Events Extreme Field Target, Phoenix AZ, Saturday 24 April 2021

[Franklink]

Ben keeps mentioning this EFT is the people's match and it could end up being normal using streamers which would help our scores to some extent, I'm guessing picking up 5 hits per match on average??? It's obvious even with 3" KZ's past 75Y that we all struggle in the wind! I think in time you would see the value in it like when shooting long distances during BR comps.

Been real windy up here so I haven't shot the whole fill over the chrono recently, instead rushing out to get practice when it's not so windy.

Wish I could have been there, sounds like it was the typical great fun. 

As for the streamers, I would have voted no. You mention benchrest and this simply isn't benchrest, and I hope it doesn't become benchrest. The margins by which people are winning isn't down to splitting hairs like it is in benchrest, and I think that's a good thing. I've mentioned before, but Sandy has quite the track record for winning or nearly winning in these EFT matches. Sandy's simple track record is a pretty good testament to the fact that there is an Extreme amount of skill involved here, not just whoever has the best equipment. 

As for practice, you got it backwards! Also living in northern AZ and dealing with our winds, I used to be bummed when the wind picked up, but now I look at it as an opportunity to shoot in wind-the glass half full sort of view. Go shoot in the nasty stuff (like today)! 

 

[bluebaby]

Thanks for the congrats from all. Sorry for the sarcasm Steve. After reading your post it seems if you actually tried to shoot a clean match instead of worrying about streamers that would increase your score by 5 points. I wanted to break 30 this time but had two bad trigger pulls that were on very doable targets. I also had no wind at my 100 yd target so I missed one of those. All my long targets I waited for wind to shoot in. No, I am not miffed about you asking for a vote, what I am miffed about is that the vote was taken at the the shoot instead of being emailed out to the entire club members since it had no effect on that match. You know as well as I do the majority of people do not want streamers and the ones that don’t care voted yes and not no. There were also several new people there that voted yes and will not even be there for the next several matches and have only shot with us twice There were also regulars that were not included in the vote. We had 18 shooters and only a total of 16 votes. I’m not even sure they were counted correctly. If it is indeed a shooters club then don’t you think all the shooters should be included?

Missed you Cole. Hope your doing Ok. Will definitely miss your extensive match report. I am always curious to see what the level of shooting was and which ones were missed by most. I will be trying to make Luna but may be difficult with work. We will see.

 

[steve123]

Cole, what I didn't finish stating in my post was that I think my problem is I've been practicing in overly windy conditions, and because I am used to that I was aiming out too far, BUT I can't say for sure because I never saw one single strike on the faceplate past 50-ish yards. Well that's another stupid thing about FT but more so EFT, you don't know where you missed most of the time so no idea where to correct too. Part of the game I guess but I still don't like it. At least in BR you can see where you missed. In the Field Course centerfire matches I went to we could see where we hit on the steel most of the time, as well as where we missed in the dirt, so we knew where to correct to often, and those matches had way harder targets with far worse wind in the Ashfork area on top of a sandstone quarry a couple hundred yards above the desert floor, targets were 300Y to 1450Y away too. A few streamers out at distance made these matches tolerable, as the prominent hit ratios were mid 20's out of 40 shots for the top shooters. I often gave my opinion about using bigger targets but the powers that be thought otherwise sadly. Mid pack of shooters in the low teens and many new shooters never came back because of the difficulty. Hint hint

How could EFT become BR if there are no benches or bench rests, right?? Especially since we can't see where we miss most of the time and in BR we can.

Ha, yeah sure Cole, go out and practice in 20-40 mph winds like yesterday. That's the trick, I'll be so much better 

And it's not like 2nd and 3rd place at this match was splitting hairs, right? 

