FT Match Report Arlington Sportsman’s Club 03/26/2023
Our March match was what I can call “an adventure” for those of us who put it on each month. We had to move the match back by one day to be able to support the ASC Youth Day event on Saturday. Scott, Chris, and I spent all day helping young boys and girls experience the thrills of shooting an air rifle at reactive targets. At the conclusion of this event at 4pm, we drove down to the 3D archery lanes and were greeted with grass that was almost one foot high on most lanes! “Holy Crikey Batman, what’ll we do now?” We made a quick call to our Archery Director, Rodney, and he agreed to run the zero-turn mower down the lanes (none of us are qualified yet) while I used the weedeater to clean up the edges. This is a lesson in delegation for me; I need to get the assistant to the match director, Scott, who has time on his hands (unfortunately), to come out and mow before the next match and give him a free match entry that is worth $5! He’s already painting the targets during his down time, so what’s one more task?
While I was helping Rodney mow, Chris and Scott started setting up on the lanes that didn’t need mowing. The layout this month was a warmup for the Cajuns Classic Grand Prix in Baton Rouge, Louisiana the next weekend and consisted of 2 targets per lane on 15 lanes and conformed to all AAFTA rules for GP’s. All the targets were challenging due to long distances, elevated locations, deep shadows, small KZ’s, cramped shooting boxes, or obstructions in the obvious shot line. Scott and Chris really took my layout to the max while they were setting it up. When I finished mowing, I helped the guys do the last lane or two, confirmed the targets worked, and then we left at about 7:15pm…a 12-hour day! Thanks to both, and to everyone who helps me setup, run, and takedown the course each month. Kudos!! The average Troyer this month was 34.5, SD 5.07, Avg Dist 31.6 yds, and Avg KZ 1.05”.
Sunday arrived early and I arrived tired but early to the club before the sun was up, but I sure love shooting Field Target outdoors in Texas in the spring! It was warmer this month than it has been, with temps in the high 50’s when we started and up to the 70’s by the time we finished. And everything looks green and alive too! Shooters came from as far as Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Austin, San Antonio, Arkansas, and Houston to shoot with us today. We had four new shooters this month, and they were paired with an experienced shooter to show them the ropes. We started at 9:00am after an extended safety and rules meeting, and then spread out on the course “shotgun” style and started shooting.
Hunter PCP was once again the most numerous and contested class for the day with fifteen shooters. 1st place was Ron Robinson shooting his Daystate Wolverine with an ancient Weaver scope, unsorted pellets, and bad eyesight with 48/60, followed by Thom Davies shooting his FX Royale with 45/60 beating out Jim Byrd shooting his FX Impact with 44/60.
We had three Hunter Piston shooters today. Long-time ASC member, Chris Simmons bested the others and finished 1stshooting 28/60 with his AA TX200.
In WFTF, we had three shooters. Stan Kaloyanov finished 1st today with a 41/60 shooting his Thomas.
Finally, we had one shooter in the Unlimited class and one shooter in WFTF Piston class. Jerry Cox shot 27/60 and Scott Cotton shot 36/60 in their classes, respectively.
The new shooters conveyed their extreme enjoyment to me after the match and assured me they would be back and maybe bring a friend next time. Looking at the results, the scores were understandably lower than our normal matches due to the difficulty level, but some shooters performed better today than they typically do. I guess strong challenges bring out the best in some of us.
You can see all the other scores and the equipment used in the table below. Take a look at the growing content of our shooting score analyses website https://airgunshoot.com/ that shows your score on each lane, your hit percentage by lane or near/mid/far targets, how you compare to your class average, your class winner, and the HOA winner. Thanks to Scott for his work on this, you should be able to tease out some areas where you can improve and hopefully finish higher in the standings.
Our next match will be on Saturday April 22 which is our usual 4th Saturday. This match will start at 9am since the time has changed and it should hopefully be a little warmer.
