{"id":8742,"date":"2011-02-23T11:50:53","date_gmt":"2011-02-23T17:50:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/?p=8742"},"modified":"2011-02-23T11:50:53","modified_gmt":"2011-02-23T17:50:53","slug":"sw%e2%80%99s-miculek-outguns-lopez-for-florida-open-wheelgun-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/sw%e2%80%99s-miculek-outguns-lopez-for-florida-open-wheelgun-title\/8742\/","title":{"rendered":"S&W\u2019s Miculek Outguns Lopez for Florida Open Wheelgun Title"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Photo by Stefan Wendland<\/p><\/div>\n

SEDRO-WOOLLEY, Wash. \u2014 Team Smith & Wesson\u2019s Jerry Miculek of Princeton, La. fended off top wheelgunners Ricardo Lopez of Ecuador, Cliff Walsh of St. Petersburg, Fla. and Matt Griffin of Louisville, Ky. to claim another revolver victory, this time at the popular U.S. Practical Shooting Association (USPSA) Florida Open Handgun Championship.<\/p>\n

Since 2003 the Florida Open revolver title have been claimed by either Walsh (2009, 2006-2003) or Lopez (2010, 2008, 2007), often with the other finishing second.<\/p>\n

This year however brought an appearance by Miculek who is the most accomplished revolver shooter of all time, but even for Miculek getting to the winner\u2019s circle meant getting past the defending champion.<\/p>\n

Both Lopez and Miculek swapped stage wins throughout the match with each claiming five. Lopez\u2019s win on the first stage gave him the early lead which lasted only through the second stage as Miculek claimed a win on it and the third.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Photo by Stefan Wendland<\/p><\/div>\n

The Ecuadorian quickly bounced back with a win on the fourth stage but still lagged behind Miculek due to a poor showing on the previous stage where he gave up nearly 34 points.<\/p>\n

Two more stage wins by Miculek, including one on the sixth stage where Lopez dropped another 37 points, put him in a comfortable lead.<\/p>\n

Lopez battled back winning his next two stages, the seventh and eighth, but was unable to gain back more than 21 points. The two exchanged wins on the last two stages with Miculek winning stage nine and Lopez stage 10.<\/p>\n

In the end, Miculek outpaced Lopez by a total of 39 points, posting a final winning score of 1511.8603 to Lopez\u2019s 1472.3141.<\/p>\n

\u201cRicardo\u2019s skills with a revolver are well respected in USPSA where he finished second to Jerry for the national championship in 2008. Their back-and-forth battle at the Florida Open was one of the most exciting of the match and Jerry once again demonstrated why he is the single best wheelgunner in the world. Of course, Ricardo has shown that if Jerry\u2019s not careful he\u2019ll be more than happy to take that title away,\u201d observed Michael Voigt, president of the U.S. Practical Shooting Association.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Photo by P. Erhardt<\/p><\/div>\n

Walsh, who finished second in 2010, placed third with a final 1303.6621 points. Griffin, another standout in USPSA revolver competition, claimed fourth with a score of 1288.5647, while John Rosado of Brazil rounded out the top five with 1005.6353 points.<\/p>\n

The USPSA Florida Open Handgun Championship was held this past weekend at the Universal Shooting Academy in Frostproof, Fla. and drew more than 365 top competition shooters, including competitors from Brazil, Canada, the Czech Republic, Ecuador, Norway, Russia, Serbia, the Slovak Republic and Spain.<\/p>\n

The next major match on the USPSA calendar is the 2011 Area 6 Regional Pistol Championship which will be held April 15-17 at the Universal Shooting Academy.<\/p>\n

For more information on upcoming matches<\/a>, or to become a member<\/a>, visit www.USPSA.org<\/a>. To join in on the conversation with other competition shooters follow @USPSA_Shooting<\/a> on Twitter, like USPSA on Facebook<\/a> or read the Practical Shooting blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Team Smith & Wesson\u2019s Jerry Miculek fended off top wheelgunners Ricardo Lopez, Cliff Walsh and Matt Griffin to claim another revolver victory, this time at the popular U.S. Practical Shooting Association Florida Open Handgun Championship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[116,1,9,6],"tags":[1515,1128,48,1541,1539,1540,54],"class_list":["post-8742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bloggers","category-featured","category-paul-erhardt","category-uspsa","tag-2011-florida-open","tag-cliff-walsh","tag-jerry-miculek","tag-john-rosado","tag-matt-griffin","tag-ricardo-lopez","tag-team-smith-wesson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}