Good-bye "Days of Truth"

The fourth European Western Shooting Championship called “Days of Truth” is just over. This year it was hosted by the Old West Shooting Society - SASS Italy - (www.owss.it) and carried out in the shooting range of Mazzano, Brescia, from August 20^th through August 26^th. The event has been possible also thanks to the contribution of some important national replica gun factories like  ARMI SPORT,  FAP F.lli PIETTA, A. UBERTI, PEDERSOLI, others important companies of the sector and some national institutional organizations like the Region of Lombardy. The seriousness with which the entire event has been organized and managed has made, if it had never been necessary, once more evident the high value of the Made in Italy. In this occasion, in the Brescia area, 17 Nations were present and paraded during the opening ceremony. Tuesday evening the “Western Shooting” Europe was joined together under a sole structure ; with the Italian anthem as background music a parade of men and women presented themselves to the onlookers carrying their own flags. This ceremony has been very touching. All the presents were touched more and more, as the flags paraded and were positioned to the center of the arena,in a semicircle. All the presentation was translated in 4 languages so that everybody could share the same feelings. At the end of the presentation, with shouts of joy and  flying hats, the competition and the dances officially started.

The five main days of the event have been organized in order to allow everybody, families too, to enjoy the stay in our country. Every morning, the Main Match started at 9:00 AM. The sixteen teams, composed by as many members, followed a very precise shooting plan. 60 minutes per group in order to shoot every exercise: 4 exercises per day for everyone. At 1:00 PM one started to see the first tired faces that approached next to the refreshment area, welcome by the food staff that fed us  for the entire event with many delicious courses. The afternoon was reserved to the onlookers and curious who came from the near provinces  to watch this large group of persons that seemed to be catapulted here from other times. In this kind of competitions, clothing is very important and therefore, careless about the hot weather of the Italian summer, everybody showed with vanity their own, late 19^th century, dresses .

A contest in the contest has been the costume contest: a parade of  epochal costumes where the most beautiful ones were rewarded with special pennants. Evenings were managed by the CMDJ association that with much professionality and patience, played with us, cowboys of the Old West. They have entertained us and cheered us with country music. Anchise Bolchi and the Redwoods group delighted all of us with beautiful  rhythms and notes. Excellent music, good food and a lot, a lot of beer. The key to allow all visitors to amuse themselves and have fun. In this competition something like 72,000  rounds were shot  but at a rough guess I could state that another 20,000 rounds were shot to allow everybody that was asking to try. In these days we had hosts from the near France too, last to join the Cowboy Action Shooting world. Their president, Mr Phil Couvreur, was accompanied by representatives of various French associations : it was delightful to always hear from their mouths one word only – Magnifique ! - This event, not only for the French people  but for everybody else, was unique and hardly repeatable. During the closing ceremony, I saw a lot of touched  people that just before leaving expressed us a strong desire and wish to still repeat this experience in Italy.

Thank you Italy, Thank you OWSS and good-bye on the shooting range.

Alchimista

SASS # 41531

Regulator and TG for Italy