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Results Match Reports - 2019 CA State FT Championship

This post is courtesy of Bob Kidd, the official match report will follow shortly

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California State Field Target Championship AAFTA GP Sept. 14 – 15, 2019

Sacramento Valley Field Target Club took the reins for this year's California State Championship event, staged in Morro Bay on the San Luis Small Bore Association's facility.

Scott Schneider, Jim Cyran and team carved out a challenging “Delta Course' – which surely referred to delta as “change”. Wow. Incorporating a some terrain that had not been used in about 5 years, the course forced shooters to shoot east, west and north in and amongst some devilish topography and greenery that most had never seen before.

Berms, fences, tree lines and thick underbrush played with the wind.

Wind? Yes, the wind was playing, too. But not always in the typical direction or typical temperature! Driving to the range Saturday with 88F temps along the highway was … just weird. Sunday's fog and 60s was at least more of what we might have expected on the coastal site in mid September.

Physical endurance was tested along with marksmanship on Saturday … you definitely needed to remember to keep drinking water to keep your mind fresh.

Meals included a smorgasbord of delightful sandwiches, pasta and side dishes in supporting rolls (ha!) but the stars were the delicious wild game generously provided by Cyran and Chris Merritt – spicy duck sausage, venison, gamekeeper's chili and much more – ah, the mind whirls. The cooking and food service was greatly enhanced by the volunteer work of Dawn Schneider, wife of our match director Scott. Dawn made sure the meals came off without a hitch. Add ice chests brimming with cold beverages and you just know the evenings were refreshing and hilarious.

Saturday's pistol event shown below. One-hundred twelve shots after it began, the two-day rifle GP scores were as follows:

By Captain Kidd!!

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Final Match Report By Scott Schneider --------------------------------------------------------------------

What a week / weekend it was. A few of us from the Sacramento Valley FT club who made the commitment to HOST this event made the 325 mile trek from the Sacramento area to Morro Bay on the Tuesday before the weekend match. This being the second Gran Prix to use the San Luis small bore facility, AAFTA rules dictate all new range lanes needed to be established, cut in, measured and put into compliance to AAFTA Gran Prix guidelines. By Thursday we have 21 new lanes established for the 2 days of rifle along with 10 lanes for the pistol shoot to happen late afternoon on Saturday. Lanes and distances were measured making sure the required 40+ yard shots were correct entering all the data to a laptop and set up spread sheet. Figured what kill zones would go where, got our Troyer difficulty sorted and had the Saturday rifle course ready to go by Thursday afternoon, Pistol course too. By late Friday morning most of registered participants were on site willing and wanting to get some practice done. Squads for Saturday were set up, notes made so we could get all the required things done that such a match demands.

Now lets review some of the goings on behind the scenes .... FOOD Wholly molly what a treat the entire week was! Even before the weekends meals those there shared what they had brought to eat ... Abalone, Venison, smoked salmon and misc game meats along with many other items that really tasted great. Libations were plentiful having each evening relaxed and reflective on the hard work all were doing in pulling this off. THANK GOODNESS we had some food prep help from a non shooter who slaved all week in the kitchen/club house. That special lady was Dawn Schneider who is the wife of the match director. THANK YOU !

Friday night the SVFTC provided a light dinner for all. Once again what a mixed bag of exotic that foods that were generously added to the clubs provided fare making for some great eats!! Saturday night was no different tho highlighted with Smoked Pheasant, Speckle Belly goose breasts, Duck sausages, Venison, Spaghetti, garlic bread & salad. Wine & beer / soda / water too.

Around every table or group of folks in there there comfy lawn chairs the anticipation and chatter about the coming 2 days shooting, course configuration, difficulty and all the stuff we FT shooters fret over ... along with looking forward at what was looking to be a challenging & attention demanding course.

LETS SHOOT .....
Come Saturday morning we had practice open from @ 7:30 until 9:00 when we started the shooters meeting being vague yet telling of the courses perils and things to watch out for .. new course after all. We're at 29 shooters on 14 lanes of fire .... Full house with one 3 man squad. Within 3 lanes shot sadly we're down 2 shooters and continue with 27 who finish the mornings match. Troyer value low 29's
We had a single target get it's welded on reinforcement ring break off, it was changed out by a SVFTC member and we're moving on once again w/o further lane issues. Match gets started @ 9:20 and by about 1:15 all the squads are coming in for lunch.

Around 3:00 pm we gather up the PISTOL FT shooters, have a quick meeting and converge on the Pistol course which was set up on the fringe of the brush line. It consisted of varied angle & distances out in the full exposure of the afternoons modest Breeze / Wind making for a somewhat difficult to read course.

Sunday we get MORE SERIOUS with the course shot Saturday being changed up, many lanes eliminated with those remaining lanes cut in ( used 14 of 21 on Saturday ) getting put into play also changing some distances and sizes on reused lanes. The Troyer value also went up to just shy of 33 with the changes, 2 more off hand targets added having everyone needing to shoot a total of 8 off hand shots on Sunday alone ... Just Spreading the love!! Squads were done placing shooters together based on Saturday's scores, trying to stay in the same classes as best we could. 

Shooters meeting telling of the changes made and there off and shooting shortly after 9:00. The match director spent the morning walking up and down the course making sure no issues were not left unaddressed, watching shooters enjoying themselves and took photographs. A very pleasant day with much cooler temperatures everyone seemed more relaxed and found it easier to concentrate on the task at hand ... KNOCK DOWN those little steel targets !!

** Speaking of TARGETS ..... Well lets just say many in attendance had no idea what a CRAZY bunch the SVFTC crew is. The sometimes Life Like to Zany Psychedelic paint jobs had some thinking drugs were involved, ya know sort of Alice in Wonderland some of thing ? LOL In some instances the targets were so Life Like they blended into the surroundings giving fits to some who had trouble range finding on them, yet other times IN YOUR FACE bright and loud you can SEE ME!! Some did not like NOT being able to see where there shot were landing on the speckled or natural targets if missed while other others just chuckled over the creative change in what is typical for targets ... White or Black plain Jane.

AWARDS .....
Thanks to John Berquist and his creative mind and fabrication skills we got some VERY UNIQUE target trophies. Top place finishers were awarded functional California Golden Bear field targets made from Plexiglas on marble bases, lower positions a Plexiglas bear on a marble base ... Very Nice !

Afterwards a few hung around providing assistance in tearing it all back down, loaded all the gear, parts and pieces into the trailer and helped putting it away for another event. There were a few who stayed over Sunday night and helped Monday A.M. cleaning and making sure the facility was in better shape than we had found it.

A special thanks to Scott Hull director of the SLSBA Airgun Club who coordinated the use of the facility, and obtained the permission of the the other shooting clubs to use their ranges and the camping area for the match. Scott was also out in the field working with us every day during course set up and his club provided all the brick bases and lane markers needed for the match. Finally a big THANK YOU to those SVFTC members who also helped make this a successful match. Those shooters who contributed their time and efforts to help, though not required, was very much appreciated! 

Best regards,
Scott Schneider
Match Director

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Gallery of wonderful pictures can be found here:
2019 CA State FT Match Pictures