See you at the next match,
Jeff Cloud
Field Target Match Director
Arlington Sportsman’s Club
Our March match was what I can call “an adventure” for those of us who put it on each month. We had to move the match back by one day to be able to support the ASC Youth Day event on Saturday. Scott, Chris, and I spent all day helping young boys and girls experience the thrills of shooting an air rifle at reactive targets. At the conclusion of this event at 4pm, we drove down to the 3D archery lanes and were greeted with grass that was almost one foot high on most lanes! “Holy Crikey Batman, what’ll we do now?” We made a quick call to our Archery Director, Rodney, and he agreed to run the zero-turn mower down the lanes (none of us are qualified yet) while I used the weedeater to clean up the edges. This is a lesson in delegation for me; I need to get the assistant to the match director, Scott, who has time on his hands (unfortunately), to come out and mow before the next match and give him a free match entry that is worth $5! He’s already painting the targets during his down time, so what’s one more task?
While I was helping Rodney mow, Chris and Scott started setting up on the lanes that didn’t need mowing. The layout this month was a warmup for the Cajuns Classic Grand Prix in Baton Rouge, Louisiana the next weekend and consisted of 2 targets per lane on 15 lanes and conformed to all AAFTA rules for GP’s. All the targets were challenging due to long distances, elevated locations, deep shadows, small KZ’s, cramped shooting boxes, or obstructions in the obvious shot line. Scott and Chris really took my layout to the max while they were setting it up. When I finished mowing, I helped the guys do the last lane or two, confirmed the targets worked, and then we left at about 7:15pm…a 12-hour day! Thanks to both, and to everyone who helps me setup, run, and takedown the course each month. Kudos!! The average Troyer this month was 34.5, SD 5.07, Avg Dist 31.6 yds, and Avg KZ 1.05”.
Sunday arrived early and I arrived tired but early to the club before the sun was up, but I sure love shooting Field Target outdoors in Texas in the spring! It was warmer this month than it has been, with temps in the high 50’s when we started and up to the 70’s by the time we finished. And everything looks green and alive too! Shooters came from as far as Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Austin, San Antonio, Arkansas, and Houston to shoot with us today. We had four new shooters this month, and they were paired with an experienced shooter to show them the ropes. We started at 9:00am after an extended safety and rules meeting, and then spread out on the course “shotgun” style and started shooting.
Hunter PCP was once again the most numerous and contested class for the day with fifteen shooters. 1st place was Ron Robinson shooting his Daystate Wolverine with an ancient Weaver scope, unsorted pellets, and bad eyesight with 48/60, followed by Thom Davies shooting his FX Royale with 45/60 beating out Jim Byrd shooting his FX Impact with 44/60.
We had three Hunter Piston shooters today. Long-time ASC member, Chris Simmons bested the others and finished 1stshooting 28/60 with his AA TX200.
In WFTF, we had three shooters. Stan Kaloyanov finished 1st today with a 41/60 shooting his Thomas.
Finally, we had one shooter in the Unlimited class and one shooter in WFTF Piston class. Jerry Cox shot 27/60 and Scott Cotton shot 36/60 in their classes, respectively.
The new shooters conveyed their extreme enjoyment to me after the match and assured me they would be back and maybe bring a friend next time. Looking at the results, the scores were understandably lower than our normal matches due to the difficulty level, but some shooters performed better today than they typically do. I guess strong challenges bring out the best in some of us.
You can see all the other scores and the equipment used in the table below. Take a look at the growing content of our shooting score analyses website https://airgunshoot.com/ that shows your score on each lane, your hit percentage by lane or near/mid/far targets, how you compare to your class average, your class winner, and the HOA winner. Thanks to Scott for his work on this, you should be able to tease out some areas where you can improve and hopefully finish higher in the standings.
Our next match will be on Saturday April 22 which is our usual 4th Saturday. This match will start at 9am since the time has changed and it should hopefully be a little warmer.
See you at the next match,
Jeff Cloud
Field Target Match Director
Arlington Sportsman’s Club
AND with just 12X magnification!
