I've been highly anticipating another Aspen Mtn match since the last one, back in July of 2021. Well, just got home from the first one of this season and man, was it a blast!!!
I arrived in the early afternoon of Thursday to find 4 or 5 shooters/campers already there. I hadn't seen some of these guys in almost a year so it was fun to catch up. In fact, I went straight to visiting, prior to me even setting up my tent. The chatting started with Larry F showing me his winter project of converting a 6x12 cargo trailer into a SWEET camper. He put in lighting and insulation and ran wiring and plumbing and a fold down bed with an ACTUAL mattress, and the crown jewel.....a real life HOT shower. He made it sound like it was a ton of effort but man o man does he have a sweet set up for a long weekend up in the mountains shooting airguns. I'm quite envious.
I eventually got a tent set up and started putting out spinners and bell targets and steel cubes, etc. Shortly thereafter a couple of us were banging away on the reactive targets with big smiles. After a while of that Bobby got that twinkle in his eye and asked if I wanted to shoot the high power .177 slugs he's been playing with. We have both been toying around with the prospect of a high power .177 in the past few months, working on project guns and barrels, etc to be able to make it happen. He got there first with one of his high power Red Wolfs and the results have been spectacular. So, he starting just stacking them on the 4x4 piece of square structural steel I had hung out at 100 yards. I got a turn next, and while I wasn't stacking them, I shot at least 15 times at a different side of the cube (quartering away a bit so it probably offered a roughly 3x4inch area to shoot at) and never missed. I commented afterwards that I wouldn't have been able to hit it so consistently with my long range/high power .22 rig shooting the MRDs. Van took some turns and once we were able to convey the correct holdover point, he was banging away at the 100 yard steel too. So very cool how resistant to wind those long .177 slugs are. I need to get off my duff and work on my .177 high power gun a bit more now that I've seen what they're capable of.
While the darkness of night put an end to the lead throwing, we weren't done with airguns, staying up for another few hours after dark chatting about them. Finally turned in around 1030 and it had chilled down quite a bit by then. I was shivering and couldn't wait to get all bundled up in the tent. I woke up a few times in the night when the cold wind blew in under the edge of the rain fly, but I slept fairly well and stayed warm enough. I'd guess it got down to the mid 30s. 8300 feet above sea level will do that to a May night.
Friday morning most were slow to come out of the covers. Rex later commented that he woke up early but concluded it was still too chilly to do much so stayed in bed for a bit longer. Larry and Steve had the lane markers set out by the time I got done with breakfast but we all did some shooting and dope gathering prior to getting serious about setting up the courses. It was probably 10am before we got started but we eventually set up a 15 lane!!! rifle course and an 8 lane pistol course. We felt pretty confident with the difficulty level on the rifle course without consulting a Troyer chart but weren't too sure on the pistol as that's the first time we've set one up.
After some lunch I swung back through the rifle course with a rangefinder and a notebook. I had unofficially polled the shooters during set up and most commented that they like to see the Troyer factor and difficulty levels in the match report so I concluded that I better get the data. I only collected photos of the set targets and distance and kz size for the rifle course. (Pistol course was roughly downrange of where everybody was practicing for the silhouette competition that we do on Friday evenings and I didn't feel like getting a pellet buried in my butt cheek).
Rifle course photos....
1.5" beaver @ 38 yards for a T of 25.3
3/4inch bird @ 24 yards for a T of 32
3/8inch buzzard @12 yards for T of 32 ( sorry photo is blurry)
3/4" kz coyote at 25 yards for a T of 33.3
1" kz porcupine @ 37 yards for a T of 37.
3/8 inch weasel @ 13 yards for a T of 34.7
7/16inch kill zone scorpion @ 12 yards for a Troyer of about 28.
This next one was a 1/2 inch kill zone on a bear target that was placed between two parallel logs, shot taken down the middle of the logs. It was a big tricky to account for that spur sticking into the pellets flight path but there was way more than .177 worth of room to squeak it through.
The next two photos (taken up close and back at the lane markers) are of a 3/4 racoon @ 31 yards for Troyer of 41.3, making it the hardest near target.
The next two ( up close and from lane marker) are of a 1.5inch armadillo @ 54 yards for a T of 40.5. This one was a bit tough to range due to the lighting.
