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Southwest Airgunners April 2023 Duncan AZ, FT and Silhouette Match Report

(SOOO many photos!!!)
group photo.jpg


This past weekend we had the first Duncan AZ match on Tom H's beautiful Gila river bottom property. Lots of great fun and I'm going to break it down in the following manner:
  • Camping and the property
  • Silhouette match on Friday evening
  • Dinner
  • Field target match on Sat morning
Camping and the property
When Tom offered to share his property with us for a match, a large part of the excitement was the ability to camp, primarily because of the cottonwoods that would offer us nice cool shade. I heard somebody comment that it felt at least 10 degrees hotter out in the sun than it did under that refreshing shade, and I agree! It was around 90 degrees both days, but sure didn't feel that bad when under the shade. Tom and Rex did an outstanding prep job, brush hogging the weeds in the camping area, as well as making paths. I'll let the photos do the rest of the talking.
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camping boys.jpg
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north side of the V of trees.jpg
shade.jpg
trails.jpg
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vans rig.jpg


Silhouettes
Friday evening we had the silhouette match. Simple rules: any field target position, 20fpe limit, a bank of pig, turkey, ram, chicken, chicken at each of 40, 50, 60, 70 yards. Shoot through twice for a total score of 40. 3 shooters at a time. 12 contestants chose to throw their hat in the ring, and man o man was it a challenge this time! Due to the forecasted winds, Rex had decided to back down to 40, 50, 60, 70 yards b/c the initial plan was 50, 60, 70, 80!!! We ended up dealing with winds that were in the 25-30mph range, and quartering away from us, wind roughly coming from about our 7-8 o'clock position. The firing line for the silhouettes was in about the only opening in the northwestern strip of cottonwoods, and the wind was coming out of the northwest. It essentially created a funnel, sandblasting the shooters. The really wild thing was to walk out and reset the silhouettes between heats and not feel hardly any wind downrange! It was a challenge. The trick seemed to be to figure out how much to hold off and whether or not the pellets were lifting for that particular instance of wind. And that was best done by correlating hold and impact points on the big ram. It was a bit of a mental game to hold THAT much off to the left of the animal and will yourself to pull the trigger. It was gnarly. Gnarly indeed. But very fun!!!
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Dinner
After the silhouette match concluded we were treated to a dinner of pit bbq, salad, potato salad, and dutch oven rolls. And all of that was topped off with dutch oven fruit cobbler and vanilla ice cream (anybody that was considering attending the match missed out on just the dinner, not to mention the shooting and camping). Tom and Norm very graciously prepped all of that for us and it was much appreciated. I commented that it was plenty to let us have a match on his property, but to go and feed us too?!?!? Very nice of Tom. THANK YOU!!!
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Field Target
Saturday morning we had the main event. We ended up with 14 shooters here, 3 different sets of fathers/sons, which I thought is kinda cool. I would have bet money that the Troyer was up around 35 from just seeing and shooting the course, but it worked out to a Troyer 32. The hardest two far targets were a 3/4" kz @ 33 yards for a T of 44 and a 1.5" kz @ 55 for a T of 41.3. The hardest near target was a 1/2" kz @ 18yards for a T of 36. There were 8 targets with T's of 35 or more. So it worked out well for a course for multiple first-time shooters, enough low T courses for them to get a feel for knocking some down, but also enough high T's to keep the more experienced shooters engaged (and to prevent clean scores!)
The wind was much more calm for the field target match, I'd be surprised if even the gusts got past 10-12mph. While there wasn't much of it, the wind came from every direction. The cottonwoods were doing their thing and it was an almost surreal experience to have it snowing cottonwood cotton all around us. It was very interesting to shoot through a match in the cotton flurry, watching it drift to see what the wind was doing. There were a couple instances where the cotton was going one way, and a held up reset string was going the other way so it was a bit tricky to get a read on how much and which direction to hold off to account for the wind. All part of the challenge and fun.


See next post for continuation (AGN only allows 20 attachments per post)
 
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FT set up....Rex did a great job, with some really thoughtful target presentation. For example, the beaver target was down in the swampy area nearest the river, right where there were some real ( and recent) beaver cuttings. The possum target was near some old cow bones (they eat carrion right?). Rat target in the brush where you might expect to see a rat. Frog in a tree (treefrog). Alligator down in the low area of the creek bed, again where you might expect to see one. Quail on top of a post, where he saw a real quail on a post and where those same quail were at the bottom of the post during the match. And on and on.

rex setting up.jpg


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In-match photos....
barry d.jpg
colben getting a bear.jpg
garrett.jpg
larry quail.jpg


My youngest was taking his scorekeeper duties pretty serious here....
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I thought this was the coolest dang thing.....quail target on the post....and real quail on the ground next to the quail target on the post.....
quail.jpg

field target score.jpg


Conclusion
Basing the match off the fun level that me and my boys experienced, the first Duncan match was a resounding success. I'd like to thank Rex and Larry and Steve and Tom and Norm, and etc etc etc for not only sharing the property with us, but also putting in all the prep work, the ft course, and the dinner. ALL of that was appreciated more than words can convey. I'd also like to thank all of the competitors for traveling and making an effort to attend. Can't have a match without shooters so your presence and participation was and is appreciated.

If you missed out on this match, you REALLY missed out. It was one of the most enjoyable ft matches that I've competed in.

(photo credits to Ben, Van, Larry, Rex, etc)
 
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