rifle comes from the hand and the finger that pulls the trigger, so it’s important to learn how to control that motion. And another thing, regarding the equipment, don’t waste your time and money on the not-so-good stuff. I wish someone had taken me aside a long time ago and said “look, I know getting this expensive rifle is a really painful, but you’ll have this for the rest of your life and you’ll get really good at competing when you use just this one.” That would be my second recommendation.

Without the Lapua sponsorship, I would’ve never been as marginally successful as I have been. I go through probably around 20,000 rounds of rimfire ammunition and 5,000 rounds of high-power ammunition every year. And you know, I’ve got two kids in college, so if I didn’t have the sponsorship, I wouldn’t be able to maintain a really aggressive training schedule, which I thinks is really important for maintaining your edge. Shooting is a repetitive process and function, so you’ve got to shoot a lot to get really comfortable behind a gun. There really is no replacement for it.”

Above photo credit: Kimmo Iso-Tuisku

Competition report: The IPSC Rifle World Shoot 2017 4 – 11 June 2017

Report details by Teemu Rintala and Raine Peltokoski

The IPSC Rifle World Shoot 2017 was hosted by IPSC Russia from 4th to 11th of June. The competition took place near Moscow in Patriot Park in a brand new shooting range with 32 shooting bays: one 1400m bay, twenty-one 300m bays and ten 50m shooting bays. The match consisted of 30 stages over 6 days with an impressive 591 competitors from 40 countries. The Russian hosts had put a lot of effort into the event, and the ceremonies were the best ever in Practical Shooting history. The opening ceremony featured speakers of ministry level, live stream from the International Space Center with a speech by a cosmonaut, parades and a show by the Russian Air Forces acrobat team with five mig29’s flying over the spectators. Regarding competitor entrance into the country, a special law was passed to allow foreign shooters to possess weapons during the match, and the Russian border patrol had exact information on the shooters and weapons entering the country. Some shooters had to rent weapons due to embargo issues, but most were unaffected.

As we reported in our previous results update, the Semi Auto Open division discipline with 357 individual competitors was won by our Lapua sponsored shooter Teemu Rintala (FIN), followed by Lapua Team member Raine Peltokoski (FIN) with third Finn Jarkko Laukia clenching the bronze. In the 127-shooter Standard division event, the Lapua-sponsored Team Finland ruled with positions 2, 3, 4, 8 and 10 going to Finnish shooters. Team Finland naturally took home the Team victories in both of these divisions. Congratulations again to all for their great achievements!

From left: Raine Peltokoski, Teemu Rintala and Jarkko Laukia. Photo credit Kimmo Iso-Tuisku.

In honor of his win, Teemu is our Lapua Athlete of the week. Here is his report of the event:

“The competition was mentally and physically really hard for me. I made a lot of mistakes during the first two days. During the second day I was really crushed, and I knew that I would be outside the podium if I continued like I did. My offhand shooting was totally off and I even picked one mike from a full size IPSC target at approx. 40 meters! It was a rough day. But, with some good music and positive self-insurance, I managed to pick myself up and shot three decent stages at the end of the day.

First stage!

On the morning of the third day, I decided to start shooting like a man, and it worked! During the third and fourth day I didn’t make any mistakes. Going in to the fifth day, I had a nice lead, and I decided to play it safe. Good decision, only I played it too safe – Raine and Jarkko came really close at the end, but I managed to keep them behind me and win!

Teemu Rintala signing a cap for a fan.

IPSC Russia did a great job of arranging the match. We even got a local guide from the organization to help with border proceedings. They made us feel welcome to the competition and did everything they could to have everything run smoothly. It was really nice to meet old friends and to make bunch of new ones. It was an honor to be there and be a small part in the huge competition.

Thank you Lapua, for supporting me and producing world finest ammo. It is easy to shoot when you know that you will hit where you aim to!” 

Raine Peltokoski of Team Lapua took the silver. For Raine, this was a match he had been waiting on for a long time:

“I have shot practical pistol and shotgun since 1989. I started practical rifle relatively late in 2005 and the reason was that the World Championships were scheduled to be held in 2006 in Denmark and I wanted to win. Well, the match did not happen. Despite plans, it did not happen later in South Africa either. But now, finally, the first Practical Rifle World Championship took place and the event set the bar high indeed. The opening ceremony was very impressive, and everything went relatively smoothly with the bureaucracy. Patriot Park was an ideal range for such a large competition. The very reason for not having a rifle World Shoot earlier was difficulty in arranging range stages long enough. At least I prepared well, for 12 years!

