We had the final Aspen Mtn match of 2023 this past weekend, and true to form, it was a great time.
next photo is same lane as above, but zoomed in on the three targets.
The competitions kicked off on Friday evening with a silhouette match. We use 1/5 scale silhouettes, and two chickens at each distance. Rex set em up at 50, 60, 70, 80 yards again. 80 yards is getting WAY out there for sub 20fpe, especially for the wind we dealt with during the match. NOAA forecasted gusts in the 15-20mph range and I'd bet they were all of that, and also switching back and forth between nearly every shot. On top of that, we had our first failure to fall with a 20fpe gun. And it happened to be me. I nailed a ram at 80 yards and he didn't go down, but rather just knocked backwards about 1/2 an inch, barely enough not to fall off the target stand. Learned my lesson...when we do 80 yards instead of 70, I'll be using the .20 instead of the .177 from now on.
Silhoutte Scores
Rifle Field Target
Sat morning was the rifle field target match. We'd set a 60 shot course on Friday morning, 10 lanes, 3 targets each, 2 shots per target. Near and middle targets would be used for the pistol course Sat afternoon. And yes, a couple were slightly illegal for a true AAFTA pistol match, but hey, we're not AAFTA, just a bunch of friends who enjoy field target, doing it the way we want.
There was some requests for distances, as at least one of the competitors wanted to compare the distances he arrived at by range-by-focus to the actual distances. So this table has the distances as well as the kill zone sizes and troyer factors. Overall T for the course was a 34.6, again putting it in the "expert" category, per the Troyer chart. The yellow highlighted were the highest T's and I included stats for each shooter in the results tables.
I've said it before, best painted targets of any field target match, nationwide.
Here are the results.
Steve and I were tied for high score. Rex set up 5 of the 1/5 scale chickens at 55 yards as a tie breaker. Steve and I had 1 minute to knock them down, one shot per chicken. I missed my last chicken, and had 15-20 seconds to spare. Steve missed his 3rd chicken and ran out of time, not getting a shot off in time for his last chicken. I always prefer a shoot off over breaking the tie by the arbitrary "first miss" or "longest streak." My opinion: shoot offs are the most fair way to break a tie, by far. Because mathematically, a tie is a tie, each shooter knocked down the same percentage of targets during the match. And shoot offs are just fun, for the two in it, and for the rest of the field of shooters.
Pistol FT Match
A good number of us had to pack up and head home so there were only 4 pistol competitors this match.
Rex = 32/40
Kent = 20/40
Franx = 19/40
Keldon = 13/40
(Too many photos for one post so next post is the continuation of the match report)
next photo is same lane as above, but zoomed in on the three targets.
The competitions kicked off on Friday evening with a silhouette match. We use 1/5 scale silhouettes, and two chickens at each distance. Rex set em up at 50, 60, 70, 80 yards again. 80 yards is getting WAY out there for sub 20fpe, especially for the wind we dealt with during the match. NOAA forecasted gusts in the 15-20mph range and I'd bet they were all of that, and also switching back and forth between nearly every shot. On top of that, we had our first failure to fall with a 20fpe gun. And it happened to be me. I nailed a ram at 80 yards and he didn't go down, but rather just knocked backwards about 1/2 an inch, barely enough not to fall off the target stand. Learned my lesson...when we do 80 yards instead of 70, I'll be using the .20 instead of the .177 from now on.
Silhoutte Scores
- Rex J 36/40
- Kent G 35/40
- Steve Q 33/40
- Bobby C 33/40
- Cole R 32/40
- Franz D 32/40
- Dan L 29/40
- Colben R 28/40
- Larry F 27/40
Rifle Field Target
Sat morning was the rifle field target match. We'd set a 60 shot course on Friday morning, 10 lanes, 3 targets each, 2 shots per target. Near and middle targets would be used for the pistol course Sat afternoon. And yes, a couple were slightly illegal for a true AAFTA pistol match, but hey, we're not AAFTA, just a bunch of friends who enjoy field target, doing it the way we want.
There was some requests for distances, as at least one of the competitors wanted to compare the distances he arrived at by range-by-focus to the actual distances. So this table has the distances as well as the kill zone sizes and troyer factors. Overall T for the course was a 34.6, again putting it in the "expert" category, per the Troyer chart. The yellow highlighted were the highest T's and I included stats for each shooter in the results tables.
I've said it before, best painted targets of any field target match, nationwide.
Here are the results.
Steve and I were tied for high score. Rex set up 5 of the 1/5 scale chickens at 55 yards as a tie breaker. Steve and I had 1 minute to knock them down, one shot per chicken. I missed my last chicken, and had 15-20 seconds to spare. Steve missed his 3rd chicken and ran out of time, not getting a shot off in time for his last chicken. I always prefer a shoot off over breaking the tie by the arbitrary "first miss" or "longest streak." My opinion: shoot offs are the most fair way to break a tie, by far. Because mathematically, a tie is a tie, each shooter knocked down the same percentage of targets during the match. And shoot offs are just fun, for the two in it, and for the rest of the field of shooters.
Pistol FT Match
A good number of us had to pack up and head home so there were only 4 pistol competitors this match.
Rex = 32/40
Kent = 20/40
Franx = 19/40
Keldon = 13/40
(Too many photos for one post so next post is the continuation of the match report)
