Gene ‘Evil Roy’ Pearcey pictured at the Lapua booth at SHOT Show 2017 in Las Vegas.

Anyone who has heard of Cowboy Action Shooting has probably heard of Gene Pearcey, a.k.a. Evil Roy. Gene, a long-time Lapua team member, started his CAS-career as late as in the nineties with his wife Karen, a.k.a. Wicked Felina, but is already a living legend and known as one of the great single-action shooters. Despite having eased the competition schedule in the past few years, he’s still got a lot of action going on. “We always shoot the Cowboy Action Nationals and the World Championships, then there’s the Wild Bunch Nationals and the World Championships, as well as some local matches we go to. I’m also on Gun Stories on Outdoor Channel talking about firearms – I think I’m one of a few people that’s been on every year. Then I’m also doing radio interviews and the likes, but apart from that, I’m mostly shooting, a lot of rifle actually, down at my Texas place. My favourite Lapua product at the moment is the 6,5 Grendel brass, that’s a real popular caliber for me.”

Gene started out in competitive shooting pretty late, but soon found himself doing nothing but. “Before Cowboy Action Shooting took over, I raced motorcycles and did martial arts. When I started doing really well in CAS, all I did was practice, because that was really all I had time for. Nowadays I also do a lot of Wild Bunch, which is at the moment my favorite.” In Cowboy Action Shooting, or CAS for short, competitors use firearms typical of the mid-to-late 19th century and dress accordingly. The firearms used are single-action revolvers, pistol caliber lever-action rifles and double-barreled shotguns or pump-action shotguns. Wild Bunch shooting is similar to CAS, although there are also clear differences. In Wild Bunch, competitors use 1911 pistols in .45 ACP, lever-action rifles and model 1897 pump-action shotguns.

So what is the secret to becoming a good Cowboy Action Shooter?  “When I was practicing real hard, in the last 4-5 of my most active competition years, it wasn’t unusual for me to shoot 300 rounds a day, five days a week. I mean, the only way to get really good is to fire a lot of ammo – and that’s a LOT.”

At the tender age of 74 – yes, that’s 74 – Gene is cutting his competition some slack by training a little less vigorously then in past years. “These days I have some time over for martial arts and rifle shooting and things like that, and we’ve also got a hot rod now that we’re playing with. But still, a lot of shooting!” 

Lapua sponsored the 15^th Police and Military Sniper World Cup held in Budapest, Hungary on 6^th – 10^th May 2017. A total of 62 teams from 20 different countries participated in the event.

The first day was arrival day, intended for sighting and testing the equipment. The three competition days were full of various tactical exercises. The first competition day was a tough day for the competitors, as it included also night shooting. The competitors were in bed at 4 a.m…

The second day started with very short sleep for the competitors! It was also packed full of events, including long distance shooting with distances up to over 900 meters. The final competition day was slightly shorter, with the closing ceremony and banquet in the evening.

All in all, the event really tested the shooters with lots of tactical situation shootings and constantly changing weather conditions: sunshine, rain, night time darkness, and of course at some stages also strong winds. Despite the challenges, the event was a big success, and we at Lapua thank everybody involved!

At 20 years old, Hungarian István Péni is still a youngster in many senses – yet he is already well known as a skilled rifle shooter on an international level. And he has been around the shooting circuit for a long time, in fact most of his life. “I was actually born into the sport. Both my parents were also shooters at an international level. My father was still an active shooter when I was a child, and he won medals at World and European Championships. From all his competitions he brought me some toy weapons, which I played with all day long. It was always a dream for me to become an elite shooter, so I watched many of his training sessions so I could shoot a little at the end. Until the age of 11 I played soccer, but after an injury I had to stop training for a year. During that period, my father finally brought me to my first shooting training, and from then on, there hasn’t almost gone a day when I haven’t visited the range.”

And he really does mean that; this youngster has a very busy training schedule. “Since I cannot imagine a day without practicing, it comes naturally to me that I spend around 5-6 hours on the shooting range on a regular daily basis. My training programs are different every day but I shoot approximately 200 rounds per training. All in all, during one week I take around 1500 shots. In my opinion, frequent trainings are very important and I always strive to do as much as I can. I also practice with my physical coach 3 times per week because body fitness is very important for having stable results in shooting. Relaxation is as important as practice and I always rest at least one day in a 2 week period. Once a year I take a break of up to two and a half weeks.”