About 500 shots were shot at 30 different stages and distances varied from 15 to 300m. The majority of the targets were between 60-100m, but there were often a couple of nasty 200-300m targets somewhere on the stage. This made understanding the bullet trajectory an important factor. Different aiming points and different zeros had to be used quite a lot. It was also a very technical match in terms of shooting positions and gear needed.

Once again, Finnish accuracy regarding both shooters and Lapua ammunition has been proven to be top class internationally! On behalf of my shooting colleagues I say: Thank you Lapua!

Video: Teemu Rintala in action

Lapua Team member Jack Neary had the privilege of visiting the Cowboy Action Shooting World Champs. The following is a recap of the match and the exciting sport of Cowboy Action Shooting, or CAS for short.

On 19 – 20 June, I attended the SASS End of Trail Cowboy Action Shooting World Championships at Founders Ranch in Edgewood, New Mexico. This 11-day event hosts over 900 male and female shooter’s, from 13 different countries, whom all enjoy the simpler times, firearms and authentic clothing (chaps included) of the Old West. 

SASS Old Town 

I also met with “Misty Mooshine”, the CEO of the End of Trail Cowboy Action Shooting organization. Misty shared the SASS organization was first started in Southern California in the early 1980’s and now has over 30.000 active competitors from over 27 countries around the world. According to Misty, the Cowboy Action shooting discipline is increasing in popularity and has been growing at a steady pace every year for the past eight years.

So, what does it take to become a SASS cowboy or cowgirl? Well, each competitor must select and assume a unique “alias” Old Western name upon joining the SASS organization.

The Cowboy Action Shooter’s each compete with an Old Western era lever action Centerfire rifle, double-barrel break-action shotgun and single-shot revolvers. Each of the firearms have been extensively been modified with slick actions, with lightened hammers and very light trigger-pull built for speed shooting.

Shooting Stage

Each competitor will use each of their respective lever-action rifles, revolvers and shotguns to engage varios distant targets across 12 different shooting stages with various old Western target themes. The success keys of this shooting discipline is shooting clean with no misses and speed!

Jack and Evil Roy

I was fortunate to be guided by our own Team Lapua’s “Evil Roy” AKA Gene Pearcey. Evil Roy is a very highly respected SASS Hall of Fame member, an ambassador to Cowboy Action shooting, a news gentleman and proud Team Lapua member! Evil Roy was kind enough to provide me with an introduction to a number of the top competitors and overall holistic view of the Cowboy Action Shooting discipline. Thanks to him, I got a very good picture of one of the most fun shooting disciplines there is. 

Evil Roy and his wife Karen aka “Wicked Felina”

And results? Not all of them are in yet, But Evil Roy has secured a win in the Wild Bunch Men’s Senior Modern discipline as well as an 8th place Wild Bunch overall main match standings. Congrats! For all results so far, go to the SASS web page. 

Text and pictures by Jack Neary

Team Lapua USA success! The linked recap from The Shooting Wire includes results by Cathy Winstead-Severin who won both the Conard Bernhardt Cup in Pe Ell, WA and the Iron Man Rifle Silhouette in Missoula, MT. Congrats Cathy, way to go! At the Conard Bernhard Cup, 33 % of all shooters used Lapua, while 25 % of Iron Man competitors chose Lapua ammo. Lapua Team member Mark Pharr also attended the Iron Man, finishing 5th. Also Erik Cortina, Kevin Nevius, Stephen Culpepper, Wayne Campbell and Jack Neary have produced some great shooting scores, read more on the Shooting Wire web site at http://www.shootingwire.com/story/406369

The 5th leg of the ISSF World Cup took place in Gabala (AZE) during 8 – 13 June and it was a great success for Lapua. We thank all supporters and congratulate all our athletes for great performances!

In the Men’s 50m Rifle Prone event, Lapua sponsored shooters Torben Grimmel (DEN) and Lionel Cox (BEL) joined in the success, winning the gold medal and the bronze medal respectively. Lapua sponsored shooter Shi Mengyao (CHI) won the gold medal and set the new Junior World Record in the women’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions event, while Lapua Shooter Stine Holtze Nielsen (DEN) took home the bronze. The picture on top shows Stine together with her batch tested Lapua Midas+ and her proud coach Enrico Friedemann.