These next three are from the same lane. Frog on a log (1/2inch kz @ 14 yards for a T of 28) and squirrel in a tree (5/8inch kz @ 26 for T of 41.6).
Next two are from the same lane and same target. Javelina through the gap.
These are tough to see but for those that shot the course, this was lane 6 with the 1/2inch kz heart @ 17 yards for a T of 34 and the 1/2 inch kz snake at 20 yards for a T of 40.
Rabbit under a log in the next two photos. It was a 3/8 inch kill zone but it sure felt smaller.
This squirrel in the next two was also challenging due to the lighting. 3/8 kz @ 13 yards for T of 34.7.
The Troyer average for the near targets was a 33.2 with the average distance being 20.31 yards. The hardest near was the 3/4 inch kz raccoon at 31 yards for a T of 41.3
The Troyer average for the far targets was a 36.62 with the average distance being 39.3 yards. The hardest far was the 1 inch skunk at 43 yards for a T of 43 (Lane 3).
The lowest Troyer (easiest) target of the course was a 22 (1/2 inch @ 11 yards).
There were 11 targets with Troyer factors of 40 or more.
The average Troyer for all 30 targets was 34.91.
Silhouettes
Once the rifle course was set and the above data collected we switched gears and shot the silhouette match. This would have been Friday evening around 5pm. Simple rules of 20 shots, 1 shot per target. Five targets at each of four distances (40, 50, 60, 70 yards). 1 shot per target, miss and you go to the next one. 7 minutes to take 20 shots. They're painted the same color to help shooters not accidentally shoot somebody else's target. 3 shooters per "heat." And you shoot through twice for a potential score of 40. Oh, the kicker is that this is done with your field target legal gun (read, < 20fpe) from a field target legal position. Those 70 yard chickens are quite the challenge with only 18 or 19 foot pounds! Any wind and you're missing-gotta watch the wind shifts like a hawk and it still usually gets ya for a shot or two.
Some of the guns and action photos from the silhouette match.
And the winners....
From right to left: Ben was 1st with a 39/40, Van was 2nd with a 38/40, Steve and Larry tied for 3rd with a 37.
Myself, Bobby, and Rex all shot scores of 36/40 and Dan shot a 34/40.
Much thanks to Steve for making the awards for the silhouette match. I heard multiple comments about how neat they are.
A couple of us kept shooting silhouettes til we ran out of light. We were just shooting for fun but me, Van, and Bobby decided to shoot them all offhand. It was dang fun, and the joke was that it only took us 7 tins of pellets to knock them all down.
Night shooting!
Ben brought up a bunch of lights for testing for his upcoming night matches at Phoenix Rod and Gun Club, as well as the famous fish target from the Xtreme Field Target matches he puts on in Phoenix, again at PRGC. So we had a bit of fun after dark shooting at his little test bed setup. I thought I was hot stuff knocking down the fish target at 92 yards offhand on my 3rd shot, until Van proceeded to do it on his first shot!!! That was with Ben's 20fpe field target rifle too. The targets were quite visible and it appears he's got a handle on the lighting situation. Cool stuff.
Rifle Field Target
We had the rifle ft match on Sat morning and the weather was just beautiful. Small bouts of wind that needed accounted for but nothing too horrible. It took lots of concentration to not make a mental mistake in 15 lanes and I couldn't do it-had my first ever open bolt situation. Notice in the silhouette photo above that Van has BOLT on a piece of tape on his scope cover as a reminder to shut the bolt. The course was mostly in the shade and only towards the end did we have a few lane markers in full sun. It took quite awhile to shoot that many lanes and most of us were worn out by the time we got done. One of the neat things Rex does with these NM matches is set the lane markers quite a ways from each other. I was in a squad of 3 shooters (odd number of total shooters) and between the forest and the distances, we only rarely saw any of the other competitors. It was like having a course all to yourself, and overall pretty cool.
There were 7 competitors in Hunter class and two in Open.
Steve took top Hunter and overall score with an amazing 60/60 (way to go Steve!!!)
Rex was second in Hunter with a 57/60.
Van was third with a 56/60
Ben was next with 52/60
Then Larry with a 49/60
Barry shot a 46/60
Dan shot a 45/60
The two Open class shooters were myself and Bobby. I shot a 54/60 and Bobby shot a 46/60.