Again this is such a farce thinking Sandy's highly tuned Redwolf done by none other than one of the best tuners in the country, her husband Bobby, is not "The Best Equipment" Yuh know I feel so sorry for her, poor girl is just so neglected with that POS. Uh It doesn't matter how good a shooter is if the equipment isn't capable if winning, right! You really need to get off this kick??! Yeah Cole I really bought the wins in the 2 matches I used it. DSUIA

Seriously, do you really think Sandy is any better of a shot than any of the rest of the top shooters? What about Bobby's wins, your win, my win, etc. All it takes is one person having a bad day, or making a mistake, compounding mistakes, or dope being off, or gun problems, or being nervous, etc - the list goes on, to change the outcome of a match. Just like in FT, right? Since Mike S had trigger problems and he shot my rifle the last 3 lanes I should have refilled SURELY right then. All I know is I missed quite a bit except for the last lane. I filled it just prior to the last lane and cleaned it. Mike N sent me the rifle set up perfectly - and I forgot to measure the HS before I adjusted it to get more velocity and am assuming that now the gun is using too much air because I have the HS too far "in"??? Live and learn, right - Don't fix what ain't broke.

Cole, EFT isn't FT either is it?! Pretty obvious at this point by our hit ratio's when compared, it's typically the farther targets that are the problem and that's because we can't guess the wind well enough. Personally for me the fun factor is low in EFT compared to FT. IMO to increase that fun factor it can go three ways, #1 - We can set larger KZ's which is the most simple solution politically to not upset the purist's. #2 - Set streamers out to increase the hit ratios. #3 Or combine both. IMO the course should be cleanable with a 22rf, and almost so for air rifles. 

Cole, if you look at the margins in EBR for the top scores in 100Y BR you'll find they are similar to EFT. In the low to mid 200's but nobody is even close to getting 250 on a card. 1st-through 4the place often separated by 5 points but less than that a fair amount of the time. It would be worse scoring without flags, and these are actual flags not a few streamers here and there like I want to see in EFT. They have as much chance of getting a 250 as we do getting a 40, or in other words almost impossible. 

Sandy, we've all got our excuses why it's hard to break 30 but the truth is none of us know what the wind is doing within a 95% confidence level to break that number unless the wind is very low, and how often does that happen, rhetorical. If you could read the wind that well like you come off like you'd be getting high 30's, obviously not. I hope you find what you are looking for, sorry for the sarcasm  Oh darn man, that's what it was, it must have been I was so worried about having streamers that I couldn't concentrate, who'd a thunk.  

The vote, we've voted both at the venue and through email. Let's try streamers at least once then vote again through email afterwards. It appears to be close to 50/50 YAY or NAY from the looks of it. The consensus of YAY for streamers to be tried at the next match, or at least once, is warranted or it would have not been 10 to 7 vote. There's also a peer pressure thing going on here, the popular kids should relax some here, de pucker a bit will yuh. Gosh, I mean it's abohorent to think someone would want streamers, oh the sheer thought of it, the sky could fall, the earth could quit it's rotation, possibly an elephant could run us over too

 

[bluebaby]

Wow. I hope you feel better after that rant. I have one and one last thing to say. We have been shooting EFT since Sept 2020. We have been having a good time shooting this venue without any complaints and having a great time doing so. Some of us are completely happy shooting without adding or changing the venue. We do the best we can with what we have. You come in and want to add something that you think may help improve your score and yet you say you don’t care to shoot this event as much as FT. IMO shoot it the way it is and enjoy it for what it is rather than try to change it to what you want it to be. 

 

[steve123]

Wow. I hope you feel better after that rant. I have one and one last thing to say. We have been shooting EFT since Sept 2020. We have been having a good time shooting this venue without any complaints and having a great time doing so. Some of us are completely happy shooting without adding or changing the venue. We do the best we can with what we have. You come in and want to add something that you think may help improve your score and yet you say you don’t care to shoot this event as much as FT. IMO shoot it the way it is and enjoy it for what it is rather than try to change it to what you want it to be. 

I do for sure 

Would this be you from 2/28 complaining and wanting to change something? - "I thought it was extremely difficult and having the entire target painted black with reducers made it even more so. The offhand lanes were one of completely black targets and I would venture to say that could be part of the reason for so many misses. I couldn’t see my reticle on the target and had to turn the power down even more to try to see anything on the target. Thanks Mike for not doing that again. The course is hard enough without adding to it." 

