CZ Yearbook 2019 /eng

62 | | 63 ALL MY RIFLES ARE FROM UHERSKÝ BROD An interview with the current European Champion in Combined Game Shooting, Tomáš Staněk Tomáš Staněk is the new, very bright star of the CZ Shooting Team. In April 2018, this top long gun shooter became the Czech Champion in Combined Game Shooting and in the summer of 2018, he confirmed his great form by winning the European Championship where the whole Czech team shone. Can you tell us more about the individual shooting disciplines you do? I takepart in shotgundisciplines, namely skeet, trap and sporting, that is shooting at clay targets in open terrain; as well as in rifle disciplines. In this case, these include shooting from a prone position with two arms on the ground (fox), a standing posi- tion (boar), a standing position with the weapon either resting on one side of a post (deer) or resting on a stick (chamois), and also a running boar. In addition, I do longdistance game rifle, pa- per game targets as well as steel plate targets or gongs. Game shooting is basically the hunt- ing equivalent of some IPSC divisions. The gun usedmust be a hunting style gun, the targets resemble real animals and the numbered zones correspond with real hunting hits. Are you more of a hunter or a sporting shooter? Now that is a silly question (laughing loudly) ! If there were no hunters, there would be no sporting shooters. And vice versa, the sportsman in me gives the hunter assurance and peace of mind. They are two sides of the same coin, they cannot be separated. But Between 29 June and 1 July 2018, the 11th FITASC European Championship in Combined Game Shooting took place in Piancardato, Italy. The event, held at a beautiful shooting range, 170 km north of Rome, saw Czech shooters and Czech weapons do their very best. One of the shooters, Tomáš Staněk, amember of the CZ Shooting Team, gave a su- perb performance and became the European Champion. The success of our Czech rep- resentatives is well deserved, as the competition was very strong indeed and the condi- tions were definitely not easy. Not only did the event host the best shooters from Europe but the temperatures stayed around 40° C. The Championship consisted of two parts – a rifle event and a shotgun event, with the pos- sible overall score of 800 points. The shotgun event was split into four partswith 100points for each – twoCompak sportingparts and two Universal trenches. In the rifle event, 20 rounds were shot at fixed targets (deer, fox, cham- ois and boar) and another 20 at three static targets (deer, fox and chamois). The highlight came with shooting at one moving target (wild boar) at a distance of 50 metres. This discipline is con- sidered to be the most challeng- ing in the whole competition as it is nearly always the one that decides the final ranking. In the rifle event, all the Czech shooters used the CZ 527 Varmint in 222 Remington calibre. The best overall score was achieved by Tomáš Staněk f rom the CZ Shooting Team who was extremely delighted to become the new European Champion in combined game shooting , praising the Piancar- dato event: “I must say that this competition was the best Eu- ropean Championship I have ever experienced in my shoot- ing career, the organizers did a marvellous job. I am overjoyed to have come out on top and beat some serious rivals. It is my dream come true.” In the women category, the gold medal went to another Czech shooter, Michaela Šten- glová who also used the CZ 527 Varmint rifle. Piancardato saw the triumph of the whole Czech national team using CZ rifles, followed by the Austrians in second place and the Swedish team who came third. It is well worth mentioning that regard- ing the game rifle shooting, the Czech representative team have been unrivalled for f ive years. Such success has been significantly supported by spe- cial variants of hunting rifles, developed in CZ. Czech Triumph at the European Championship in Combined Game Shooting Combined Game Shooting It is an attractive sport disci- pline based on general hunting practices. Its uniqueness, as the name suggests, lies in the com- bination of shotgun shooting at clay targets and rifle shoot- ing at f ixed paper targets or a running boar paper target. Both Czech shooters and Czech guns have been at the Europe- an top for many years. I strive to give both as much as I can and do it as best as I can. Which CZ weapons do you use? All my rifles are from Uherský Brod. I have a CZ 550 in 308 Winchester, a CZ 557 in 6 mm XC – that is a special calibre for sports, with a fast bullet, suitable for shooting at a dis- tance of up to 1,000 metres. And of course, I also have a CZ 527 with which I won the Com- bined Game Shooting Europe- an Championship, this one is in 222 Remington calibre. They are rather less traditional shooting disciplines, how have you got into them? I have been shooting since I was small, at first with an airgun in the garden. My dad used to do sports shooting, so it was him who introduced me to it. And another good thing was that the local shooting range was barely 2 km f rom my house. I spent a lot of time there. As a hunter, I need to be able to hit a target, so I practiced and prac- ticed, until I learnt (laughing) . You and Martin Šlechta, an- other excellent shooter, joined the CZ Shooting Team at the beginning of 2018. How would you assess your first official season in CZ colours? It was a season which will be very diff icult to repeat. It was great, more than great. There is not much more to add, really. In summer 2018, you achieved excellent results in Combined Game Shooting in Piancardato, Italy, and became a European Champion. What were your feel- ings during the competition? It was nerve-wracking right up until the lastmoment, no doubt about that. But the main thing was that my body was hold- ing up, that my old neck injury didn’t rear its head. When your body bears up, a competition feels completely different. If you have to concentrate on your neck not hurting, you cannot fo- cus on shooting. And when you don’t focus, you don’t hit. Why is your rifle the best? Do you mean my CZ 527? It has a superb stock, tailor-made for me. It sits in the shoulder and I don’t have to look for the sight line. As soon as I put it in my shoulder, I have aimed. What is more, it has been made just so to be perfect for game shooting – it is held in a slightly different way than a classic hunting rifle, but this is an advantage in some disciplines. It alsohas a verygood and reliable trigger and great trigger travel. But above all, the barrel is just terrific – in 222 Rem- ington calibre, the barrel is a big thing. And also, I am used to it. All these little bits put together make one exceptional rifle that may even lead you to victory. Doyou remember your best shot? One best shot? Probably a fox at 520 metres, in winter, shoot- ing prone with a tripod. There are more good shots, maybe not loads, but definitely quite a few – and I hope more are still to come. But this take at a fox was quite possibly the best...