17 August 2019 – Northern Ireland Shotgun Open

Update on 27 November 2018

The Cuan DSRC match organising committee has taken the decision not to run a L3 shotgun event in 2019. We would like to thank the event’s supporters and explain the circumstances of this difficult decision while outlining what we propose to do throughout 2019 to work towards the event’s return in 2020. The decision to cancel was influenced by two factors:
1. When we approached NI’s Regional Director for permission to use the National Championship title in 2019 (as we did in 2017 and 2018) he said that he found it very hard to justify the National Championship tag with so few local entries.
2. The unusually dry weather in 2018 has driven the cost of hay bales up and made availability more difficult. We require over 200 large bales to make the dividing walls between bays and the budget on this increased cost basis would require a growth in entry revenue. We are concerned that achieving sufficient growth would be difficult without the draw of a National Championship to entice new local entrants. Without the increased expenditure we would have proceeded with plans to run a Northern Ireland Open event.

We are acutely aware of the time pressure created by the need to give our international competitors a reasonable lead time to organise logistics and permits, with this in mind we feel that the window of opportunity for our 2019 Level 3 plan has passed.

The organising team have decided to shift all efforts for one year towards running a series of L2 events in collaboration with other clubs around the country in order to encourage grass roots growth in shotgun within Northern Ireland and in doing so hopefully address our RD’s concerns about local participation before we return to running a L3 in 2020. A combination of feedback from competitors in previous events and a high level of interest from international competitors means that we are very keen to get the L3 up and running again as soon as we have taken these steps for a year to grow the local audience.

Finally, to the crew and competitors who will be disappointed, we want to offer an apology for 2019 while assuring you that every effort will continue to be made in order to get this event running again.

Main-match Saturday 17th & Sunday 18th August 2019

Pre-match Thursday 15th & Friday 16th August 2019

18 stages / approx 250 rounds of birdshot (fibre wad only)

Location – Scarva, County Down, Northern Ireland – less than 1 hour from both Belfast airports and the ferry port, 90 mins from Dublin airport.

  • REGISTER – opens 12th November 00:01 GMT
  • PAY by Paypal – £95 if paid in 2018
  • SELECT A SQUAD (after payment) – find friends on Competitor List
  • ORDER MATCH AMMO (coming soon) – ammo collected at match, pre-order essential
  •  GALA DINNER & AWARDS CEREMONY TICKETS (coming soon)
  • DOWNLOAD letter of invitation as .docx if you need one for travel

PAYMENT – early bird offer

Early Bird Price – £95 if you pay before the end of 2018

Standard price – £120 for anyone who pays in 2019

STAGES

Competitors commented very favourably about the stages last year and we are absolutely determined to take this important aspect of the match to even greater heights for the 2019 event. Some previews will follow on our Facebook feed. Please bear in mind that the evil genius who gave us the 0.9 second exposure on 4 targets is now the Match Director!

Our promise to you – the 2019 event will be a match with an even better mix of run & gun stages, fast stages, technical stages and something to test competitors of all abilities.  You can expect a match run to a very high standard and stages with a blistering pace!

Watch a movie of the 2018 event here – NI L3 2018

The event has a Facebook page here which includes a thread to help organise sharing rental cars and hotels – www.facebook.com/NISGL3/

Gala Dinner

There will be a Gala Dinner and Awards Ceremony on Sunday the 18th August, the last day of the Main Match – details to follow. Please consider staying for this when making your travel and accommodation arrangements.

Fancy a bit of tourism? – Discover Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is a great place for a holiday with something for everyone – great countryside, interesting history, lots of activities and a welcome for visitors which is famous all over the world. If you are travelling to the match it’s a great opportunity to stay a little longer and sample what’s on offer. If you want some ideas we are happy to help and will be posting some suggestions on the Facebook feed.

Accommodation

Local hotels include:

www.bannvillehouse.co.uk  www.downshirearmshotel.com www.belmontbanbridge.co.uk

There are also lots of other places to stay in close proximity to the event with something to suit all budgets. Please centre your search on Scarva village to stay as close as possible – booking.com

Volunteers / Pre-Match

Entry into the pre-match is restricted to crew and sponsors, if you would like to volunteer please register in the pre-match and send your details on this contact form  – qualified IPSC ROs who work at the match do not pay an entry fee.





