Results Southwest Airgunners Silhouette and Field Target match reports, Duncan AZ April 2024

[Franklink]

As the completion of this announcement, https://www.airgunnation.com/thread...pril-2024-upcoming-matches-duncan-az.1307502/
Rex and gang hosted another awesome airgun weekend at Tom's beautiful river bottom property in Duncan Arizona this past weekend. The property offered the same great setting for field target and silhouettes that it has in the past, with a few bits of sour to go along with all that sweet. The ample shade and terrain and cottonwoods and etc all combined to make the sweet, while the sour this month was some rather serious wind and swarms of mosquitoes. There's a relevant saying about not fully appreciating the sweet without occasionally experiencing some sour. All in all, it was fun, despite the skeeters and the wind.

Here are some photos of the site and camping, etc.




With the Southwest Airgunners, what started as typical AAFTA-style rifle field target matches has, over the course of a few years, morphed into weekends full of field target silhouettes, pistol field target, and the most recent addition, field target pistol silhouettes. That's a lot of shooting crammed into just a few days! And how can field target and silhouettes be combined? Well, we're using our ft rifles and pistols, and ft shooting positions, to shoot silhouettes.

Pistol Silhouettes
The most recent event, held for the first time this past weekend, was pistol silhouettes. We of course used our <12fpe field target pistols, topped with scopes used at < 12x, and we all shot from the "Hunter" position, ie shooting sticks/bipod and stool/bucket. We also used the tiny little 10m silhouettes. Distances were 10, 15, 20, and 25 yards. This a bit of a learning experience, with the biggest learning curve that the targets are so small that the lead splatter and/or vibration effects on the support beam were knocking targets off that hadn't been shot. We kept track of what hadn't been shot at and reset them. With all the resetting we only made it through one "relay" each, making a total possible 20 points. There were a handful of us that were 19/20, but only two shooters that went 20/20: Steve Q and Dan L. The tie was decided by a shoot off, using the 40 yard 1/5 scale silhouettes that we typically use for rifle silhouettes. There were some grumbles about only having dope to 35 yards for the ft pistols, but the shoot off went ahead. Steve Q won the shoot off to become the first winner of pistol silhouettes. There was already much discussion about how to keep the peripheral targets from getting knocked off.

Some photos from the pistol ft match...
The shoot off between Dan L and Steve Q

I've always wanted to get great photos of a bunch of the rigs used in a match, and finally made it happen for this ft silhouette match (somehow missed a close up of Dan's RAW micro but it can be seen in the shoot off photo above). An astute observer will notice a bit of a unicorn in these gun photos..I'll give a hint,....it is 1 of 1 in two ways, the ONLY .177, and the ONLY pistol using this airgun platform that exists anywhere (click on em for better images).


Part 2 will have the rifle silhouette....

 

[Franklink]

Part 2

Rifle Silhouettes
Field target rifles from field target position. I believe we all used Hunter here too.
40, 50, 60, 70 yards, and extra chicken at each distance. Shoot through twice, total possible points = 40.

Steve had some awesome trophies made for this event. One of the nicer ones I've received.

12 shooters threw their hat in here...
There was a tie for 2nd place between Franz and I, so again, a shootoff. Rex decided to give us each 5 of the chicken's at 70 yards and see how it shook out. I went 5/5 on mine, and Franz missed his last one, to make his score in the shoot off 4/5. Quite the challenge, required holding quite a ways off the chicken to connect in that wind.


Scores
Bobby C - 38/40
Cole R - 35/40
Franz D - 35/40
Steve Q - 34/40
Rex J - 32/40
Luis G - 31/40
Wayne R - 28/40
Larry F - 26/40
Andrew S - 23/40
Weston S - 21/40
Chance H - 20/40
Tom H - 17/40

Part 3 will be the rifle field target

 

[Franklink]

RIfle Field Target

We had 23 shooters for the rifle ft match. 20 of those were in Hunter class. 2 chose to shoot in Unlimited. And 1 lone shooter in the WFTF class.

