BDS German Long Range Championship 2026 at Wiechlice: seven class codes, 150 places, one open distance contradiction
Scoring ran in seven class codes at 300/600/800 m, in Magnum at 600/800/1,000 m. For an entry in 2027, what matters is less the podium than which class code suits your rifle and how to secure one of the 150 places.
Long Range / PRS · German Championship
The Bund Deutscher Sportschützen (BDS) held its German Long Range Championship 2026 from 2 to 4 October 2026 at the Airbase Shooting Range in Wiechlice, Poland. Scoring took place in seven class codes at 300/600/800 m, and in Magnum at 600/800/1,000 m. For anyone entering in 2027, what matters is less the podium than the question of which class code suits their rifle and how to secure one of the 150 places.
Units: 300 m = 328.1 yrd, 600 m = 656.2 yrd, 800 m = 874.9 yrd, 1,000 m = 1,093.6 yrd, 1,200 m = 1,312.3 yrd, 1,240 m = 1,356.0 yrd, 260 m = 284.3 yrd.
Key points
– Date and venue: 2–4 October 2026, Airbase Shooting Range, Nowa 11, 67-300 Wiechlice, Poland; free practice 1 October 2026, 09:00 to 15:00, without a sighting series [1].
– Entry places: 150, allocated in order of registration, a maximum of two classes per shooter, entry window 14 June to 31 July 2026 via steelmatch.de [1].
– Programme: sighting series of three shots, ten scoring shots per distance, requirement 39 rounds [1].
– Class codes: LR1 F/TR, LR2 Open, LR3 Magnum, LR5 Semi Auto, LR6 Semi Auto Open, LR7 Standard, LR8 Standard Open; no LR4 is listed [1].
– In parallel: 2–3 October 2026 German DEPRA Rimfire Championship at the same venue, Open division, .22 lr (5.6 mm / .22 in) bolt action, twelve stages, swinging targets out to 260 m, entry fee 75 euros, titles only for German nationals [1].
Schedule and competition framework
Shooting took place on 2 and 3 October from 10:00 to 17:00 and on the Sunday until 13:00, followed by the prize-giving. Weapon inspection and the issuing of entry cards ran on 1 October from 16:00 and on competition days from 08:00; without them, participation was not possible. Entry was open to BDS members with a valid annual stamp (organiser's statement) [1].
The sporting core: three distances, ten scoring shots each, preceded by three sighting shots – 30 scoring shots per shooter and class code. Magnum drops the 300 m stage in favour of 1,000 m and started only on the Sunday, after the DEPRA competition. The entry fee for the Long Range championship is not stated on the announcement page [1].
The distance contradiction: 800 m, 1,000 m or 1,240 m
The meta description of the announcement page mentions distances out to 1,240 m, depending on weapon category. That figure does not appear in the body text; there, 300/600/800 m are given, and 600/800/1,000 m for Magnum – a maximum of 1,000 m [1].
The figure belongs to the facility, not to the competition programme. A range portrait by the trade editorial team at all4shooters mentions more than 40 shooting bays from 25 to 300 m and more than 16 long-range lanes out to 1,200 m, some 130 km (81 mi) from Bautzen (third-party report, 17.06.2023) [2]. A practical article by the same editorial team mentions distances out to 1,240 m and shots at that distance (third-party report, 11.12.2025) [3].
Our own assessment: both figures describe the capacity of the range, while the class codes are set independently of it; the meta line is likely to mean the potential of the facility. A clarification from the organiser could not be found, so the contradiction remains open in that respect.
Why the championship takes place in Poland
The BDS states that long range begins, in its own words, from a distance of 300 metres, and names as the core of the discipline the ballistics at long range: wind, temperature, humidity, mirage and rain force continuous corrections. That the German championships take place at Wiechlice is expressly recorded by the federation [4].
A justification from the federation citing a lack of range lengths in Germany could not be found in the sources examined. What can be documented is only the constellation: the championship runs at a Polish facility with lanes far beyond 300 m [2][4]. The obvious connection remains unconfirmed.
The class codes LR1 to LR8
LR1 · F/TR · 300/600/800 m
LR2 · Open · 300/600/800 m
LR3 · Magnum · 600/800/1,000 m
LR4 · not listed
LR5 · Semi Auto · 300/600/800 m
LR6 · Semi Auto Open · 300/600/800 m
LR7 · Standard · 300/600/800 m
LR8 · Standard Open · 300/600/800 m
Source: announcement page, German Long Range Championship 2026 [1].
