TFB Report: IPSC Rifle World Shoot III - 2024
For over a week, the IPSC Rifle World Shoot III 2024 has been going on in northern Finland. The location was the new and enormous Ruutikangas shooting range, situated near Oulu. Over 840 competitors and Range Officers participated in this huge event, with over 5 days of shooting and 30 challenging stages. As could be expected, Finland offered a match with rifle-long distances, and a lot of free-handed shooting. If you weren’t moving, the targets often did. There was not a lot of shooting on the move, and most of the time the stage was built so that you could not use a support or a long bipod. And if you did, you ran into other disadvantages later in the stage.
TFB was of course there to cover the event, although my main focus was to try to win some kind of medal again.
Here is most of Team USA.
With some familiar faces:
The opening ceremony is an important event, where new and old faces meet. It looks like the next generation is looking forward to this as well.
This was my third IPSC Rifle World Shoot. Previously I have been shooting Manual Action Open in Russia and Sweden, and ended up with two individual medals and one team gold. This year I switched to the Semi-Auto Open, in the Swedish senior national team.
Below: My OD Green JP Rifles CTR-02 since 14 years, chambered in .223 Wylde with a Zeiss 1.1-8x in a Spuhr mount. The rifle had zero malfunctions, which is more than I can say of my own performance with 5 misses. But as long as I shoot as fast as my reticle tells me, I hit what I aim at. Eventually, I ended up in 20th place, among 159 seniors. Not great, not terrible.
Finland - The Ruutikangas Shooting Range
It’s pretty impossible to explain the size of the new Ruutikangas shooting range, which is supposed to be a new Finnish national arena for over 10 shooting sports. With over 200 hectares or almost 500 acres, there are enough bays for almost any kind of competition. This is stage 9, a long course with distances up to around 300 meters. It required a minimum of 40 rounds to complete. The scoring was done by new electronic Kongsberg targets.
With the Kongsberg system, you get immediate results and scoring. Here’s what 5 misses look like. Gone in the wind? This shooter still ended up on the podium, so many competitors had issues. Note that in IPSC, precision is very important. You need two A hits for a full score, and C and D hits quickly deteriorate your results.
Below: Stage 30, with some more long-range shooting from a table and the ground.
Stage 10: A medium-sized stage with a variety of targets between 8 to 65 meters, and one of the few no-shoot targets (brown).
Below: There were a lot of discussions about stage 7, with the moving “moose”. “After the start signal, engage all targets. Button activates moving targets T1,T2,T3,T4 once, which are disappearing targets. Moving target T5 is activated by targets T1-T4, and it will remain visible at rest.” Distance to targets about 70 meters. I managed to get 7 out of 10 possible hits. Note the brown “no shoot” in the middle, which you really want to avoid hitting.
Below: People from all around the World gather to compete in some of the most advanced rifle shooting. Here’s the Swiss Dynamic Shooting Team.
Below: Stage 8. Johan Hansen from the Swedish national team finished ended up in third place, after Jerry Miculek and Todd Jarrett in the Super Senior category.
Below: Shoot Off - Jerry Miculek and Todd Jarrett in the Super Senior category
Below: Reanna Kadic in the Shoot Off. She finished second in Semi Auto Standard Lady.
Below: After all was done and dusted, Kyle Litzie from the USA became the new World Champion. This is an image from the Shoot Off. Some of the competitors chose to compete standing instead of lying down (which is faster and easier).
Below: Semi Auto Open World podium. Kyle Litzie (USA), Eirik Larsen (Norway/Team H&K) and Raine Peltokoski (Finland).
Below: Raine Peltokoski also won the senior category. Here with Jarko Laukia (Finland) and Kjetil Edvardsen (Norway/Team H&K).
Below: Manual Action Bolt (Senior) - Esa Laine (Finland), Dan Liljeström (Sweden) and Ioannis Kouletsis (Greece).
Below: The Semi Auto Open ladies' teams, with USA, Finland and Sweden.
Overall it was a great experience to participate in this IPSC Rifle World Shoot III. If you weren’t there, you missed something - even the weather liked us! A huge thanks to all the people who made this happen and made it such a great event for the competitors, especially the range officers (IROA/NROI), helpers, builders and organizers. Without you, it would never be possible.
TFB still has plenty of images left to share, especially from the Shoot Off, and we also plan to interview some of the top shooters over a period of time. We also have some interesting firearms to show off, as used by the competitors. Please stay tuned!
It’s of course impossible to cover everything from a huge event like this, but all of the Final Results can be found here:
Semi Auto Open - Semi Auto Standard - Manual Action Contemporary
IPSC Rifle World Shoot III 2024 homepage. https://2024rws.worldshoot.org/
Ex-Arctic Ranger. Competitive practical shooter and hunter with a European focus. Always ready to increase my collection of modern semi-automatics, optics, thermals and suppressors. TCCC Certified. Occasionaly seen in a 6x6 Bug Out Vehicle, always with a big smile.
More by Eric B
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