First international T-Class shooting sport competition

The biggest for now and the first international T-Class competition was completed on 28-30th September, 2018 at the “Slivnitsa” Military Range. It was administered by the International T-Class Confederation (ITCC) and was conducted in the Republic of Bulgaria.
The efforts of the Bulgarian T-Class Federation (BTCF) along with the invaluable help from representatives of the Bulgarian Armed Forces have led to yet another great success in the development of the T-Class shooting sport.

This was the eighth competition in the BTCF calendar for 2018, but apart from all previous events, this time there were participants from various countries, a total of 27 teams i.e. 54 competitors. The largest foreign group were the 6 teams from the Russian Federation, there were also two teams from Ukraine, one team from Lithuania and one team from USA. It is not very often for participants in applied shooting disciplines from USA and Russia to compete together, but such an event has happened – in Bulgaria! Even more surprising was the fact that one of the American contestants was an acting senator.

The competition was conducted in the discipline T-Class Tactical Sniper and according to the T-Class Set of Rules variation – TeamWork. This means that every team consists of two competitors who will approach and compete together at their own judgement all the various challenges and shooting drills, while helping each other. The team as a whole will participate in the scoring process and the final rankings. The competition itself was conducted continuously for two days and consisted of various drills and stages of static and dynamic precision shooting from all kinds of shooting positions.

The design of the stages was carefully planned in order to test all the skills and experience of the precision rifle shooters, by placing them in different, realistic and hard scenarios: precision shooting at paper targets from stable and unstable positions, shooting from barricades, windows, platforms imitating helicopters, shooting in stressful circumstances under time limitations, shooting from various distances – from 10 to 1000 meters in constantly changing environmental factors and especially wind variations up to 7-8 m/s, during daylight as well as during the night.

The shooting drills during the night time have made a huge impression on the competitors. These drills involved the so called “smart-target” systems, which were invented and developed solely by the BTCF. These systems can offer limitless possibilities for realization of all kinds of shooting scenarios, without limitations of distance and time. Eventually, very attractive shooting stages in full darkness were completed and the culmination was laid down with shooting at a moving target from 400 meters, during the night.

This competition could not have been organized without the help from representatives of the Bulgarian Armed Forces. They have repeatedly shown their understanding about the cooperation between civilian and military structures, which leads to greater benefit and has mutual potential. The start of the competition was announced by the Deputy Chief of Staff Bulgarian land force command – Col. Deyan Deshkov, and the closing ceremony was conducted by the Commander of the Special Operation Forces – Brigade General Yavor Mateev.

The timely input and calculation of the results is always a challenge in such great competitions. For this purpose, ITCC has its own specially designed and developed online software system, which significantly boosts up the process and provides instant result calculations, while every participant and observer can monitor the temporary rankings online and in real time during the course of the competition. This accomplishment has no comparison in the field of the shooting sports worldwide.

The competition was conducted in two divisions. The winners are:
Division “Bolt Action”:
First place – Valerii Shits and Aleksandr Kravtsov, FVSR, Russia
Second place – Aleksandr Litvinenko and Sergei Pomoshnikov, FVSR, Russia
Third place – Ivan Terziev and Kiril Balabanov, BTCF, Bulgaria
Division “Semi Auto”:
First place – Petar Dabov and Vasil Hlebarski, “68 Brig, SF”, Bulgaria
Second place – Aleksei Dubrovin and Andrei Osnovskii, FVSR, Russia
Third place – Maksim Kadantsev and Sergei Maslov, FVSR, Russia

The prizes were awarded by Brigade General Yavor Mateev.
Complete rankings and all scoring information is available in the ITCC online scoring system platform.

This competition proved to be the next step in the growing popularity of the T-Class shooting sport internationally, which provokes unexpected interest by even the most conservative communities like those in the field of precision shooting.

Official sponsors of the competitions were Aleksis optics and VIP complex.