Lapua Team member Christian Reitz (GER) won the 11th Gold of his career and equalled the World Record of 35 hits in the Rapid Fire Pistol event. Lapua sponsored shooter Riccardo Mazzetti (ITA), who holds the earlierWorld Record that Reitz equalled, took the bronze in the same discipline.

Christian Reitz

Lapua sponsored shooter Istvan Peni (HUN) won the Bronze medal in the men’s 10m Air Rifle event. Next, Peni qualified for his first final in the men’s 50m Rifle 3-Positions event, climbed to the highest step of the podium and pocketed the gold medal. Below he shares his thoughts on the succes in an interview by ISSF:

Team Lapua USA member Mike Miller is a news guru in a vast range of rifle shooting disciplines. He’s been a member of the USA National Long Range rifle team and has won numerous medals in F-TR World Championships and National competitions over the years, just to name a few. And he still has a lot on his plate. “I’ve got a lot of big competitions I’m going to this year, like all the U.S. Nationals, a lot of F-class competitions and then also some of the Precision Rifle Series.“

Mike also teaches a lot of rifle classes. He has a 26 years background in Law Enforcement, working in SWAT and as a firearms instructor for various private and government organizations. For many years he taught police and military officers on various rifle skills, but these days his classes are intended mostly for civilian precision shooters. “I teach classes on how to shoot the rifle, how to take care of the rifle, how to handload, things like that.”

Regarding shooting competitions, there is one discipline that obviously stands out for Mike: “My favourite is F-TR  (Farquharson Target Rifle). That’s shooting with a .308 caliber off a bipod at a thousand yards. I’ve spent a lot of time as a police and overseas as a precision rifleman, and initially I took it on for practice, as a way to increase my skills. It’s always been a favourite.” Although long-range shooting is Mike’s first love, he does a lot of his practising on shorter ranges.  “I’m semi-retired now, so I shoot around 2-3 days a week, I go out to local ranges and mostly shoot at 100 – 200 yards, and then I take a journey every other week or so to go shoot at a 1000 yards, and I shoot 2000 yards every two months.” Well, for being semi-retired, Mike obviously still gets a lot of range time in: “I do enough shooting to wear out 3-4 barrels in a year.” Yikes!

So what’s Mike’s favourite Lapua products? He has a few that instantly come to mind: “I love the .30 cal. 155 grain Scenar bullet. It’s just phenomenal. I use it in my field guns and in a lot of my F-TR guns. And then, the Lapua brass – there is no better brass in this world. After the F-TR World Championships in 2009 where I won the gold medal at 800 yards, people asked me, ‘What did you do with the brass?’. I told them, I put a primer in it, powder in it it, bullet in it, shot it. There was nothing else I had to do. Every other piece of brass that’s on the market, to shoot at that distance and to get that kind of accuracy, there’s always some kind of modification involved. I’m very fortunate to shoot for Lapua. I mean, if you buy Lapua products – you’re gonna have a hard time not doing better.”

We’re going to take his word for it!

Above picture: at the Lapua stand, from from left to right Lapua team member Monika Karsch (GER); Ernst Gerber, the coach of Lapua Sponsored shooter Heidi Diethelm-Gerber (SUI); and far right Lapua staff member Christoph Tolonitz. 

The ISSF World Cup in Munich took place during 17 – 23 May this year. According to the ISSF, over 750 participating athletes from 80 countries took part in the competitions, and six world records were established or equaled. A lot of Lapua sponsored shooters naturally also took part in the competitions, and here are the best results of those. Congrats to all our athletes!

Rapid Fire pistol Men
Christian Reitz (GER) – 3rd place

Standard Pistol Women
Heidi Diethelm-Gerber (SUI) – 14th

50m Rifle 3 Positions Men
Bernhard Pickl (AUT) – 9th
Istvan Peni (HUN) – 11th

50m Rifle 3 Positions Women
Franziska Peer (AUT) – 13th

50m Rifle Prone Men
Torben Grimmel (DEN) – 8th
Lionel Cox (BEL) – 9th
Istvan Peni (HUN) – 19th 

The Lapua van – you can’t miss it!