Despite of a hectic training and competition schedule, István is graduating this year from high school, and plans to continue his studies at the University with Business and Management. This multi-talent speaks two foreign languages, English and German, and he even has time for another sport: “I am in love with snooker and billiards. I follow the men’s leagues and I also practice myself, as I have a billiards table at home. So whenever I have time I’ll go and pot few balls.” István resides at the Hungarian capital of Budapest with his parents and sister, a talented designer. The family shares a traditional hobby that also includes rifles; hunting. “I definitely love the spirit of hunting, and I also try to take care of and protect the nature.” A comment that works very nicely with the Lapua Naturalis slogan of Respecting the game.

When it comes to competition, István likes a challenge. “A big challenge for me means big fun in testing my limits. My favorite discipline is 50m 3 position! I think it requires the most shooting skills. Besides finding the perfect settings in every positions and improving my technique, I also need to handle the sometimes tricky outside conditions, and I have to plan multiple tactics and switch techniques during the 2 hours of a match. My biggest challenge in competing is definitely to set new limits every day. I don’t have any specific goals in my career; my goal is to master the skills I need for shooting a strong center.  I have tried almost all of available Lapua ammo and I’ve always had perfect groups and results. For the Rio Olympics I ranked 12th using Lapua Midas.”


István Pèni (HUN) winning the gold medal at the Junior European Championships 2016 in Estonia  

István has been to competitions around the world, so which one is his favorite as a competition memory? “So far the competition and location I have liked the most is the World Cup in Bangkok, Thailand. I carry some of the most beautiful memories from there. The first two World Cup series medals which I won there will stay as one of my favorite memories in my whole career. I also like multisport competitions, like the Olympics and the European games. I am friends with a lot of the other National team athletes competing in other disciplines, and the good spirit in the team has a really motivating effect on us.”

Even though István hasn’t set competition-specific goals for this season, he is definitely one to look out for on the international circuit. “This year is my last junior season and I want to prepare very well for the upcoming World and European Championships. I work hard in every training session but mostly I want to enjoy shooting as much as I can. Getting the most out of my abilities with a help of the most accurate ammo of Lapua will hopefully bring us some good results in future. Of course I also consider the Tokyo Olympics. I wake up every day with that goal in my eyes that I want to be the champion there.”

ISAS 2017, or the International Saison Start for Shooters, kicked off in Dortmund, Germany for the 33rd time. The event took place from Thu 23rd to Sun 26th of March and featured both rifle and pistol disciplines as well as air rifle and pistol, for men, women and juniors. 

Lapua team and sponsored athletes came out strong as usual, and here are the top results pick:

50m Rifle Prone Men: Cyril Graff (FRA) 1st, Torben Grimmel (DEN) 3rd, Gernot Rumpler (AUT) 9th

25m Pistol Women: Heidi Diethelm-Gerber (SUI) 1st

50m Rifle 3 Positions Women: Lisa Müller (GER) 5th, Franziska Peer (AUT) 7th, Silvia Rachl (GER) 11th 

50m Rifle 3 Positions Men: Peter Sidi (HUN) 5th

Air Pistol Women: Heidi Diethelm-Gerber (SUI) 3rd 

Air Rifle Men: Bernhard Pickl (AUT) 2nd

Congrats to all athletes!

Here is a fun little video of shooting matchsticks using 250 gr Scenar bullets. 

We talked to Lapua Team member Cathy Winstead-Severin at SHOT SHow 2017 in Las Vegas. 

How did you get started in shooting?
I started when I was fairly young, as a 7-8 year old with a bb-gun in the Jaycee program in Montana. My older brother was shooting so of course the little sister had to join in too.

Which competitions are you looking forwards to this year?
I usually start out my competition year with Conard Cup in Washington state, which is normally in April. After that, we’ll go to Montana in June to shoot the IronMan up there. Then the Nationals are in July, in Pennsylvania this year. That’s always been fun, so I look forward to that.

What’s your favorite discipline?
My favorite is still the smallbore, probably the smallbore hunting rifle silhouette. I’ve shot hi-power for some years now and I like that as well, but smallbore is still my favorite.

Your Lapua product of choice?
Lapua Midas +.

How many shots do you approx. fire in a year?
I used to do a lot of practice shooting, something like 1500 rounds a week. But when I had my little one who’s six (six-and-a-half, she’d tell you) now, I started doing much more dry firing. Nowadays, depending on matches etc., I tend to rotate dry firing with live firing.

Do you have any time for other activities besides shooting?
We like to go hiking with the family, travelling, fishing, anything outdoors really. However as my husband’s also a shooter, our freetime pretty much revolves around shooting. Our daughter was a her first match at two weeks old. She seems to be interested in the sport as well. We figured she would either love it or hate it, and she seems to like it. She tried it out once, and went with her dad to fire some shots. Some hours later, she said, “Mommy, I wanna shoot again!”

