By Niels Sørensen, SDKSkyt, Frederiksberg
After three and a half Sundays at the shooting center in Hanebjerg, west of Hillerød, I can happily say that I have been through POMW III 😊.
The first three Sundays were 15, 22 and 29 September and the meeting time each day was no later than 07.30 and then we continued until 19.00. It was a long day, but fortunately the Danish autumn weather showed its best side all three days and offered lovely sunny weather and temperatures just below 20 degrees.
For the first Sunday, September 15, we had been given the task in advance in an email from Jens Hanshi-dai to make a shooting position that suited our height when we sat on a chair with the correct shooting position on top of the shooting sock.
Good then 😊 I can solve that task; I did the measurement at home on my dining table, and then I wrote down, and then took bus 1a out to Jem & Fix on Gammel Køgelandevej and bought some flamingo plates, and some glue that I had read up on the internet was suitable for gluing flamingo plates together with. When I got home I cut the flamingo sheets to the appropriate sizes and glued them together and it worked fine. So with my self-made shooting setup, I got up at 05.30 on Sunday 15 September, took the car to Hanebjerg and was ready.
POMW III – first day
The first day started well with the purchase of ammunition for cal. 0.22 and 9 mm and then important information and instructions from Kimu Sensei, who particularly emphasized the need for maximum safety. Violation of the safety rules would result in a DQ and 3 DQs would result in expulsion, which after all meant failing POMW III. And yes - because it is true that firearms are intended to kill people and are therefore extremely dangerous, so safety in dealing with them must be top notch. We were then also told that this sixth round of POMW III would be the last, but on the other hand, POMW I-II would run every two years.
Then we started shooting sitting with the 22 at 25 meters and it was fun to shoot with the 22, even if it doesn't give at the doors. I really appreciated a little assistance from Kjeld Renshi during the shooting and, moreover, my respect for some absolutely eminent shooters on the team. In addition to shooting, there was also time for a little chat when it was time for the instructors to shoot, and for this the instructors had provided pastry sticks and Helene had brought home-baked cake, and many thanks to Helene for this 😊
After the sitting shooting, there was standing shooting and the day ended with taking the guns apart and cleaning them.
POMW III – Second day
The second day followed a bit of the same recipe, but now it was also about us becoming more self-reliant in gun handling. We also got to shoot more with 9 mm and here I found that loading a 9 mm magazine was somewhat more demanding than loading the 22, and could well hurt the fingers a bit, and be an alternative nail clipper 😊.
We also had to learn to handle the nine's somewhat more potent recoil. Otherwise, part of the day was spent with useful instructions on the correct firm grip, correct aim and use of the aiming devices and correct trigger to prevent the gun from oscillating. Also second day ended with cleaning guns and magazines.
POMW III – Third day
On the third day, we had to shoot a lot with the nines, but we started with the 22s, and then moved on to the nines. Actually, we should have been over something called the hole, where you can shoot at long distances, but for various reasons this could not be done. Instead, we came outside the shooting house and set up on the grass of the shooting range and shot at short distances and finally we shot at targets that were something different - so-called IPSC targets and they didn't have a black spot in the middle, but were just cardboard- colored. The short distances, as far as I remember 7, 12 and 15 meters suited me very well, so it was a bit of a celebration for me to get out on the lawn. I have to admit that I came to really like shooting with 9mm 😊.
In connection with 9mm shooting, some of us were introduced to a whole new discipline – being range chickens. In its simplicity, it involves picking up discarded cartridge casings from the lawn and putting them in a bucket, because the metal can be recycled. However, it should only be those from 9mm ammo, not the many 22s and a few larger casings, probably from caliber 0.365 magnum, which were also lying around - Dirty Harry had obviously also been by.
Then Kimu Sensei announced who had passed POMW III and pictures were taken. Then we finished cleaning guns again.
Rounding off
The final last Sunday, October 6th, did not start until 11.30 and consisted of sitting and standing shooting with both 22s and nines. All in all, it was a super good and very comprehensive course, and it's both fun and a bit borderline to have learned how to handle a serious and deadly firearm like a 9mm pistol.
Be that as it may, I am looking forward to following up on upcoming practice shootings at Tapeten in Ballerup and hopefully at Hanebjerg this summer. POMW III is over. Big thanks to Kimu Sensei and the instructors, who I can calculate, without knowing the details, have put in a huge amount of work and must have spent a lot of hours on the project.