Considering the course difficulty factor, and the general fatigue, both mental and physical, that can set in over such a long match, I was quite impressed with all the scores. Great shooting!
Pistol Field Target
Some of the "regulars" (myself included) picked up pistol ft guns in the last few years and so we decided to set up and shoot a pistol match. This occurred Sat evening.
These targets were set aside on Friday morning to be used for the pistol match.
Our only guidance was that we placed them from 10-35 yards. We set 8 lanes, two targets per lane, 4 shots per lane. I feel like we were pretty generous to ourselves in the kill zone sizes.
Overall we had five shooters in pistol.
Bobby using a borrowed HW44
Larry with his 1720 in a SC stock.
Me with a 1720, also in a SC stock
Rex with a 1720
Steve with a 1720
I've borrowed pistols and shot in a couple matches but this was the first time using my own gun and it was a hoot!!! I was giggling and enjoying myself immensely.
Pistol scores were the following
Rex-29/32
Steve-28/32
Cole-27/32
Bobby-26/32
Larry-25/32
I hope we decide to do another pistol match because that was a bunch of fun!!!
Conclusion
This weekend proved to be what these matches have in the past, lots of time enjoying airguns and sharing that love for airguns with others who feel the same. I can't begin to express how much I appreciate the effort that Rex put into this endeavor. Dollars add up when you start thinking about bricks and clamps and targets and string and paint and maintenance, etc. Thank you Rex for making that sacrifice to gear up so that we can all enjoy this so much. Also want to thank everybody that came out to play. Good to see you all and excited that we get to have two more fun weekends like this in the next two months.
For anyone interested, we will have two more events this summer, very similar to what was described above. Second weekend of June and second weekend of July. Whether you're a seasoned field target veteran or completely new to it, we'd love to have you join us-the more the merrier.
Took a couple photos on the way out....
Some really scenic views coming back down to the pavement. The two photos showing the dirt road is one of the switchbacks were the elevation is changing rapidly and represents about the worst of the road. Just wanted to illustrate the dirt road for anybody considering coming. We've got lots of camp trailers coming in and making it just fine. Saw elk in about 10 different places, these were just the easiest to get a photo of. Beautiful country.
I arrived in the early afternoon of Thursday to find 4 or 5 shooters/campers already there. I hadn't seen some of these guys in almost a year so it was fun to catch up. In fact, I went straight to visiting, prior to me even setting up my tent. The chatting started with Larry F showing me his winter project of converting a 6x12 cargo trailer into a SWEET camper. He put in lighting and insulation and ran wiring and plumbing and a fold down bed with an ACTUAL mattress, and the crown jewel.....a real life HOT shower. He made it sound like it was a ton of effort but man o man does he have a sweet set up for a long weekend up in the mountains shooting airguns. I'm quite envious.
I eventually got a tent set up and started putting out spinners and bell targets and steel cubes, etc. Shortly thereafter a couple of us were banging away on the reactive targets with big smiles. After a while of that Bobby got that twinkle in his eye and asked if I wanted to shoot the high power .177 slugs he's been playing with. We have both been toying around with the prospect of a high power .177 in the past few months, working on project guns and barrels, etc to be able to make it happen. He got there first with one of his high power Red Wolfs and the results have been spectacular. So, he starting just stacking them on the 4x4 piece of square structural steel I had hung out at 100 yards. I got a turn next, and while I wasn't stacking them, I shot at least 15 times at a different side of the cube (quartering away a bit so it probably offered a roughly 3x4inch area to shoot at) and never missed. I commented afterwards that I wouldn't have been able to hit it so consistently with my long range/high power .22 rig shooting the MRDs. Van took some turns and once we were able to convey the correct holdover point, he was banging away at the 100 yard steel too. So very cool how resistant to wind those long .177 slugs are. I need to get off my duff and work on my .177 high power gun a bit more now that I've seen what they're capable of.
While the darkness of night put an end to the lead throwing, we weren't done with airguns, staying up for another few hours after dark chatting about them. Finally turned in around 1030 and it had chilled down quite a bit by then. I was shivering and couldn't wait to get all bundled up in the tent. I woke up a few times in the night when the cold wind blew in under the edge of the rain fly, but I slept fairly well and stayed warm enough. I'd guess it got down to the mid 30s. 8300 feet above sea level will do that to a May night.
