So... I learned a few lessons that hard way this weekend. Shot the 25m, 50y, 75y and 100m at the Phoenix Invitational. Waiting for all the results to be published, but a summary is I finished the 25m, did not finish the 50y, finished the 75, took 3rd in the 100m. This event wasn't really promoted so we didn't get a huge turnout, honestly more or less the same as we get for our regular club matches.
First lesson... Don't mess with things at the last minute! So I tried lubing pellets, but was getting some WILD flyers. In reading I convinced myself that I had used too much and that was the cause of the flyers. So I dumped my lubed pellets and wiped them down with paper towels. But didn't really have time to fully test them. I shot about half of the (64) shots of the 75y with lubed pellets before I was smacked in the head enough times to say "well I guess those flyers are a result of the lube" and switch to regular pellets. I cleaned my barrel between the 75y and 100m matches and used regular sorted and sized pellets for the 100m and ended up in 3rd. I blew a few shots on wind changes and concentrating too much on the reticle and not catching the shifts.
The next day was the 25m and 50y... (6) cards each, (3) on Saturday and (3) on Sunday.
Second lesson, learn the first lesson!
I wiped down my pellets with paper towels and thought I would be okay. My first (10) or so bulls were solid "10" and "9" shots that might plug as "10". Then something throw me mentally. I heard the system announce "2 minutes left!" and I was only done with (10) of (25) bulls. I look up see the clock at like 9:30 left, so I yelled out which was correct, the announcement or the clock... Nice guy next to me said the 10 minute announcement was correct, which someone else decided to yell back "pull your panties out of your ****!"... got to love all the perfect people that never forget to remind you are not... After that I don't know how much was lubed pellets or broken mental concentration, but I shot a lot of 7's and 8's. Next card wasn't better in fact was worse with (2) wild flyers. Third card was filled with little bit off and (5) wild flyers. "Wild flyer" = shooting at the #13 bull and hitting the #19 or #24 bull.
Okay got to be the pellets. But I didn't bring enough that weren't lubed. So I started my first 50y card with clean pellets and was shooting decent, then ran out of clean pellets on the beginning of the second card. By the third card I knew my 50y competition would be for last place, lol. With the wild flyers I ended up double (or more) shooting (9) bulls.
Saturday night, let's just say I got hit with life and didn't have time to prep pellets for Sunday. So I decided to shot out of the tin.
Got pretty much what you would expect, lots of good shots only to have a few small flyers knock the score way down. I think I shot like a 726 for Sunday and a 705 on Saturday for the 25m. So on to the 50y. My first card was pretty good, had 3-4 flyers send pellets into the black rings. Time for the second card, I shot at the bottom right sighter, no impact, shot again, no impact, again and no impact, WTF! The wind wasn't that much different than the first card. So I move up one sighter, no impact for 4 out of 5 shots, one clipped the bottom of the card under the #21 bull. Move up another sighter and shot five more, five impacts on the bottom of the card spanning from the left edge to the middle #23 bull box taking one.
Okay something is really wrong here, its not the pellets, its not the wind, its the gun. Scope caps down and pack her up. So I took a DNF on the 50y.
Haven't had time to pull the Thomas out and try and figure out what is wrong. Rather something got lodged in the barrel or maybe a seal let go, idk now and will try to make time tonight to work that out.
