Bianchi Cup

After many years of watching from the sidelines, I finally shot my first Bianchi Cup! Congratulations to Bruce Piatt for winning the cup! He was shooting in open division, which is pretty much the only way to win overall. Unlike USPSA, all divisions compete heads up at Bianchi. While Bianchi recognizes wins in other divisions, only the absolute top score can win the cup. Since Bianchi is typically won only with a perfect score, and often by X count, guns other than open are not really competitive.

In the picture above, you see Bruce shooting the mover with his highly customized, purpose-built Bianchi open gun. Note the wings for the barricade, the mover base for leads, and the prone pad for stability. The comp and optic function much the same as any other open gun, but the first three features define a Bianchi open gun. Capable of reliably shooting 1″ at 50 yards, few gunsmiths can build a functional Bianchi gun. Bruce does all his own gunsmithing and teaches gunsmithing if you are interested in learning.

AMU’s SSG Anthony Heinauer won the production optics division again, with a very impressive 1916. He was shooting a Walther Q5. Barricade buddy, Seiichi Ishikawa, came in second at 1910, shooting a practically stock S&W M&P. I managed to come in third place with 1891, shooting my trusty LTT P30L with a Trijicon SRO up top. I also managed to win a cup for 3rd Master, a class win that I was not expecting at all.

On day one of the cup, I managed to shoot a clean run on the practical and the plates, my first time doing either in competition. Shooting clean on the plates put me into the plate shoot-off, a new-to-me event where you shoot as many plates as possible in order to break the tie with other clean shooters. I ended up with 116 plates, placing fourth overall on that stage. On each run at the plates, the time drops by 1 second, which makes for some exciting shooting.

On day two of the match, I dropped 8 points on the mover and a whopping 21 points on the barricade. At least it won’t be hard to figure out what to practice now.

BTW, my LTT P30L now has 8545 rds through it in the 6 months since getting it. It has not bobbled once (excluding an incorrectly sized roll pin that was replaced early on) and it continues to shoot into 2″ for me at 50 yards prone. To test the gun and boost my confidence right before I shot the match, I fired 6 shots at 50 yards, offhand, into the 4″ X ring of a Bianchi target, DA/SA, DA/SA, DA/SA. I took my time, so it did not replicate match times, but it was confidence inspiring nonetheless.

Some interesting points came to me about shooting on demand and under pressure, but I’ll wait to put them into the upcoming post on those topics. In the meantime, come out and shoot Action Pistol! It will make you better. And…if you like prizes, the Bianchi Cup prize table was very deep and well stocked, with many guns and other goods available. So while the prize table is not a great reason to come out and shoot, it is a nice benefit for most people. So give it a try!