Defending champ Koenig off to strong Bianchi Cup campaign

Koenig shoots near-perfect Practical but not on leaderboard yet

Columbia, Missouri – Scores are out for the first day of shooting at the MidwayUSA & NRA Bianchi Cup and they’re… not too surprising. Defending Champion Doug Koenig leads the Practical Event with a 480-45x, three x-ring hits short of a completely perfect score.

But Koenig is not in the overall lead due to the way the Bianchi Cup is shot. Because there are so many competitors, no one can get through the four core events in one day. For instance, yesterday Koenig shot Practical, while today he will do Barricade and Falling Plate before wrapping up with Moving Target on Friday.

Most shooters’ schedules look like this, but obviously not everyone shoots two events today. Some went through two events yesterday and, as a result, have higher total aggregates than one-event shooters like Koenig.

Here’s what the Practical Event looks like after the first day:

2013 Practical Event

1 Doug Koenig 480-45x
2 Kyle Schmidt 480-42x
3 Kevin Angstadt 480-41x
4 Bruce Piatt 480-40x
5 Carl Bernosky 480-36x

This isn’t to say that that the shooters currently at the top are not good. These guys are all maxed out in points and are doing their jockeying though x’s. The leaderboard will continue to shift over the next couple days as every shooter slowly completes the four events, but don’t be surprised to see some of these shooters back near or at the top when everything’s done.

But while the final results are likely to come down to looking at the number of x’s a shooter has, a single slip-up can throw them far down the list and out of contention.

This is the total aggregate’s leaderboard from Day 1:

1 Karl Piper 960-94x
2 Bruce Piatt 960-88x
3 Mickey Fowler 960-66x
4 Steve Weathersby 958-91x
5 Geoffrey Matthews 958-71x