The main match runs over two days, letting competitors split the stages. I was shooting the pre-match, all stages in one day with minimal breaks. Looking back, I’m not sure splitting it would have helped. What definitely affected me was the lack of rest between kettlebell drills.<\/p>\n Six full-size steel targets, three positions, trip mines connected to training grenades, and ammo cans to carry between positions. Trip a wire and you’d have to stop and apply a tourniquet to your leg.<\/p>\n This was my first time shooting the rifle, and honestly, it was pleasant. I kept the sling tight to avoid sweeping the wires. Moving the cans required careful footwork. I had some close calls but didn’t trip any mines.<\/p>\n Result: 38.09 seconds (27th place)<\/strong><\/p>\n Start in a hatchback, pistol holstered and chamber empty, rifle on the passenger side. Engage steel plates, throw a training grenade into the adjacent car, crawl through with all your kit, climb onto a car bonnet for fast steel transitions.<\/p>\n I forgot to turn on my red dot. The pistol shots from inside the car gave me temporary tinnitus in my right ear. I also misunderstood the brief twice, shot single sets when I needed doubles, costing me valuable time. Timed out with two shots remaining.<\/p>\n Result: 160 seconds, 24th place<\/strong> (many others timed out too)<\/p>\n Three rifle shots with two reloads on a mini paper target, then multi-stars, Polish rack, and Texas star with pistol only.<\/p>\n I was happy here. All rifle hits on target plus the bonus. The pistol took some adjusting, but I worked through the stars methodically.<\/p>\n Result: 68.24 seconds, 11th place<\/strong><\/p>\n Six steel targets from ground level, climb the scaffolding frame, repeat from the top, then shoot a swinger with the pistol to cycle it over.<\/p>\n The scaffolding was wobbly, which made me cautious. The swinger technique, accelerating its momentum by shooting in its direction of travel, worked well.<\/p>\n Result: 17.10 seconds, 11th place<\/strong><\/p>\n This is why they call it “brutality.”<\/p>\n Shoot a steel target at 150m through a tiny slit that forces a near 90 degree shooting angle. Then run down, grab a 20kg kettlebell, carry it back up to a platform, drop it in a tire, and repeat until time runs out.<\/p>\n My zeroing shot helped me nail the holdover. After that, I was hitting one-for-one, which sounds good until you realise it meant I spent more time moving than resting. I was getting properly angry that I wasn’t missing.<\/p>\n Result: 60 seconds (after 120-second bonus), 16th place<\/strong><\/p>\n This stage nearly killed me. Heart racing, completely gassed. My shooting skills saved me because my fitness certainly didn’t.<\/p>\n Yes, a zipline. Not timed, just a fun way to get the blood pumping before the actual stage.<\/p>\n Once I extricated myself from the zipline (with help from what felt like the entire village), the stage involved shooting tiny plastic targets, moving a heavy dummy onto a pallet, and engaging a Texas star and Polish rack.<\/p>\n Result: 19.19 seconds, 4th place overall<\/strong><\/p>\n Only three people from the main match beat me. I’ll take that.<\/p>\n Strong hand and weak hand shooting while holding a 10kg kettlebell in the off hand. Should have been manageable.<\/p>\n It wasn’t. I completely fell apart. Missed shots I shouldn’t have missed, hit no-shoots, and generally had my head on backwards. Using a red dot should have been practically cheating, yet here I was, struggling.<\/p>\n Result: 292 seconds, 47th place<\/strong><\/p>\n Let’s move on. This is painful to relive.<\/p>\n A series of obstacles while shooting rifle at tiny plates and pistol at hanging steels.<\/p>\n I was exhausted from the previous stages and took it at a sensible pace. The tires were pathetically difficult for me; the tunnel was easier. I slid through like a beached whale.<\/p>\n Result: 153.06 seconds, 12th place<\/strong><\/p>\n Move a cart between shooting positions using a ratchet crank set to maximum torque. Shoot hanging plates at each position.<\/p>\n The crank made your arms feel like jelly before shooting. I should have used the cart to support my rifle. Lesson learned.<\/p>\n Result: 32.03 seconds, 17th place<\/strong><\/p>\n Handcuffed and blindfolded. Managed to escape in 132.32 seconds, 17th fastest. Apparently not everyone made it out. The guy I met inside didn’t survive either; a few competitors shot him. RIP, friend.