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Community Corner

Top Shot, Episode 2

Will Fairfield Detective Survive Another Round of the Competition?

Episode two of the History Channel's Top Shot season three aired on Tuesday night, and  continued on his pursuit of the $100K Top Shot grand prize and the title of “Top Shot", advancing through yet another episode.

Episode two stepped up the pace a bit as competitors were equipped with a modern variant of the well known AK-47, and confronted with a tough obstacle course in the team challenge.

The AK-47, designed by the Soviet Union in the 1940s, was one of the first assault rifles ever produced. Top Shot host Colby Donaldson explains, “it is made to endure extreme battlefield conditions, harsh weather and rugged handling.” Donaldson adds that it is estimated that of the 500 million firearms in the world, 100 million of those are a variation of the AK-47.

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“I am very familiar with an AK-47,” Marinaccio says in an interview before the challenge. “I own a variant of that weapon.”

The Challenge: Each team, paired in two’s, must advance through an obstacle course. With each subsequent team, one obstacle is added to the course. First is a steel tube that competitors must crawl through, then a waist deep water pit, and finally a 25-foot long slog through mud. After each team completes the course, both team members must lay in the prone position and hit targets from 50 and 75-yards

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The Catch: Each team must select one player to run the final leg of the course, which includes all four previous obstacles, plus a 25-foot long crawl through sand under barbed wire. The competitor must then hit both targets from the prone position.

Marinaccio’s blue team selected Jake Zweig, a former Navy SEAL, to run the final leg, while the red team selected Chris Collins, a firearms instructor and college student, from Collinsville, OK.

“I hope you have a washing machine and a big bar of soap back at the house, because it is time to get dirty,” Donaldson says to kick off the competition.

Because the blue team has an extra team member (due to last week’s elimination round), the red team selects Homeland Security Agent Jarrett Grimes, from Atlanta, GA.

“It is bitter cold outside, and one of the obstacles is waist deep water,” Marinaccio says, “so I’m really not excited to jump into that, but I’m excited for the challenge.”

While Marinaccio wasn’t thrilled about the water, he was selected to run the second last leg along with Mike Hughes, the president of the Firearms Training Equipment Company in Maple Falls, WA, which means he must go through the tunnel, across the water, and through the mud, before taking aim at the 75-yard target.

While the blue team took a slight lead after leg one, the red team surges out in front with a strong showing in leg two.

Marinaccio and Hughes take off on leg three, and both teams approach the targets at the exact same time. Marinaccio is able to hit the 75-yard target on his fourth shot, but the struggles of Hughes give the red team an enormous lead heading into the final leg.

Even with the lead, Zweig hustles through the course (including an ill-advised headfirst dive into the water pit), and eventually catches Collins. Zweig’s surge comes to a halt, though, as Collins hits both targets, sealing the win for the red team.

With the loss, the blue team was forced to select two members of its team to the elimination round. The two selected were Sara Ahrens, a police sergeant in Roscoe, IL, and, Dustin Ellermann, a summer camp director from Zavalla, TX.

The challenge: The two challengers are equipped with a Smith & Wesson .45 M&P, aiming at red and blue moving targets. Each competitor gets one point per red target hit and minus one point per blue target hit.

Ellerman took home the easy win, hitting 24 red targets and only one blue, while Ahrens was only able to hit 11 red targets.

Episode three of Top Shot airs on The History Channel, Tuesday, Aug. 23, at 10 p.m.

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