30th NRA Bianchi Cup
19-23 May 2009
Matthew Harriman tackles the Practical event with
his STI 1911 in .38 Super.
The SSAA contingent to the 2009 NRA Bianchi Cup:
Lee Webb, left, Craig Ginger, Richard Siebert, Darryl
Carnicelli, Allan Harriman and Matthew Harriman.
The SSAA gold team of Lee Webb, left, Craig
Ginger and Darryl Carnicelli. The 30th anniversary of the Bianchi Cup was held this year from May 19 to 23 in Columbia, Missouri, USA. The SSAA entered two teams in the competition, which finished a respectable third and fifth place out of the 13 teams entered, some being professional shooting teams.
For the anniversary year, a Nostalgia match was held on the proceeding Monday. This was for modern production pistols and included the use of 1911-style pistols in .45-calibre only, being the original self-loading pistols used at the Cup. The Nostalgia match attracted 52 entries, which is a good accomplishment for a one-off event.
Tom Hughes of the NRA said, “The NRA are happy to put on the Nostalgia match to return to the roots of Bianchi Cup of 30 years ago. We see this as a good opportunity for competitors and spectators to see how the Bianchi Cup started. The Nostalgia match puts a highlight on the new Production match, which is basically the original firearm used in the match of 1979.”
This year also saw the introduction of a separate National Title for Production pistols in the Bianchi Cup. Mr Hughes said, “The new division is designed to grow the grassroots of NRA Action pistol and attract new individuals to shoot at their local clubs and associations with their ‘out of the box’ production pistols.”
The introduction of the Production title dove-tails with the efforts of the SSAA over the past three years, which has included a Production title in the Australian Nationals with first place receiving a Smith & Wesson pistol, generously donated by Grycol in Sydney.
The 2009 NRA Bianchi Cup was won by Bruce Piatt with a score of 1920 181x, which was literally decided on the last target shot by second placegetter and previous 11-time winner Doug Koenig with a score of 1920 177x. This is Bruce’s seventh win at Bianchi and follows on from his success at the World Shoot in 2006 at Blacktown in Sydney.
The Metallic Sight division was strongly contested, as usual, with the eventual winner being Rob Leatham with a fantastic score of 1909 145x.
Lee Webb won the Barricade event after shooting off with three other shooters including Doug Koenig. Unfortunately, Doug forgot to put his mover mount back to the middle before shooting. The other two competitors Kevin Angstat and Luca Wogname could not match Lee’s perfect 12x from 12 shots.
The Inaugural Production title was won by a Bianchi Cup debutant Dave Sevigny with a score of 1806 101x. Dave is a very accomplished Practical Pistol shooter, winning many National Production titles, and is also a winner in the Steel Challenge US Nationals.
The Ladies event was won by Julie Golob with a score of 1907 138x. This is Julie’s second Bianchi Cup title and she has also won seven National Ladies titles for Practical Pistol.
The SSAA gold team of Craig Ginger, Lee Webb and Darryl Carnicelli all shot solid scores to finish in third place against the much-fancied professional shooting teams of the US and finished in front of all the international teams entered. This is a great result for the guys.
The SSAA silver team of Richard Seibert, Matthew Harriman and Allan Harriman finished fifth in the teams event, also in front of the international teams.
Individually, SSAA members finished strongly, with a number of personal achievements. Craig Ginger (NSW) was the first overall in the Falling Plates with a score of 480 and 116x and third in International. Lee Webb (NSW) was the first overall in the Barricade event after a five-way shoot-off. Matthew Harriman (NSW) placed second in the Junior event, while Zeljko Cvetnic (Vic) placed first in the Revolver and second in the International events.
by Allan Harriman
| Results | |||
| Pos. | Name | Score | x |
| 1 | Bruce Piatt | 1920 | 181 |
| 2 | Doug Koenig | 1920 | 177 |
| 3 | John Pride | 1920 | 168 |
| 8 | Zelkjo Cvetnic | 1916 | 155 |
| 10 | Craig Ginger | 1911 | 169 |
| 11 | Darryl Carnicelli | 1911 | 158 |
| 19 | Richard Seibert | 1908 | 142 |
| 32 | Lee Webb | 1898 | 155 |
| 35 | Allan Harriman | 1896 | 151 |
| 36 | Matt Harriman | 1895 | 149 |
| 40 | Brent Lasslet | 1892 | 137 |
| 41 | Les Clark | 1891 | 148 |
| 44 | Don Cashmore | 1885 | 141 |
| 54 | Dave Duprez | 1872 | 137 |
| 66 | Peter Williams | 1860 | 139 |
| 68 | Kevin Bostridge | 1857 | 122 |
| 74 | Dennis Millar | 1848 | 121 |
| 86 | Jason Kukura | 1804 | 123 |
| 89 | Frank Tait | 1792 | 136 |
| 117 | Bob Jones | 1662 | 92 |