Ben (Match Director) asked that I type up a match report for yesterday's match so here it is. I was not at the match so please forgive any inaccuracies, as this is entirely second-hand.
I was pleasantly surprised to hear that the event had attendees in the double digits. Even one of the Cali shooters (Gabe) decided to make the drive. I've said it before but will again here, the travel time is WORTH IT. If you're considering coming, I guarantee you will enjoy shooting at one of these matches. Dan L was a first-time Extreme FT shooter and he, being an airgun buddy from regular FT, texted after the event with the conclusion that he thoroughly enjoyed it.
Ben described the wind as, "light and variable probably 3 to 5 miles an hour and of course it was switching all over the place." I checked the National Weather Service website and they recorded gusts as high as 9mph, but also "CALM" during the couple hours that that it usually takes to complete the course. NWS said winds were coming out of the east, then the north, and eventually calm. As most of the course is shooting roughly east, that could have been some tricky (like usual) winds to account for. Also, NWS had 63-68 as the temps for 11-3pm there at Phoenix Rod and Gun club. Overall, it sounded like a beautiful day, as far as weather goes.
There's been some general discussion on bringing back the time clock for all the matches but I'm not sure a final decision has been made there. Yesterday though, they had a vote on what the present shooters wanted to do for a time clock, and the shooters decided on a 3 minute limit, starting from "meat in the seat." Essentially the time clock started when they sat down, 3 minutes to take 4 shots. It'll be interesting to see what the long-term decision is regarding the time clock.
I did my usual number crunching and came up with an average Extreme Troyer Factor (ETF) of 44 for this match. There was one off-hand lane (4 shots). The hardest target was a 2 inch kill zone at 89 yards (ETF of 69.5). The easiest was actually one of the off-hand shots, the 2 inch kz @ 26 yards (ETF of 22.75). I also reworked the ETFs for Oct and Nov and came up with: Oct = 40.6 and Nov = 43.45. So, this December match was the most difficult yet, by a very slight 0.55ETF. 6 of the targets this month were past 76 yards, 7 of the targets were from 51-75 yards, and the rest were less than 50 yards. (There's another post on AGN with discussion of this ETF but the short version is that an ETF is the distance/kill zone size with a difficulty factor of: 1.125 for distances 51-75 yards, 1.25 for distances 76-100 yards, and 1.75 for forced position shots. I'm currently thinking that the factor for off-hand needs to be higher than 1.75, but that may be more of my opinion than anything else.)
Here is the scoreboard and equipment list:
Congrats to Gene and the rest of the leaderboard for some great shooting.
Like normal, ties are broken by longest streaks without a miss.
No slug shooters this month.
I understand there was lengthy conversation after the match with most of the shooters hanging around to participate. One of the topics discussed was the need to procure a location with a little higher elevation (read COOLER) for the summer months. Ben told me that just this afternoon he got off the phone with a representative from the range in Payson, AZ. If I remember correctly, Payson has an elevation around 4500 feet above sea level and should be much cooler than Phoenix for the summer months. It is also about an hour away from the PHX metro area so relatively close. That is in the preliminary stages though so no definitive decision has been made, just including this so that shooters and potential shooters are aware that Ben is aware and trying to account for the need to get out of the Valley of The Sun in the hottest months.
It sounds like they had a bunch of fun. I'm excited for the January match and hope that many of you will join us.
(I was told that Ben met up with Dan a few days ahead of the match to get him oriented and familiar with the layout, etc so that it was a little easier for all parties on the morning of the match. We also are more than willing to let you share equipment or even tag along during the match in case you're interested and curious to see if you'd like to participate. If you're interested, we'll accommodate in whatever way necessary to make you feel comfortable enough to shoot/compete. The more the merrier.)
I was pleasantly surprised to hear that the event had attendees in the double digits. Even one of the Cali shooters (Gabe) decided to make the drive. I've said it before but will again here, the travel time is WORTH IT. If you're considering coming, I guarantee you will enjoy shooting at one of these matches. Dan L was a first-time Extreme FT shooter and he, being an airgun buddy from regular FT, texted after the event with the conclusion that he thoroughly enjoyed it.
Ben described the wind as, "light and variable probably 3 to 5 miles an hour and of course it was switching all over the place." I checked the National Weather Service website and they recorded gusts as high as 9mph, but also "CALM" during the couple hours that that it usually takes to complete the course. NWS said winds were coming out of the east, then the north, and eventually calm. As most of the course is shooting roughly east, that could have been some tricky (like usual) winds to account for. Also, NWS had 63-68 as the temps for 11-3pm there at Phoenix Rod and Gun club. Overall, it sounded like a beautiful day, as far as weather goes.
There's been some general discussion on bringing back the time clock for all the matches but I'm not sure a final decision has been made there. Yesterday though, they had a vote on what the present shooters wanted to do for a time clock, and the shooters decided on a 3 minute limit, starting from "meat in the seat." Essentially the time clock started when they sat down, 3 minutes to take 4 shots. It'll be interesting to see what the long-term decision is regarding the time clock.
I did my usual number crunching and came up with an average Extreme Troyer Factor (ETF) of 44 for this match. There was one off-hand lane (4 shots). The hardest target was a 2 inch kill zone at 89 yards (ETF of 69.5). The easiest was actually one of the off-hand shots, the 2 inch kz @ 26 yards (ETF of 22.75). I also reworked the ETFs for Oct and Nov and came up with: Oct = 40.6 and Nov = 43.45. So, this December match was the most difficult yet, by a very slight 0.55ETF. 6 of the targets this month were past 76 yards, 7 of the targets were from 51-75 yards, and the rest were less than 50 yards. (There's another post on AGN with discussion of this ETF but the short version is that an ETF is the distance/kill zone size with a difficulty factor of: 1.125 for distances 51-75 yards, 1.25 for distances 76-100 yards, and 1.75 for forced position shots. I'm currently thinking that the factor for off-hand needs to be higher than 1.75, but that may be more of my opinion than anything else.)
Here is the scoreboard and equipment list:
Congrats to Gene and the rest of the leaderboard for some great shooting.
Like normal, ties are broken by longest streaks without a miss.
No slug shooters this month.
I understand there was lengthy conversation after the match with most of the shooters hanging around to participate. One of the topics discussed was the need to procure a location with a little higher elevation (read COOLER) for the summer months. Ben told me that just this afternoon he got off the phone with a representative from the range in Payson, AZ. If I remember correctly, Payson has an elevation around 4500 feet above sea level and should be much cooler than Phoenix for the summer months. It is also about an hour away from the PHX metro area so relatively close. That is in the preliminary stages though so no definitive decision has been made, just including this so that shooters and potential shooters are aware that Ben is aware and trying to account for the need to get out of the Valley of The Sun in the hottest months.
It sounds like they had a bunch of fun. I'm excited for the January match and hope that many of you will join us.
(I was told that Ben met up with Dan a few days ahead of the match to get him oriented and familiar with the layout, etc so that it was a little easier for all parties on the morning of the match. We also are more than willing to let you share equipment or even tag along during the match in case you're interested and curious to see if you'd like to participate. If you're interested, we'll accommodate in whatever way necessary to make you feel comfortable enough to shoot/compete. The more the merrier.)