Riccardo Mazzetti is a Lapua sponsored rapid fire pistol shooter who is well known on the international shooting scene, with top performances in the ISSF World Cup, the European and World Championships and the Olympics. Riccardo hails from Italy, but also spends a lot of time in Germany. “My hometown is not far away from Milano in Italy. My family still resides there and I am always happy to visit my parents for some time…”Hotel Mamma” is the best one! I also travel a lot for training and I split my time between Italy and Germany. I am often in Stuttgart because my girlfriend Julia lives there. She is also a shooter in the German National Team and we sometimes train together.”

Unlike many other top shooters, Riccardo started out fairly late in the sport. “The only connection to the shooting world in my family was my grandfather, a hunter. It was always fascinating to hold his guns and one day I simply asked my father to take me to the shooting range in town to try shooting. I started with the air pistol and I can’t say I had a gift for shooting…but it was fun and I kept on training! I shot my first shot at a shooting range in 1998 at the age of 14. It was quite late to start and dream of an Olympic shooting career, but at the time I didn’t know that one day it would even be my job.“ Riccardo is a soldier in the Sport Unit of the Italian Army. “Shooting has been my job since 2005. I also went to University, even if was hard to prepare for exams during the competition season. I now have a Bachelor’s Degree in Banking and Finance and a Master’s in Economics and Management.”

When it comes to shooting competitively, Riccardo focuses on one discipline. “My shooting discipline is Rapid Fire Pistol and I have time to train properly just the one. I love shooting Free Pistol sometimes and whenever there is a chance I ask other shooters to try their disciplines. Rifle Three Positions or Shotgun doesn’t matter…as long as I can shoot!” Riccardo also likes to shoot in a different setting – more precisely on the basketball court, as it is his favourite sport along with boulder climbing. “I played basketball for many years when I was younger and when I have the chance I do it still. Recently I’ve also fallen in love with climbing. It is a great challenge; a combination of strength, technique and mental toughness. It’s really fun.”

Photo by the International Shooting Federation – http://www.issf-sports.org/

When it comes to competitive shooting, practice makes perfect, and Riccardo works hard for his successes. “I practice at the range 4 or 5 times per week. I shoot around 1000 rounds per week but it can be 1500 during a training camp with my team. I love my Lapua X-Act ammo, it’s simply the best. Precision, steadiness, reliability…is there anything else one needs to trust a cartridge at the Olympic Games?”

Riccardo attended the Rio Olympics 2016 and finished 6^th in the rapid fire pistol. A very proud moment for him, although he has an even more fond competition moment:  “The best shooting memory for me is when I won the World Cup in Beijing in 2014, setting a new Final World Record. Of course taking part in the Olympic Final in Rio 2016 was emotional, but that time in China meant something more to me.”

In the next couple of months, Riccardo will be working on his technique. “My biggest challenge in shooting is to control my mind and my thoughts. The brain can be so fast under stress and think too many things at the same time that I lose the focus on what I am going to do: rise up my arm, bring the front sight on the target and pull the trigger. Shooting is not so complicated, but to control the mind definitely is! So my goal is to be well prepared for the next season and the World Championships. As a general goal for competitions: I would really like to shoot 590/600 points. It is a nice number!”

We wish Riccardo many nice numbers in the future!

Picture above: Medalists in the 25m standard pistol event, from left: Franck Kiefer, Clementine David, Michael Schleuter.

The lapua European Cup 25 meter for pistol took place in sunny Hannover in Germany on 12 – 14 May. A total of 45 centerfire and standard pistol shooters from 9 nations gathered to take part in the event. Lapua thanks all participants for a great competition! 

Results

(Complete results here as pdf)

25m Centerfire pistol

1. Yann Fridrici (FRA) 576-15x

2. Michael Schleuter (GER) 575-17x

3. Franck Kiefer (FRA) 574-20x

4. Håkan Landebring (SWE) 573-19x

5. Jan newslsson (DEN) 573-17x

6. Jorge Llames (ESP) 572-19x

Yann Fridrici (FRA)

25m Standard pistol

1. Clementine David (FRA) 567-19x

2. Franck Kiefer 567-9x

3. Michael Schleuter (GER) 559-10x

4. Pierre Michel (GER) 558-9x

5. Jorge Llames (ESP) 556-11x

6. Håkan Landebring (SWE) 556-8x

Yann Fridrici Lapua EC 25m CF winner

Picture above: Medalists in the men’s standard rifle, from left Rossi, Olsen, Bogar. 

