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Sometimes a handshake is not quite enough. To seal the deal, our newest retail partner Varusteleka sent their CEO Jari Laine to compete in our annual Zombie-themed, 3 gun match.
This article appears in full on Varusteleka.com
It is interesting how random encounters lead to awesome outcomes. A few years back at Shot Show we met the crew from Hesco Armor and got to know each other. Last year, they invited us to participate in their Hesco Zombie Invitational 3-gun match. So we made a trade, that they send one warrior to take part in Finnish Brutality and we send our champion to their match. The challenge was accepted and Hesco participated in Finnish Brutality 2019, now was our turn to return the favor.
Zombie Invitational 3-gun match
The Zombie Invitational match is a semi-open 3-gun match with a twist: The back story draws influences from popular culture with a secret government project going haywire and zombie outbreak spreading at exponential speed. This translates into 3-gun set up in a challenging and funny way.
The match was held at an “undisclosed location" somewhere in the West Virginia hills. The location was spot-on with the theme and ranges varied from a normal flat range to shooting in actual forest and clearing a shoothouse of zombies. Distances to engage targets varied from a few meters all the way to 500 meters, which turned out to be fairly challenging, especially when zombies are best eliminated with a shot to the infected brain: an approximately four-inch (10 cm) circle.
The match was a pretty interesting combination of shooting challenges, some physical hurdles, and mind-games in a 3-gun context. Eliminating the “zombies” either required hit to the 4” steel or two to the body and one to the headbox with paper targets. The Hesco crew had really put some effort into the targets and there were quite many interesting setups, from falling zombies all the way to attacking targets. This really spiced up the experience.
"Green steel ringing.”
Compared to Finnish Brutality or Desert Brutality, the match was not that physical, but the shooting challenges were hard and par times were rather brutal. For example, making shots to unknown distances from 200-500m with an Eotech without a spotter was challenging, at least for me.
"Throwing a tomahawk in order to save ammo.”
Many of the participants were either active or retired military or law enforcement personnel, but there was a fair share of recreational shooters as well. The level of competitors was really good and shooters at the top of the ranking did a phenomenal job.
"Elevated positions and unknown distances caused some challenges to get hits.”
To express our gratitude to be able to participate, we crafted limited edition Terävä Skramas for the event with Zombie Invitational engraving. The lucky winners getting the blades were pretty happy with their extra capability to defeat zombie threats.
This match was one of the coolest I have ever shot. The stages were challenging, yet fun to shoot. The camaraderie and general feeling in the event were super positive and we had a good time while camping at the location. I certainly can draw some similarities between Finnish and Desert Brutality in this sense. All in all, a great event and hopefully we can be part of the Zombie Invitational 2020 as well.
Fruitful ground for Business
While we were having good times in a match, there was also an opportunity to do some business. Hesco Armor makes some really good armor plates and we managed to massage the details in place to get their plates in our assortment… So stay tuned for these goodies.
Read this article in full, including a list of gear used by Jari at the event at Varusteleka.com