And how about this? "The scores wouldn’t be as low as they are if it wasn’t intentionally being set up for failure. I understand that it’s difficult to set the course since you can only use the places where the pallets are for target location so in order to change it up different sizes need to be placed on the pallets for change. This seems to have gotten out of hand to me. It almost seems that there is so much fear of having someone clear the course it is being made literally impossible.

For the record I was 100% with you on both those issues. 

See we have more in common than not. Refer to paragraph #7 in my previous post about using bigger KZ's. Nevertheless I for once would like to see what the wind is doing instead trying to WAG it which is exactly what we have been doing. Like I mentioned in times past, just because the string on the gun is one way doesn't mean that the wind halfway up the hill isn't the opposite direction. This is longer range with pellet guns not to 55Y like in FT. FT shooters are so steeped in tradition that the thought of using streamers binds them in such strong cords of disgust that they can't seem to get over the FACT that this isn't FT! It's a simple concept that few seem to grasp for some reason.

Good times, yeah the best of times are when the targets are falling, more targets falling equals more good times. I think everyone can agree on this so let's make it happen and quit messing around.

Change can be good and I'm trying to do good by our club, just like you were with your complaints about issues that needed to be addressed. I'm just taking it a step farther by wanting streamers. 

 

[Franklink]

Wow Steve, I think some of the discussions surrounding EFT that have occurred here in AGN are victim of the written format, where lots of the non-verbal aspects of communication are lost. It seems I keep offending and that has not ever been the intent. We could likely have these same conversations in person and neither of us would get hot under the collar. 

When I mentioned the hair-splitting margins seen in benchrest I was thinking more of regular benchrest comps, not the once a year EBR types. In the regular benchrest events, miniscule differences between pellet impact points are the deciding factors between first and 5th or more. When the top 5 competitors are shooting 249s and the winner is a 249 with 11X's and the 5th place shooter has 5X's, we're looking at differences in equipment (not the quality of the trigger puller) being the primary factor to who is "winning." Those winners are determined by 1/32" differences in impact points. What I like about EFT is that the format gives a much better chance of winning to the person who is most practiced, most knowledgeable about shooting in the wind, most familiar with their gun and chosen projectiles trajectory/wind drift/etc. And, yes, it takes a good gun to shoot well, but the current format offers a good shooter with an OK gun the chance to win. A good shooter with an OK gun in field target or traditional benchrest is simply not going to win as often as somebody with the highest quality ($$$$$$$$) equipment. 

I never said Sandy is winning with sub-par equipment. The Red Wolf is a fine gun, made even better by Bobby's expert touch. No arguments there. The Red Wolf however, is not the most expensive pellet slinger. So, perhaps when I said "best equipment" I really meant most expensive. I think it is awesome that someone is (regularly) winning with a gun and scope combo that is not the most expensive rig. 

As for if I think Sandy (and Bobby) is/are that much better shooter(s) than the rest of us, I do. I considered going through and adding up all the possible points for each of the events that each of us has been at and calculating a percentage of knocked down targets (and I still might, if I find the time), but, in a much simpler example, if we go back and look at each of the match reports, Sandy and Bobby are in the top 3 shooters almost every month. They're putting in the time, practicing and getting to know their guns and how they behave in the wind. So, they win. 

Current format favors the more skilled shooters, and I simply hope it stays that way. ("skilled" is broad, but in my opinion encompasses: trigger time, familiarity with equipment/conditions, time management, etc). 

And, after all that, a vote is a vote. Whatever the majority decides, I'll go with. For all my outspoken comments and shared opinions, I'm only one vote. 

(Might be the first time in my life I've ever been called a "popular kid," assuming I'm interpreting that insinuation correctly.)

 

[Centercut]

I think we've beaten this dead horse enough, don't you all? It boils down to having fun, and all of us are friends, I don't think anyone would argue that. 

I've only gotten into FT (or EFT) since September of last year when I shot the first EFT and my first FT event (AZ State) in the same month. So I know I have much to learn, and watching shooters like the three of you I learn something every time I shoot. 

