January 17th, 2015

 

ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS 

 

The morning started out early just before sunrise for our inaugural match.  While the team was busy setting up the targets, registration was opened by Dave at 0800.  The weather couldn't be any nicer with temperatures in the mid 70's with not a cloud in the sky.  The folks over at Airguns of Arizona came down and brought doughnuts and coffee for the group, and provided complimentary air tank refills with their portable compressor.  To everybody's surprise, it was announced that they would cover everyone's entry fee for the day.  We had an outstanding turnout with a total of 29 shooters!

Thirteen shot in Open class, nine shot in Hunter class, one Springer, and six Pistols with one Junior.  Our

morning briefing took a little longer than normal for the new folks and took extra care to cover the field target process and safety briefing.

With 10 stations, we had 10 groups of three at each.  The sixteen acres were planned with care to maximize the outdoor experience so each group would get some nice distance between the other.  We made sure we included one shooter that was experienced in field target in each group.  We welcomed and enjoyed the company of the shooters from the Airgunners of Arizona field target club.  A special thanks goes to Kyle Turley the Boy Scout that led the troop that helped developed the trail and build the bridge stopped by to see his work come to fruition.  He expressed that next month more members from the troop are interested in joining.

Competition started around 10:45.  Next month we will make an extra efforts to start earlier. Theshoot lasted sever hours.  We set up targets for both the pistol and rifle folks.  For the pistol shooters, we had one target set at 10 meters for each lane, and varied the difficulty level by varying the hole size.  They shot the one target four times in a "Free-hand style" class.  This style was decided upon by our pistol shooters at the range who primarily shoot 10 meters, thus affording them the opportunity to shoot with no equipment changes.  In the future this may change based on demand.

For the rifle shooters, each lane had two targets set near and far in the usual set up.  Each target was shot twice and required movement within the 12x12 shooting zone to visualize.  The Troyer was 13.6 for pistols, which is described as "easy".  For the rifle course it was 30.1, which falls under the lower end of "hard".  We were surprised at the difficulty level we ended up with, since we wanted to start off on the easier side.  Next month, we just might do that until the scores pick up!

At the end of the day, it turns out we had a few ties that required a good old shoot out.  Mark and Larry tied for first place in Open.  The sudden death shoot-out was taken by Larry in the first round with a 3/8" hit at 20 yards.

For the pistols shooters, we had a three-way tie between Gary, Andy, and Dale for thirs.  The shoot-out took a grueling seven rounds to secure a winner.  Andy took the third place.  For our pistol winner it was our youngest shooter Keyon, who is one of our Benchrest regulars.  Great Job.  John was our only Springer that braved the day.

The first place winners of Open, Hunter, and Pistol all received a soft sided gun case valued at $80 each, donated by Airguns of Arizona.