Friday morning most were slow to come out of the covers. Rex later commented that he woke up early but concluded it was still too chilly to do much so stayed in bed for a bit longer. Larry and Steve had the lane markers set out by the time I got done with breakfast but we all did some shooting and dope gathering prior to getting serious about setting up the courses. It was probably 10am before we got started but we eventually set up a 15 lane!!! rifle course and an 8 lane pistol course. We felt pretty confident with the difficulty level on the rifle course without consulting a Troyer chart but weren't too sure on the pistol as that's the first time we've set one up.
After some lunch I swung back through the rifle course with a rangefinder and a notebook. I had unofficially polled the shooters during set up and most commented that they like to see the Troyer factor and difficulty levels in the match report so I concluded that I better get the data. I only collected photos of the set targets and distance and kz size for the rifle course. (Pistol course was roughly downrange of where everybody was practicing for the silhouette competition that we do on Friday evenings and I didn't feel like getting a pellet buried in my butt cheek).
Rifle course photos....
1.5" beaver @ 38 yards for a T of 25.3
3/4inch bird @ 24 yards for a T of 32
3/8inch buzzard @12 yards for T of 32 ( sorry photo is blurry)
3/4" kz coyote at 25 yards for a T of 33.3
1" kz porcupine @ 37 yards for a T of 37.
3/8 inch weasel @ 13 yards for a T of 34.7
7/16inch kill zone scorpion @ 12 yards for a Troyer of about 28.
This next one was a 1/2 inch kill zone on a bear target that was placed between two parallel logs, shot taken down the middle of the logs. It was a big tricky to account for that spur sticking into the pellets flight path but there was way more than .177 worth of room to squeak it through.
The next two photos (taken up close and back at the lane markers) are of a 3/4 racoon @ 31 yards for Troyer of 41.3, making it the hardest near target.
The next two ( up close and from lane marker) are of a 1.5inch armadillo @ 54 yards for a T of 40.5. This one was a bit tough to range due to the lighting.
These next three are from the same lane. Frog on a log (1/2inch kz @ 14 yards for a T of 28) and squirrel in a tree (5/8inch kz @ 26 for T of 41.6).
Next two are from the same lane and same target. Javelina through the gap.
These are tough to see but for those that shot the course, this was lane 6 with the 1/2inch kz heart @ 17 yards for a T of 34 and the 1/2 inch kz snake at 20 yards for a T of 40.
Rabbit under a log in the next two photos. It was a 3/8 inch kill zone but it sure felt smaller.
This squirrel in the next two was also challenging due to the lighting. 3/8 kz @ 13 yards for T of 34.7.
The Troyer average for the near targets was a 33.2 with the average distance being 20.31 yards. The hardest near was the 3/4 inch kz raccoon at 31 yards for a T of 41.3
The Troyer average for the far targets was a 36.62 with the average distance being 39.3 yards. The hardest far was the 1 inch skunk at 43 yards for a T of 43 (Lane 3).
The lowest Troyer (easiest) target of the course was a 22 (1/2 inch @ 11 yards).
There were 11 targets with Troyer factors of 40 or more.
The average Troyer for all 30 targets was 34.91.
Silhouettes
Once the rifle course was set and the above data collected we switched gears and shot the silhouette match. This would have been Friday evening around 5pm. Simple rules of 20 shots, 1 shot per target. Five targets at each of four distances (40, 50, 60, 70 yards). 1 shot per target, miss and you go to the next one. 7 minutes to take 20 shots. They're painted the same color to help shooters not accidentally shoot somebody else's target. 3 shooters per "heat." And you shoot through twice for a potential score of 40. Oh, the kicker is that this is done with your field target legal gun (read, < 20fpe) from a field target legal position. Those 70 yard chickens are quite the challenge with only 18 or 19 foot pounds! Any wind and you're missing-gotta watch the wind shifts like a hawk and it still usually gets ya for a shot or two.
Some of the guns and action photos from the silhouette match.
And the winners....
From right to left: Ben was 1st with a 39/40, Van was 2nd with a 38/40, Steve and Larry tied for 3rd with a 37.
Myself, Bobby, and Rex all shot scores of 36/40 and Dan shot a 34/40.
