If your gonna shoot FT - be prepared for it. ( I made a fool of myself today ) (( oh - and "drug dealers" @FT events too . . . lol!! ))

Do they have a completely unknown distance class?? I used to shoot tourney 3d archery in IBO and the only ranging I did was with my eyes. Made it quite interesting. Now the top scoring rings were bigger than those on the FT targets but bows were only pushing around 300 fps with 50 yard max. A 177 pushing near 20 ft/lbs is going to be a lot more forgiving toward yardage mis judgement. I just think it would be a fun class.
 
Yes, shooting near 20 ft-lbs is more forgiving, but remember the maximum scope setting is 16X.

Ranging a darkly painted target placed in a shaded, wooded area, at an unknown distance; can be very challenging when limited to 16X. Or even by a target in an open area with nothing around it to really reference for distance. Add some varying winds and it gets interesting really fast.
Give it a try. 👍😀
No I get that I just think it would be interesting. The top shooters in the open class in IBO I swear are human range finders. Would just be cool to see the scores.
 
Hey guys - update on Saturdays debacle ( my meltdown ). The gun did in fact malfunction and that is what ( in part ) was due to my horrible day of shooting. I decided to at least look at it today ( lol ) and when I took it out in the back yard to start re-tuning it for the heavier monster 13.43's it started behaving EXACTLY like it was last Sat @the FT meet. ( "... what the frick is going on with this thing . . .? " ) I'm mumbling to myself. I take a close look at the front end of it and "! Whoa . . . " - clipping - BIG TIME. I took it back in the house and pulled the shroud off of it and sure enough there was LOTS of "shrapnel" ( bits & pieces of mangled pellets ) in there. A couple of the baffles were dinged up to boot - one of them essentially destroyed. I've never seen anything like it. I've NO idea what may have caused it to do this. Maybe I fed a pellet in backwards? Or a couple of them backwards? I dunno . . . .

Anyway - since I had it somewhat apart - I pulled the barrel, gave it a good cleaning, decided to lose the shroud altogether and just slap a spare Donny moderator on it that I have ("koi" I think it's called) It's ( the gun in general) is only an inch or two longer in overall length now with the moderator vs. with the native shroud. I think it'll still be acceptably quiet . . . . we just had a wicket thunder & lightning storm roll through - I may be able to get out in the back yard and test it out . . . or not. If not - then - tomorrow or the next day.

taipan_177_clipping.jpg


Here's what it looks like now sans the shroud - "naked". ( lol ) 31.5" overall length now
taipan_177_naked_no_shroud.jpg