Rifles, calibres, weight limits, rests, bipod and sandbag rules and optics restrictions are set out in the Long Range sport handbook ("SHB LR 09-10-2024", status 01.07.2025) and in the announcement. Both are held on bdsnet.de as PDFs but were not retrievable for this research [7]. We therefore do not state such limits rather than reconstruct them.
What can be documented is only the international framework of F/TR: the 2026 F-Class World Championships at Bisley ran under ICFRA rules; in F-TR, single-shot and bolt-action rifles in .223 Remington (5.56 mm) and .308 Winchester (7.62 mm) are admitted, at distances of 800/900/1,000 yrd (731.5/823.0/914.4 m) (third-party report, Mathias Haack, 24.08.2026) [6]. A specialist overview describes F Target Rifle with a bipod at the front and a separate rear rest, F-Open up to 8 mm (0.315 in), and names .300 Winchester Magnum and .338 Lapua Magnum as common magnum cartridges (third-party report, Ulrich Eichstädt, 20.05.2026) [5]. Whether LR1 is run congruently with the ICFRA rules is not documented.
The podium places in the seven class codes
On the provenance of these figures: the file "ergebnisliste dm long range 2026.pdf" was present on bdsnet.de on 06.11.2026 but could not be read out; on the BDS overview "Sportergebnisse" it was not linked, and the long-range series there ends at 2025 [8][9]. The following placings therefore come from our own record of 15.10.2026, compiled at the time from the BDS results list. They cannot currently be verified against the official list.
LR1 F/TR · 1. Kay Sachs (291) · 2. Christian Leffler (289) · 3. Philipp Hallermann (287)
LR2 Open · 1. Alexander Uroitsch (299) · 2. Kay Sachs (299) · 3. Robert Feiertag (295)
LR3 Magnum · 1. Christian Leffler (287) · 2. Jörg Kuttnik (287) · 3. Armin Dehler (284)
LR5 Semi Auto · 1. Keith Krügel (290) · 2. Konstantin Bleuel (263) · 3. Peter Krätschmann (247)
LR6 Semi Auto Open · 1. Alexander Pilz (278) · 2. Martin Müller (260) · 3. Daniela Kroll (259)
LR7 Standard · 1. Manuel Gumbert (293) · 2. Asat Thorns (291) · 3. Alexander Pilz (289)
LR8 Standard Open · 1. Andre Wagener (292) · 2. Markus Kraemer (292) · 3. Nezir Beganovic (290)
Figures in brackets are overall scores. The assignment of class names to class codes comes from the announcement page [1]; the official list is referenced under [8].
In Open, Magnum and Standard Open the first two places were level on points; the tie-break criterion does not emerge from the sources. Several shooters appear in two class codes: Kay Sachs won F/TR and was second in Open, Christian Leffler won Magnum and was second in F/TR, Alexander Pilz won Semi Auto Open and was third in Standard – consistent with the rule of at most two classes [1]. The results lie between 247 and 299; the maximum attainable ring count cannot be documented without the target specifications, so no percentage figure is given. The spread is striking: 43 rings between first and third in Semi Auto, four in Standard Open – an observation about the numbers, not a statement about depth of field, for which participant numbers are missing.
Assessment: what this means for an entry in 2027
Access. For the German championship with handguns and long guns, the BDS describes a qualification procedure: places are allocated on the basis of entries at state championships and championship submissions, and the "limit" results from the gap between the last qualifying and the first non-qualifying result [10]. The 2026 Long Range championship, by contrast, allocated its 150 places in order of registration [1]. Our own assessment: for long range, on the current evidence, what counts is punctuality at the opening of entries, not a shot qualifying score; confirmation from the federation is not available.
Choice of class code. F/TR, Open, Standard and the two semi-automatic classes share the band from 300 to 800 m, while Magnum starts at 600 m and ends at 1,000 m [1]. Our own assessment: on the shared band, the equipment and ballistics effort is lower; the 1,000 m stage demands more elevation travel and robust wind solutions. We cannot document minimum values [7]. On the adjustment arithmetic: 1 MRAD = 3.438 MOA, 0.1 MRAD gives about 10 cm (3.9 in) at 1,000 m, 1 MOA about 29.1 cm (11.5 in) there – conversion by the editorial team, not a federation specification.