Much thanks to Steve for making the awards for the silhouette match. I heard multiple comments about how neat they are.
A couple of us kept shooting silhouettes til we ran out of light. We were just shooting for fun but me, Van, and Bobby decided to shoot them all offhand. It was dang fun, and the joke was that it only took us 7 tins of pellets to knock them all down.
Night shooting!
Ben brought up a bunch of lights for testing for his upcoming night matches at Phoenix Rod and Gun Club, as well as the famous fish target from the Xtreme Field Target matches he puts on in Phoenix, again at PRGC. So we had a bit of fun after dark shooting at his little test bed setup. I thought I was hot stuff knocking down the fish target at 92 yards offhand on my 3rd shot, until Van proceeded to do it on his first shot!!! That was with Ben's 20fpe field target rifle too. The targets were quite visible and it appears he's got a handle on the lighting situation. Cool stuff.
Rifle Field Target
We had the rifle ft match on Sat morning and the weather was just beautiful. Small bouts of wind that needed accounted for but nothing too horrible. It took lots of concentration to not make a mental mistake in 15 lanes and I couldn't do it-had my first ever open bolt situation. Notice in the silhouette photo above that Van has BOLT on a piece of tape on his scope cover as a reminder to shut the bolt. The course was mostly in the shade and only towards the end did we have a few lane markers in full sun. It took quite awhile to shoot that many lanes and most of us were worn out by the time we got done. One of the neat things Rex does with these NM matches is set the lane markers quite a ways from each other. I was in a squad of 3 shooters (odd number of total shooters) and between the forest and the distances, we only rarely saw any of the other competitors. It was like having a course all to yourself, and overall pretty cool.
There were 7 competitors in Hunter class and two in Open.
Steve took top Hunter and overall score with an amazing 60/60 (way to go Steve!!!)
Rex was second in Hunter with a 57/60.
Van was third with a 56/60
Ben was next with 52/60
Then Larry with a 49/60
Barry shot a 46/60
Dan shot a 45/60
The two Open class shooters were myself and Bobby. I shot a 54/60 and Bobby shot a 46/60.
Considering the course difficulty factor, and the general fatigue, both mental and physical, that can set in over such a long match, I was quite impressed with all the scores. Great shooting!
Pistol Field Target
Some of the "regulars" (myself included) picked up pistol ft guns in the last few years and so we decided to set up and shoot a pistol match. This occurred Sat evening.
These targets were set aside on Friday morning to be used for the pistol match.
Our only guidance was that we placed them from 10-35 yards. We set 8 lanes, two targets per lane, 4 shots per lane. I feel like we were pretty generous to ourselves in the kill zone sizes.
Overall we had five shooters in pistol.
Bobby using a borrowed HW44
Larry with his 1720 in a SC stock.
Me with a 1720, also in a SC stock
Rex with a 1720
Steve with a 1720
I've borrowed pistols and shot in a couple matches but this was the first time using my own gun and it was a hoot!!! I was giggling and enjoying myself immensely.
Pistol scores were the following
Rex-29/32
Steve-28/32
Cole-27/32
Bobby-26/32
Larry-25/32
I hope we decide to do another pistol match because that was a bunch of fun!!!
Conclusion
This weekend proved to be what these matches have in the past, lots of time enjoying airguns and sharing that love for airguns with others who feel the same. I can't begin to express how much I appreciate the effort that Rex put into this endeavor. Dollars add up when you start thinking about bricks and clamps and targets and string and paint and maintenance, etc. Thank you Rex for making that sacrifice to gear up so that we can all enjoy this so much. Also want to thank everybody that came out to play. Good to see you all and excited that we get to have two more fun weekends like this in the next two months.
For anyone interested, we will have two more events this summer, very similar to what was described above. Second weekend of June and second weekend of July. Whether you're a seasoned field target veteran or completely new to it, we'd love to have you join us-the more the merrier.
Took a couple photos on the way out....
Some really scenic views coming back down to the pavement. The two photos showing the dirt road is one of the switchbacks were the elevation is changing rapidly and represents about the worst of the road. Just wanted to illustrate the dirt road for anybody considering coming. We've got lots of camp trailers coming in and making it just fine. Saw elk in about 10 different places, these were just the easiest to get a photo of. Beautiful country.
