Table of Contents

Extreme Shot Italia III

Extreme Shot Italia III Overview and videos of competitors’ strings can be found below.

The beautiful Sicilian hills were once again the backdrop of this 3rd Edition of Extreme Shot Italia III which saw numerous European shooters travelling to southern Italy between 4-8 October although many shooters arrived a few days before to make a short holiday in this lovely spot which happens to be highly touristic surrounded by a beautiful coastline that spans thousands of miles. Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean and enjoys a very active sport shooting scene, no surprise then that we’ve chosen this location for this ELR competition for 3 years in a row!

Getting here.

Driving down the southern coast is an amazing trip on a largely straight highway unless you take the winding roads across the coast line. Many of our friends and competitors took the ferry from Northern Italy which spans about a day to berth in Palermo the next day and then it was a short drive of about 40 mins to Trapani. The coastline is breathtaking with hills and high cliffs stemming out of the blue seas. Others had their firearms shipped from armouries in Northern Italy to Sicily so they could travel to Sicily low cost for about €50 trip plus car hire and accommodation.

We stayed in a traditional Agriturismo, a very localised stay in these quaint Sicilian ground floor accommodation typically surrounded by countryside, it reminded me of the Alamo waking up to see these beautiful hills in the distance. There are numerous options to choose from for all budgets mainly ranging from €70-€200 per night for the upper market stays. Villas are also available for rent if you want it a little bit more plush.

Documents

Europe has a firearm passport that is common to all EU members. Only this document and an invite is required to be able to travel across the EU borders. For other 3rd country participants, it is not a problem, if you are interested to come over, we can send you the required documentation and you may also come to this match next year.

We had a nice mix of nationalities showing up at Extreme Shot Italia III which shows that interest in ELR is spanning across various parts of Europe as well, Hurrah!

We also had a wide age range of competitors from those in their 30s to those in their 60s. This is a very inclusive sport which also included women participating. Lady Giulia Trevisan from Kahles was shooting her Ritter Stark rifle in 338LM.

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TARGETS at Extreme Shot Italia III

This is our playground in beautiful Sicily.

Here’s the targets that competitors had to Engage over the 3 days of Competition At Extreme Shot Italia III.

Cold bore Target at just over 500m, followed by Target 1 at 680m. How many do you think connected with their first plate even with their 338s?

Only 14% of shooters connected with the CB target which was some 15cm x 10cm.

Hit Statistics 680m

Target 1 had 41% hit rate on the first shot followed by 55% on shot 2 and 62% on shot 3.

HIT STATS 815m

Target 2 deep in the valley stood at 815m. At 4° Angle and verging on the open side of the valley, it presents a challenging target.

Shot 1 41% hit rate

Shot 2 59% hit rate

Shot 3 38% hit rate – Don’t take things fore granted!

HIT STATS 1200m

Target 3 at 1200m was probably one of the hardest targets at about 40x40cm or 15″x15″.

It lies at the crossroads and bang in the middle of the valley. Challenging winds and small targets make this a really challenging shot. BUT what a kick when you touch it more than once!

Still we saw a few manage 2/3 hits on this minute target.

STATS

Only 10% connected on first shot while 14% on 2nd shot and 24% on 3rd shot. That left many empty handed but it gave them an idea of what the wind was doing going in to target 4…

HIT STATS 1307m

Target 4 concluded day 1 of competition at 1307m. At 60x70cm it started to push the envelope but also reward those that impacted it with higher number of points. (distance x3 ,x2,x1= points at this stage)

Shot 1 – 14%

Shot 2 – 38%

Shot 3 – 52%

4 shooters hit this target 2/3 times.

Fabio Manganelli
Rosario Iacono
Bill Tatham
Rod Formosa

HIT STATS 1407m

Shot 1 – 3% hit ratio

Shot 2 – 14%

Shot 3 – 31%

Shot 4 – 21%

Shot 5 – 34%

Target 5,6,7 presented the competitors with 5 shots at 1400, 1500 and 1640m. This was massive in terms of points and kept competitors on the edge not knowing how it will turn out. Those few that managed multiple hits on the 1 mile targets really ran ahead of the others all of a sudden.

