MARK ETHERIDGE: A sport that’s worth a shot

Many South Africans end a year and see in the next with a bang in the form of fireworks but Hubert Montgomery ended his year on a bang of a different kind.

In December the Pretoria handgun ace was crowned Open Super Senior world champion at the 2022 International Practical Shooting Association (IPSC) Thailand World Championships in Pattaya.

The IPSC is the controlling body for a dynamic shooting sport active in more than 100 countries. World championships are held every three years and the next is to be held in SA in 2025.

Shooters are expected to be able to shoot from any distance between 3m and 50m, shoot while moving as well as engaging targets and steel plates that might also be moving. Courses of fire involve different starting positions, running, standing, kneeling, close targets, far targets, partial targets, penalty targets and moving targets. 

Multiple courses of fire comprise a match. Courses usually vary from eight rounds to a maximum of 32 rounds. Scores are calculated by dividing the points attained (minus penalties) by the time taken to complete a course of fire.

This approach allows a competitor to find his or her own level of competence. Of course, before that happens, said competitor, on his or her journey to perfection, will crash and burn repeatedly before discovering that one just cannot miss fast enough to win. Competitors also have to move, run up steps, go prone and shoot through small apertures, sometimes negotiate see-saws etc. 

Sebella O’Donovan, the SA Practical Shooting Association’s administration officer is also a participant at the highest level. At one World Shoot stage she started off seated in a little boat in a water-filled container and needed to stand up to engage the targets, which caused her to wobble a bit while shooting, due to the recoil.

While changing magazines she had to make sure her equipment did not fall into the water while aiming at the next target.

At the same World Shoot shooters had to start the stage on top of a double-decker bus and after engaging targets from the top, had to run down a narrow staircase to shoot the balance of the stage in the mud as it had also been raining.

No two courses of fire are ever the same and competitors are faced with constantly evolving targets and challenges.

O’Donovan added that every match, whether club, league or national event, is different and this is something that attract people to the sport as one is constantly challenged. Travelling with firearms brings its own headaches and a lot of paperwork is involved but sometimes you had to see that humour and handguns went hand in hand, usually due to strange airport rules, ignorant airport staff and paperwork issues.  

SA sent 60 national squad members to the Thailand IPSC World Championships 2022 and the squad punched well above their weight as their luggage on the way home included 22 medals.

Montgomery Sr grabbed three of those, as apart from the individual gold he was also part of the victorious open super senior team (with Kenny van der Merwe, Jan van den Berg and Imtiaz Mahomed Omarjee) that won gold overall.

For good measure, Hubert also won bronze with his son, Thomas, as the two teamed up to come third in the family team category. Hubert’s wife Hanlie is also an international class shooter.

As for Hubert, an electronic engineer by profession, he is humble, preferring to let his shooting do the talking. “I’ve always been interested in firearms and related activities and bought my first handgun back in 1979 while still a student. I used to read about ‘combat shooting’ in US shooting magazines and always wanted to try it.”

It was in 1994 that he and Hanlie joined an IPSC club in Pretoria and literally shot their way up through club, provincial, national and on to international level.

Clean match

Focusing on world champs, Hubert was hoping to be on the podium again, having taken silver in the senior category at a previous world championships. “I expressly tried not to look at interim results and just concentrated on the stages for each day ... in the past this has worked best for me.”

His goal was to shoot a “clean match” but even with his vast experience he admits to “stumbling slightly on day three” on which he picked up two penalties.

“It was a very difficult and challenging match but luckily for me most of my competition made more mistakes. It was a very tough match but these are the ones that you enjoy and remember forever — but I’m determined not to let it go to my head.”

Hubert’s road to gold was not straightforward and apart from regular cycling and gym sessions to keep in shape, involves shooting thousands and thousands of rounds. “In the lead-up to Thailand we trained twice a week [indoor range] and then at weekends on the outdoor range.”

Such high intensity training means he was firing off between 3,000-5,000 rounds a month. And this is not a cheap shot! Ammunition is expensive and Hubert says one is “essentially forced to load your own ammunition at home. With the right equipment this can be done safely and speedily, with the resulting costs being about R2 per round.”

One has to consider the cost of the firearm. “My current competition pistol is an STI pistol in calibre .38 Super Comp which has been extensively customised for my own use with a compensator, optical sight, competition trigger, etc. Both pistol and calibre have been specifically built for IPSC and optimised for the open division. The replacement cost for such a pistol is now between R80,000-R100,000.”

“It’s one of the attractions of the open division that there are very few restrictive equipment rules — in open division the only limitation to your performance is yourself.”

Hubert says his sport offers something to everyone, from juniors to seniors and super seniors. “It requires both physical and mental strength and combines the extreme focus needed for precision shooting with explosive physical movement and action — and every match is different, so it’s never boring or repetitive.” 

And he encourages youngsters to try their hand. “If you enjoy action video games, come and try IPSC, it is next level.

“Also, like any sport, it teaches many life skills, including concentration, reward for effort, and humility [when you lose].”

Hubert said he was satisfied with SA’s performance in Pattaya. “SA did very well, especially in the teams. That being said, we are still significantly behind the rest of the world’s top shooters. It was especially revealing to see just how much support the Thailand shooters [especially the upcoming juniors] received from their government.

“We can only hope that our shooters can one day also receive such support from our own government.”

Parting shot goes to the younger Montgomery, Thomas (34), himself a national champion since 2016. “I’ve never been so proud of my dad as I was in Thailand. I started going to the range with my dad when I was about 10. Seeing him stand on that podium meant that all those years of hard work were paying off.

“I hope to have my place in the sun one day but right now he deserves all the focus ... his victory is something very few of us have achieved in SA and we need to give credit where credit is due.”