Two entries. Since two class codes are permitted [1], a first championship entry can be planned as a combination of a familiar and a more ambitious class; in 2026 several shooters took that route.
The rimfire alternative. Lower material outlay in the German DEPRA Rimfire championship: .22 lr bolt action, Open division, twelve stages, swinging targets out to 260 m, scoring categories Overall, Senior (over 55 years on the day of competition) and Ladies, the latter two from three participants [1]. DEPRA is represented through the BDS in the IPRF umbrella body [4]; the BDS lists the rulebooks as "SHB DA 2025" and "SHB DB 2025" [7][11].
Open questions
– Official results list not read out. The file is present, its content could not be converted to text [8]; all placings come from our record of 15.10.2026.
– Participant numbers per class code and the take-up of the 150 places: not documented.
– Calibres and equipment of those on the podium: not ascertainable.
– Class specifications (weight, rests, bipod, optics): only in documents that could not be retrieved [7].
– LR4 is not listed; whether it was awarded, suspended or not announced is unclear [1].
– The tie-break rule for the three level first places is unknown.
– The entry fee for the Long Range championship is not stated [1].
– The figure of up to 1,240 m: attribution to the capacity of the facility is plausible [2][3], a clarification is missing.
– A qualification route via state championships for long range: not documented [1][10].
– The DEPRA 2026 results list was not linked on 06.11.2026 [9].
Sources
1. "02.–04. Oktober 2026: Deutsche Meisterschaft BDS LongRange", LongRange Centerfire Club, organiser page, no publication date, event 02.–04.10.2026, retrieved 06.11.2026
http://longrange-centerfire.club/02-04-oktober-2026-deutsche-meisterschaften-longrange.html
2. "Schießstandportrait: Airbase Shooting Range Wiechlice", all4shooters.com, trade medium, 17.06.2023, retrieved 06.11.2026
https://www.all4shooters.com/de/shooting/waffenkultur/schiessstandportrait-airbase-shooting-range-wiechlice/
3. "Long Range: Schießen auf 1.240 Meter in Wiechlice", all4shooters.com, trade medium, 11.12.2025, retrieved 06.11.2026
https://www.all4shooters.com/de/shooting/buechsen/long-range-1240-meter-roessler-tac-6-5-creedmoor-kahles-k540i-rws-target-elite-plus-praxis-test-video/
4. "Long Range", BDS 1975 e. V., federation page, undated, retrieved 06.11.2026
https://www.bdsnet.de/standard/longrange.html
5. "Know-how: Long-Range-Schießen mit Klein- und Großkalibergewehren", all4shooters.com, Ulrich Eichstädt, trade medium, 20.05.2026, retrieved 06.11.2026
https://www.all4shooters.com/de/shooting/buechsen/know-how-long-range-schiessen-mit-klein-und-grosskalibergewehren/
6. "F-Class World Championships 2026 in Bisley", all4shooters.com, Mathias Haack, trade medium, 24.08.2026, retrieved 06.11.2026
https://www.all4shooters.com/de/shooting/waffenkultur/f-class-WM-2026-in-bisley-wettkampfbericht-zur-f-tr-klasse-erfolg-fuer-schmidt-und-bender/
7. "Sporthandbuch", BDS 1975 e. V., document overview (evidence for "SHB LR 09-10-2024", status 01.07.2025, "SHB DA 2025", "SHB DB 2025"), retrieved 06.11.2026
https://www.bdsnet.de/standard/sporthandbuch.html
8. "ergebnisliste dm long range 2026.pdf", BDS 1975 e. V., official results list, no document date, present on 06.11.2026, content not readable
https://www.bdsnet.de/ressourcen/downloads/ergebnislistedmlongrange2026.pdf
9. "Sportergebnisse", BDS 1975 e. V., results overview, retrieved 06.11.2026
https://www.bdsnet.de/aktuelles/sportergebnisse.html
10. "Deutsche Meisterschaften", BDS 1975 e. V., qualification procedure for the standard programme, retrieved 06.11.2026
https://www.bdsnet.de/standard/dm.html
11. "Regelwerk DEPRA", LongRange Rimfire Club, club page, version per the page 27.06.2025, retrieved 06.11.2026
https://www.longrange-rimfire.club/regelwerk-depra.html
Editorial status: 06.11.2026. We did not observe the competition ourselves.