HIT STATS 1507m

Shot 1 – 10% hit ratio

Shot 2 – 31%

Shot 3 – 34%

Shot 4 – 28%

Shot 5 – 24%

HIT STATS 1640m – 1 Mile plate.

Remember these are for 29teams under timed conditions of 12mins.

Shot 1 – 14%

Shot 2 – 31%

Shot 3 – 41%

Shot 4 – 34%

Shot 5 – 48%

The one mile plate is 70x80cm. It saw some very close hits as well as some shooters who managed 3 or 4 hits at this distance out of 5 shots under competition conditions. The trick was that if you capture a wind condition, you had to run with it as fast as possible. Oh man if they did that! David REY form France as well as Steve Giannone, Bill Tatham and Rosario Iacono were such examples. This plate would then be engaged at 2000m again making the challenge even more intriguing.

HIT STATS 2000m FINALS

Shot 1 – 0%

Shot 2 – 20% (2 shooters)

Shot 3 – 10% (1 shooter)

Shot 4 – 30% (3 shooters)

Shot 5 – 20% (2 shooters)

Reigning Caliber at 2KM

Interestingly, the two shooters that hit the 2km plate at twice were shooting a 33XC, Bill Tatham and Godfrey Pisani as spotter and Oliver Saliba and Tony Zammit as spotter.

The other shooters that impacted the 2000m target were shooting 338Lapua Mag, DAvid Rey, Saro Iacono and David Marcore shooting Windcut Bullets.

Dope cards and plotting at Extreme Shot Italia III

Accurate note taking was the order of the day, simpler than an FClass plot sheet but the principles remain the same so if you can plot, you will feel at ease here.

Here are some Spy photos from the match, this is where its at.

LIVE COMMENTARY

We thank the participation of numerous commentators that participated at Extreme Shot Italia III to provide an educational background to this match. Among these Ales from Kahles, Fabrizzio Giuggia, Nicola Salvador from Armeria Regina, Rod Formosa from rifletalks.com, Bill Tatham from UK, Jay Dvorsky who connected live from Texas with us, Fabio Manganelli and Sario Iacono that provided this very interested running commentary.

WATCH FLY OVER THE RANGE WITH DRONE

This is the wrap up of these fantastic 5 days spent in the Sicilian hills championing ELR shooting in Europe. With over 35 Teams signed up, it was sure to be a good show here. We would like to thank our sponsors who enabled the LIVE STREAM of this match to our global audience hitting over 40,000 views over the 3 day weekend.

If you would like to see the full screen version we invite you to watch the videos on our facebook Page

FINALS of Extreme Shot Italia III

Bill Tatham + Godfrey Pisani

Rosario Iacono + Alfio Musumeci 2nd place string

REY David / FAURE Jean

Saliba Oliver + Tony Zammit

Monney Sylvain + Rey David

Steve Giannone + Fabio Manganelli

Berthet Olivier / Hauri Dominique

Marcore David / Roberto Buccolo WIND CUT BULLETS

Rod Formosa / Aquilina Robert

Aquilina Robert / Roderick Formosa

RIFLES AT EXTREME SHOT ITALIA III

By far the most popular caliber remains .338 with its various cartridge variations including 33XC showing up at Extreme Shot Italia III. Bill won with his 33XC followed by two other shooters in 338 Lapua Magnum.

Other calibers that keep showing up are 300PRC which had won the match last year driven by Fabrizio Giuggia, 33XC shot by atleast 3 competitors, 300Norma Magnum shot by atleast 2 competitors with a mix of other long range calibers like 300Win Mag, 7rem and 300WSM giving a really good show out to 1500meters. Bring what you have and shoot, that is the most important thing. Gege La Barbera did really well with his 300WSM on the 1500meter target. Gege can be seen below with his 300WSM that had just come back from Bisley UK!

He used his Fopen gun on a bipod. Numerous rifles of a semi custom nature showed up on the firing line mainly with custom barrels on factory rifles like Sako TRG42/ M10, RPA Rangemaster, Accuracy international AX, Ritter Stark, Barrett MRAD, VOERE x4 and similar rifles all sporting custom barrels of 30-33″ in length and faster twist rates to shoot heavier bullets and help transition into the transonic range.