    Opportunities for Sponsors and Exhibitors

    If you have a company with products or services which are relevant to IPSC Shotgun competitors you can get exposure to international shooters at our event. If you want to discuss the opportunities please get in touch using this form:




      Northern Ireland Visitor’s Permit for shotguns

      GB visitors:

      You do not need a visitors permit, this changed in 2017, your GB licence is all you need to come here.

      Visitors with a permit issued by any other country outside the UK:

      1. Please download both pages of the visitor’s permit form on this link – VISITORS PERMIT N.I.

      2. Complete the form and scan it

      3. Scan ALL the pages of your Firearm Permit (European Permit or the Licence issued in your own country if not in EU), PLEASE NOTE ALL PAGES, EVEN BLANK PAGES from your permit are required, if you miss a page the application will be returned by our police licencing dept

      4. Email all the scans to – shotgun.ipscni@gmail.com

      NOTE – We will make a group application for everyone who sends paperwork before 1st March 2019 and the match will pay for these permits, individual costs will apply after that point and applications made much after May are at risk of being too late due to holiday period.

      Firearm Laws to consider in Northern Ireland include:

      Barrels under 24″ in length are prohibited. There are no magazine capacity restrictions.

      Travel advice

      In our experience the best value flights into Belfast are often with Easyjet and adding a shotgun is a simple part of their online booking process. The best price is usually found when you book about 6 months in advance but bargains can also be available on short notice bookings. Easyjet fly into Belfast International Airport. There are two airports in Belfast and the other one is called Belfast City Airport, please be aware of this when booking a hire car. Here are the airports which have direct flights to Belfast International with Easyjet:

      • Alicante ALC, Spain
      • Amsterdam AMS, Netherlands
      • Barcelona BCN, Spain
      • Birmingham BHX, United Kingdom
      • Bordeaux BOD, France
      • Bristol BRS, United Kingdom
      • Dubrovnik DBV, Croatia
      • Edinburgh EDI, United Kingdom
      • Faro FAO, Portugal
      • Geneva GVA, Switzerland
      • Glasgow GLA, United Kingdom
      • Ibiza IBZ, Spain
      • Jersey JER, United Kingdom
      • Krakow KRK, Poland
      • Lanzarote (Arrecife) ACE, Spain
      • Liverpool LPL, United Kingdom
      • London Gatwick LGW, United Kingdom
      • London Luton LTN, United Kingdom
      • London Stansted STN, United Kingdom
      • Lyon LYS, France
      • Majorca (Palma) PMI, Spain
      • Malaga AGP, Spain
      • Manchester MAN, United Kingdom
      • Newcastle NCL, United Kingdom
      • Nice NCE, France
      • Paris Charles de Gaulle CDG, France
      • Reykjavik (Keflavik) KEF, Iceland
      • Split SPU, Croatia

      Flying via Dublin Airport

      Anyone flying into Dublin (or travelling via any Republic of Ireland airport or ferry port) will need a Transit Permit from the Department of Justice in Dublin in order to pass through Ireland.

      This covers firearms but NOT ammunition and this a major part of our reason for limiting the ammo to birdshot for this match. We have contacted the Dept so they are aware of the competition and they said group applications would be helpful, with all shooters from each country submitting together. This is not mandatory but it would help them which makes it easier for them to help us!

      The process is explained here and it is free of charge – IRL DOJ Forms

      There is a link on that page to download the form you require to apply. Please make sure to do this in plenty of time.

      General Notifications:

      All ammunition must be fibre wad due to environmental considerations at the venue.

      Entry payments are non-refundable but can be transferred to another competitor at any time up to the day before the pre-match begins.

      The match calibration ammunition will be Cheddite Universal Trap 28g fibre wad No.7 ½.

      Competitors from Northern Ireland please note:

      The eagle eyed among you may have noticed that the published match name is different from 2017 and 2018 when it was ‘The Northern Ireland Shotgun Championship’, we wanted to explain this for your benefit. The match organisers have contacted the NI Regional Director and offered to facilitate a National Championship event within the match in 2019, as we did in previous years. The RD’s initial comment was that not many NIR competitors entered last year and this may be considered insufficient for a national championship. The match organising team’s perspective remains that the event is open to everyone who meets the IPSC criteria to compete and anyone from NI can enter if they wish. The RD has agreed to consult with his fellow committee members before making a definitive decision. This information will be updated when we receive the RD’s final decision, in meantime we could not delay opening the entries, hence the name ‘Northern Ireland Shotgun Open’.

      Please note that this has no bearing on the running of the event, it simply means that there may or may not be a section of the award ceremony with prizes specific to NIR registered competitors.