<\/p>\n Lynx Brutality isn’t a competition match like IPSC or Steel Challenge. There are no walkthroughs, and the courses can be quite dynamic. The real goal is to test yourself and your gear whilst getting a solid workout.<\/p>\n I’d liken it to CrossFit with guns.<\/p>\n This match was friendlier compared to Finnish Brutality, which apparently requires multiple pairs of spare pants. But anyone who wants more dynamics in their shooting would enjoy this format.<\/p>\n Fair warning: your kit will be tested, and so will your fitness. I’m living proof that you can be a fat arse who can apparently shoot. Just ignore that pistol-only stage and that statement won’t taste quite so sour.<\/p>\n Believe it or not, I came 14th in Open Division. For my first brutality match, shooting borrowed gear after minimal sleep, I’ll take it.<\/p>\n The experience gave me a genuine understanding of my abilities under physical stress, which proved useful when I swapped the rifle for a microphone and started commentating the main event.<\/p>\n Massive thanks to Polar and the team for giving me the opportunity to shoot and be part of the commentary crew. Thanks also to everyone who was there. Even though we were competing against each other, the camaraderie was brilliant: chanting, cheering, and coaching throughout.<\/p>\n It takes a village to run these matches, and it couldn’t happen without all the ROs and support staff. Shout out to everyone who picked up my phone and filmed me as well.<\/p>\n I don’t know what else to say but thank you to everyone who got me there and back. It’s been a pleasure. I’m looking forward to the next adventure, hopefully fitter, and able to speak more than two sentences after a kettlebell stage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After two years behind the microphone, I finally got to shoot my first brutality match. Here’s what happened when the commentator became the competitor.\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1006,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[127],"tags":[37,33,58,36,72],"class_list":{"0":"post-1010","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-events","8":"tag-optics","9":"tag-practical-shooting","10":"tag-rifle","11":"tag-target-shooting","12":"tag-uk-shooting"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mockachino.co.uk\/shoots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mockachino.co.uk\/shoots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mockachino.co.uk\/shoots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mockachino.co.uk\/shoots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mockachino.co.uk\/shoots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1010"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mockachino.co.uk\/shoots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1014,"href":"https:\/\/mockachino.co.uk\/shoots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010\/revisions\/1014"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mockachino.co.uk\/shoots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mockachino.co.uk\/shoots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mockachino.co.uk\/shoots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mockachino.co.uk\/shoots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Borrowed](\"https:\/\/mockachino.co.uk\/shoots\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2026\/03\/lynx-brutality-2025-equipment.jpg\")
The Stages: A Brutality Breakdown<\/h2>\n
Stage 1: Front Line<\/h3>\n
Stage 2: Car Extraction<\/h3>\n
Stage 3: Rifle and Pistol Steel<\/h3>\n
Stage 4: Scaffolding<\/h3>\n
![\"Shooting](\"https:\/\/mockachino.co.uk\/shoots\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2026\/03\/lynx-brutality-2025-positional.jpg\")
Stage 5: The Kettlebell Stage<\/h3>\n
Stage 6: Zipline Hostage Rescue<\/h3>\n
Stage 7: Kettlebell Pistol Shooting<\/h3>\n
Stage 8: Obstacle Course<\/h3>\n
Stage 9: Ratchet Cart<\/h3>\n
![\"Mid-stage](\"https:\/\/mockachino.co.uk\/shoots\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2026\/03\/lynx-brutality-2025-action.jpg\")
Stage 10: Hostage Rescue (Blindfolded Start)<\/h3>\n
What I Learned<\/h2>\n
Final Thoughts<\/h2>\n