Any words of wisdom and tips for youngsters who want to get into competitive shooting?
I’d say just try to get out there at an early age with a bb-gun. And also youngsters should practice standing up, so they don’t get scared of shooting standing up. And just have fun with it! So, to everyone who’s wondering about the sport: just try it! Like silhouette shooting, which is a news family sport. The people are great and we always have fun. 

Raine Peltokoski from Team Lapua (Eur)

Finnish Raine Peltokoski is a three-time IPSC European Rifle Champion and has been one of the top shooters in practical competitions for decades. Check out our new video with Raine!

Throwback to the IBU Biathlon World Championships in Austria, where the competition events took place in mostly gorgeous weather and a great atmosphere with big crowds. The competition was also a success for Lapua, as a whopping 41 of 60 medals were shot using Lapua ammunition, relays included. In total, 85 % of the gold, 60 % of the silver and 60% of the bronze medals were won using Lapua cartridges.

We congratulate all athletes for their successes!

Lapua at the Berger SW Nationals

Written by: Kevin Thomas

So, after a long drive to sunny Phoenix, I found myself on the line for the Berger South West Nationals, aka, the Berger SWN Long Range matches. A few words here; this is hands-down easily the finest long range match in the US, run by one of the finest crews anywhere in the shooting world. The Ben Avery Shooting Facility where the match is held is a premier showplace for all types and disciplines of shooting, from archery to airgun, from Smallbore to High Power, you name it, and they’ve got it. This includes the Mid Tompkins High Power range, a full 100 firing points extending all the way to 1,000 yards. For a shooter, it’s simply heaven. Now, if they could only do something about that wind…

The matches begin with an optional Long Range Firing School taught by some of the best in the business. I’d taken this class before when Mid Tompkins taught it at Camp Perry during the Long Range phase of the US Nationals, and it was superb. This is essentially a continuation of that course with much of the same curriculum, updated a bit to include some of the modern technology that has come to be since I first took the class at Camp Perry many years before. It starts with some classroom work on wind reading formulas, group analysis and shot plotting, handloading for Long Range and so on. The real education takes place on the range, during the hands on wind reading classes. During the course of these, a series of shots are fired from a no wind zero, with subsequent shots following up every minute or so. During this time, no sight adjustment is made regardless of the winds rise and fall. The effect of this is that the student gets to see just what wind pick ups and let offs can (and will) do to your bullets if you don’t stay on top of things. Eye opening if you’ve never seen it, to say the least. There’s also instructional blocks that require the shooter to take a firing position, which is then critiqued and adjusted by the coaches. This is huge, considering who is giving these classes. It’s like an amateur golfer getting one-on-one instruction from Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus or Arnold Palmer. It just doesn’t get any better than this!

The first days matches are a bit of a warm up, and don’t count towards the ultimate aggregate score; three 20-shot 600 yard matches. This moves into a standard Palma match, with fifteen shots being fired at each line from 800, 900 and 1,000 yards, and finally a series of individual matches shot at the 1,000 yard line. The line hosts both a variety of both F class and sling shooters, including F-TR, F Open, Palma and Any Rifle classes, and has both Iron and Any Sight categories for sling shooters. In short, something for everyone.  And clearly, everyone was there. We had competitors from Canada, Brazil, Australia, Scotland, Ireland and several others on the line. The spirit of camaraderie on the line is amazing as people from all over the globe share their passion for precision shooting. Team matches are always an integral part in such shoots, and the Berger SWN is no exception. For these, the shooters are blessed (and sometimes cursed) with coaches to keep track of those tricky winds for them. Some of the shooting seen during these events was truly awesome, a fine example of team work and dedication to the game.

The shoot is capped off at the end of the week with an awesome feast, and an impressive awards ceremony. The Berger SWNs have become a solid part of the shooting circuit, as witnessed by the incredible array of equipment donated by the industry for the prize tables. It’s almost difficult to come to this match and not go home with something that more than covers your entry fees. All of this is thanks to the incredibly dedicated (and near Herculean) efforts of Michelle Gallagher, Mid and Nancy Tompkins and their talented (and apparently tireless) support crew.

Despite the ranges capacity of four-hundred shooters, the Berger SWN fills up fast. If you’d like to attend next year’s match, check for details on the Berger Bullets website, with their links to the Desert Sharpshooters site for match dates, fees and entry info. You won’t regret it, I promise!