Welp, that was a thing that happened. My PRS match went pretty much how I thought it would. I came in first and last place in air rifle division. Actually, it went better than expected, most of the misses were dope issues rather than accuracy issues.
Started out hot with basically low wind. Stage 1 was 175 yard KYL, hit 8 of 10.
Stage 2 was a PRS barricade with targets at 101 and 120. Would have been clean but I forgot to hold on one of the far shots, so 9/10.
Then the wind started to pick up and the scores started to go down.
7/12 on targets at 89, 125 and 165 yards. Dialed the near and middle targets, held the far target. Elevation was off.
3/10 on targets at 132 and 264 yards. Held too much wind on the near, elevation was off on the far. But I did hit a .8 mil target at 264 yards 4 times in a row (unfortunately 2 of the hit were off the clock).
5/10 on an easy stage at 145 yards. Wind was swirly and I held too much of it.
5/10 on a KYL at 217 yards. Held too much wind, I was hammering the smaller targets once I got the wind call.
3/10 on a 60 yard KYL and an easy 100 yard target. I wrote down my holds as .4 and 2.2, so I decided I would dial .4 and hold 1.8 for the far. It was a decent size target at 100 yards, so I got lazy and held 2 mil. But, at 100 yards with the heat it should have been 2.0 mil at 100, not 2.2. So by holding 2 mil with .4 dialed in, I was effectively holding .4 mils too high. The real kicker is I would have had plenty of time to just dial it.
8/12 on a 90 yard KYL. Wind switched halfway through, I made a good adjustment. 8 was actually a good score on this stage.
I had some elevation issues as expected. When I sighted in, I was getting a 2.1 mil hold at 100 yards and 9 mil at 217. According to the Kestrel, these can't both be true. So I need to go out and set a custom curve past 150 yards, I just didn't have a chance to do that before this match.
I was also holding too much wind pretty consistently. Most of my misses during that bad stretch of stages were bad wind holds, so I need to mess around with the BC value once I get my custom curve set up to get better wind holds. Or I might just need to reduce my wind call by 10% every time. I'll figure it out, this is the first time shooting this rifle in any real wind past 100 yards. But other shooters would say they held .5 for wind, and it would be .3 or .4 for me.
The upside is that my score percentage based on the high overall score was the exact same as the last time I shot at this location (70.5%). So if I would have had better elevation and wind data, I would have outperformed my rimfire score from last month.
Other positives:
I discovered that when I put the Tract Toric back on, I had it one slot too far forward on the pic rail. Fixed it.
I discovered that my 7 liter tank has more than enough air for a full match.
I found a way to make my shooting cart more stable.
I discovered that beating rimfire guys with an air rifle feels really good. The "BB gun" jokes really started to fade after the first couple of stages.
I went ahead and ordered the MPA chassis, hopefully it will arrive in about a month. I also pre-ordered the new SG Pulse Pro, this looks even cooler than the unit they demoed a few months ago.
I'll share my method for truing my Kestrel once I figure out what that method is. I'll post some photos in a bit.
Started out hot with basically low wind. Stage 1 was 175 yard KYL, hit 8 of 10.
Stage 2 was a PRS barricade with targets at 101 and 120. Would have been clean but I forgot to hold on one of the far shots, so 9/10.
Then the wind started to pick up and the scores started to go down.
7/12 on targets at 89, 125 and 165 yards. Dialed the near and middle targets, held the far target. Elevation was off.
3/10 on targets at 132 and 264 yards. Held too much wind on the near, elevation was off on the far. But I did hit a .8 mil target at 264 yards 4 times in a row (unfortunately 2 of the hit were off the clock).
5/10 on an easy stage at 145 yards. Wind was swirly and I held too much of it.
5/10 on a KYL at 217 yards. Held too much wind, I was hammering the smaller targets once I got the wind call.
3/10 on a 60 yard KYL and an easy 100 yard target. I wrote down my holds as .4 and 2.2, so I decided I would dial .4 and hold 1.8 for the far. It was a decent size target at 100 yards, so I got lazy and held 2 mil. But, at 100 yards with the heat it should have been 2.0 mil at 100, not 2.2. So by holding 2 mil with .4 dialed in, I was effectively holding .4 mils too high. The real kicker is I would have had plenty of time to just dial it.
8/12 on a 90 yard KYL. Wind switched halfway through, I made a good adjustment. 8 was actually a good score on this stage.
I had some elevation issues as expected. When I sighted in, I was getting a 2.1 mil hold at 100 yards and 9 mil at 217. According to the Kestrel, these can't both be true. So I need to go out and set a custom curve past 150 yards, I just didn't have a chance to do that before this match.
I was also holding too much wind pretty consistently. Most of my misses during that bad stretch of stages were bad wind holds, so I need to mess around with the BC value once I get my custom curve set up to get better wind holds. Or I might just need to reduce my wind call by 10% every time. I'll figure it out, this is the first time shooting this rifle in any real wind past 100 yards. But other shooters would say they held .5 for wind, and it would be .3 or .4 for me.
The upside is that my score percentage based on the high overall score was the exact same as the last time I shot at this location (70.5%). So if I would have had better elevation and wind data, I would have outperformed my rimfire score from last month.
Other positives:
I discovered that when I put the Tract Toric back on, I had it one slot too far forward on the pic rail. Fixed it.
I discovered that my 7 liter tank has more than enough air for a full match.
I found a way to make my shooting cart more stable.
I discovered that beating rimfire guys with an air rifle feels really good. The "BB gun" jokes really started to fade after the first couple of stages.
I went ahead and ordered the MPA chassis, hopefully it will arrive in about a month. I also pre-ordered the new SG Pulse Pro, this looks even cooler than the unit they demoed a few months ago.
I'll share my method for truing my Kestrel once I figure out what that method is. I'll post some photos in a bit.
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