The Lapua European Cup 300 meter event was held in Aarhus in Denmark on 8 – 11 May 2017. Lapua sponsored shooter Steffen Olsen (DEN) took home the gold in the men’s Standard Rifle with a new National record and he also won the Men’s Prone match, while the ladies’ 3-position was won by Karolina Kowallzyk of Poland and the Prone match by Estonia’s Ljudmila Kortshagina. Team Lapua’s Peter Sidi (HUN) came in 5th in Standard Rifle and took the silver in the men’s 3 position competition which was won by Rajmond Debevec of Slovenia. All in all the event was very successful with 57 athletes from a total of 15 countries. We congratulate all participants for their great achievements!

Results 

For detailed results, see enclosed pdf

300 m Standard Rifle Men Individual

1. Steffen Olsen (DEN) 595

2. Andrea Rossi (SUI) 586

3. Stian Bogar (NOR) 585 (24x)

4. Aleksi Leppä (FIN) 585 (20x)

5. Peter Sidi (HUN) 582

6. Simon Claussen (NOR) 580

300 m Standard Rifle Men Team

1. Denmark (Jacob Larsen, Lars Jepsen, Steffen Olsen) 1741

2. Finland (Antti Puhakka, Juho Kurki, Juho Autio) 1720


Lapua sponsored shooter Steffen Olsen (DEN)

300 m Rifle Prone Women Individual

1. Ljudmila Kortshagina (EST) 597

2. Marion Goberville (FRA) 595 (31x)

3. Catherine Houlmont (FRA) 595 (29x)

4. Lisandra Storai (FRA) 593 (31x)

5. Elin Åhlin (SWE) 593 (30x)

6. Inken Plengemeyer (GER) 592

300m Rifle Prone Women Team 

1. Sweden (Elin Åhlin, Marie Enqvist, Anna Normann) 1781

2. Estonia (Ljudmila Kortshagina, Anzela Voronova, Tuuli Kubarsepp) 1776

3. France (Julie Milliere, Catherine Houlmont, Lisandra Storai) 1767

300 m Rifle Prone Men Individual

1. Steffen Olsen (DEN) 599 (40x)

2. Rajmond Debevec (SLO) 599 (35x)

3. Simon Claussen (NOR) 598 (39x)

4. Carsten Brandt (DEN) 598 (37x)

5. Harald Stenvaag (NOR) 598 (27x)

6. Gilles Dufaux (SUI) 597

300m Rifle Prone Men Team 

1. Norway /Simon Claussen, Harald Stenvaag, Stian Bogar) 1794

2. Finland (Juha Rutonen, Antti Puhakka, Juho Autio) 1783

3. Switzerland (Marcel Ackermann, Gilles Dufaux, Andrea Rossi) 1782

Team Lapua’s Peter Sidi (HUN)

300 m Rifle 3 position Men Individual

1. Rajmond Debevec (SLO) 1183

2. Peter Sidi (HUN) 1180

3. Simon Claussen (NOR) 1170

4. Steffen Olsen (DEN) 1168 (48x)

5. Gilles Dufaux (SUI) 1168 (47x)

6. Stian Bogar (NOR) 1168 (37x)

300 m Rifle 3 position Men Team

1. Finland (Aleksi Leppä, Juho Kurki, Juho Autio) 3482

300 m Rifle 3 position Women Individual

1. Karolina Kowallzyk (POL) 582

2. Elin Åhlin (SWE) 581

3. Myriam Bruehwiler (SUI) 580 (20x)

4. Anna Normann (SWE) 580 (15x)

5. Silvia Guinard (SUI) 577

6. Ljudmila Kortshagina (EST) 576

300 m Rifle 3 position Women Team

1. Switzerland (Myriam Bruehwiler, Silvia Guignard, Olivia Hagmann) 1721 

2. Poland (Karolina Kowallzyk, Sylwia Bogacka, Paula Wronska) 1712

3. Estonia (Ljudmila Kortshagina, Anzela Voronova, Tuuli Kubarsepp) 1688