Usually I come to EFT and I just want to try a different gun, or different ammo (slugs or pellets) and I'm shooting against myself mostly, not really caring how I do in comparison to others. This was the 5th one for me, and I've shot a different gun and different ammo every single time, so of course I'm not "learning the wind" as if I'd been there 5 times with the same gun and ammo, BUT I still had fun and enjoyed the camaraderie. Saturday was frustrating for me because I had equipment problems with numerous POI shifts, but Ben S and I were laughing and joking the entire match anyway... January's match I took Bleu and .22 JSB KO's and shot 33/36 not counting off hand lane in the after match practice round, but the winds had mostly died down by then. Even so, I think 30 will start to be broken more and more as we get better and more used to the format and reading the tricky winds there.

None of us do this for a living, none of us are professional shooters. So I think we should just all have fun and do the best we can when we can. There are times when we are going to have to agree to disagree. Nothing wrong with that!

 

[steve123]

Wow Steve, I think some of the discussions surrounding EFT that have occurred here in AGN are victim of the written format, where lots of the non-verbal aspects of communication are lost. It seems I keep offending and that has not ever been the intent. We could likely have these same conversations in person and neither of us would get hot under the collar. 

When I mentioned the hair-splitting margins seen in benchrest I was thinking more of regular benchrest comps, not the once a year EBR types. In the regular benchrest events, miniscule differences between pellet impact points are the deciding factors between first and 5th or more. When the top 5 competitors are shooting 249s and the winner is a 249 with 11X's and the 5th place shooter has 5X's, we're looking at differences in equipment (not the quality of the trigger puller) being the primary factor to who is "winning." Those winners are determined by 1/32" differences in impact points. What I like about EFT is that the format gives a much better chance of winning to the person who is most practiced, most knowledgeable about shooting in the wind, most familiar with their gun and chosen projectiles trajectory/wind drift/etc. And, yes, it takes a good gun to shoot well, but the current format offers a good shooter with an OK gun the chance to win. A good shooter with an OK gun in field target or traditional benchrest is simply not going to win as often as somebody with the highest quality ($$$$$$$$) equipment. 

I never said Sandy is winning with sub-par equipment. The Red Wolf is a fine gun, made even better by Bobby's expert touch. No arguments there. The Red Wolf however, is not the most expensive pellet slinger. So, perhaps when I said "best equipment" I really meant most expensive. I think it is awesome that someone is (regularly) winning with a gun and scope combo that is not the most expensive rig. 

As for if I think Sandy (and Bobby) is/are that much better shooter(s) than the rest of us, I do. I considered going through and adding up all the possible points for each of the events that each of us has been at and calculating a percentage of knocked down targets (and I still might, if I find the time), but, in a much simpler example, if we go back and look at each of the match reports, Sandy and Bobby are in the top 3 shooters almost every month. They're putting in the time, practicing and getting to know their guns and how they behave in the wind. So, they win. 

Current format favors the more skilled shooters, and I simply hope it stays that way. ("skilled" is broad, but in my opinion encompasses: trigger time, familiarity with equipment/conditions, time management, etc). 

And, after all that, a vote is a vote. Whatever the majority decides, I'll go with. For all my outspoken comments and shared opinions, I'm only one vote. 

(Might be the first time in my life I've ever been called a "popular kid," assuming I'm interpreting that insinuation correctly.)

I'm glad we can discuss this stuff here on AGN so by the time the match comes we've settled down and can just enjoy each others company. Too me it's not like this stuff has caused so much contention that we can't let it go and carry on as normal. Not all of us will ever agree on everything, it's just how life is. Just have to put disputes aside and have fun like we've always done in the past.

I see what you mean by margins in regular BR, well kinda. I still see some small holes in your logic but I won't get into those. Nope we don't need extreme precision in EFT and I think most guns are capable of hitting most of the KZ's, I see that as a good thing for the sport. The problem in EFT is the horizonal component because of wind at the longer distances using pellets. The stats that you so kindly give us on the match report show the relevance of scores as related to course difficulty combined with how windy or not windy it is that day. Take October for example, the high score was 35 and two others finishing with a 33. Then compare that to February with a harder course and switchy winds with a high score of 26.

By popular kids I mean those that have the most influence in the club and that are most looked up too. I think all of which are NAY for artificial wind indicators and most of the best shooters in the club as well.