Rex and the earliest campers set up a 60 shot match for us. Three targets per lane, 10 total lanes. The near and middle were set up to allow a pistol ft match as well. The course Troyer works out to only a 32, but that's just distance and kill zone sizes. It was VERY windy. Many of the targets were set back in really thick brush and very dark areas. And finally there were extreme up and down angled targets. All of those incur additional difficulty factors in the Troyer system. One of the targets was on a large deadfall and was SWAYING in the wind in the scope!!! Regardless of the 32 Troyer, I'm fairly confident that this was the hardest course I've ever shot. I was giving up not only the kill zone, but the entire faceplate for some of the farthest targets with the least favorable angles to the prevalent wind. Quite the challenge but also a very fun and rewarding match to shoot. Dan texted me about Rex being a "master course setter" and I agree. Rex takes all the factors into account and the end result is a course that will present rare challenges.

And Steve Q had some medals made. I think they turned out great.

WFTF - Garrett K - 50/60

Unlimited
Luis G - 45/60
Cabe R - 15/60

Hunter
Cole R - 56/60
Bobby C - 53/60 (tie broken by most clean lanes)
Rex J - 53/60
Wayne R - 51/60
Barry D - 50/60
Steve Q - 49/60
Dan L - 48/60
Franz D - 45/60 (tie broken by longest streak?)
Larry F - 45/60
Ben S - 42/60
Alan S - 35/60
Colben R - 33/60
Nathan S - 29/60
Norman S- 28/60
Tom H - 26/60
Terry S - 24/60
Chance H - 18/60
Andrew S - 15/60
Tyler S - 11/60
Weston S - 4/60

WFTF winner

Unlimited winner

Hunter winners (1st-8th, left to right, Steve knew Hunter would be a big class so had lots of Hunter medals made)

After all that shooting, the majority of the gang had their fill and headed home. A handful hung around to shoot through the course again with their pistols, using the near and middle targets. When I asked for the pistol ft scores Rex told me the wind was pretty bad by that time and it was mostly just for fun.


Thanks to all the competitors for attending-gotta have shooters to have a match and 23 is a pretty good turnout for a rather remote location. Thanks to Tom for sharing his property, as well as the continued improvements being made there. The dirtwork done (road made), as well as the tree cutting, and brush hogging, etc were all noticed and appreciated. Thanks to Tom and company for the breakfast, blueberry pancakes with bacon and sausage, hard to beat that. Thanks to Rex and gang for setting up and tearing down the course, lots of work there. Thanks to Steve Q for having the awards made. And thanks to Luis, Dan, Rex, and Larry for many of the photos shared here.

See ya next time.

 

[zx10wall]

Thank you for sharing, Cole. What a great time with great folks.

 

[XSUltimate]

Another spectacular event with a lot of good friends and made some new friends as well! MANY of the shooters drove over 4 hours to be here so that gives you an idea of how much Rex's matches are loved. As Cole mentioned, he most assuredly has achieved master status on course layout and creating a true enjoyable match and locale. I have been shooting about 4 years now and Rex got me into it. I'm still trying to figure out how to get even with him for all the money I have spent on airgun related items and matches and gas,,,,. Rex's match's are generally in the difficult range of Troyer and I constantly keep trying to keep everyone grounded while we are setting up so that the newbies are still having fun while the great shooters still have a challenge. That is a difficult task but Rex always seems to pull it off. Seasoned shooters and new shooters alike both had a great time!! Even with those pesky hordes of skeeters and the hefty winds. I suspect there were gusts over 30. My practice target stand is very solid and rarely gets blown over but it hit the dirt at least 4-5 times each day. Great food for all from Norman for Sat, breakfast and I think it was Steve that bought a few pizza's from a small village Pizzaria for all of us on Friday night. So thanks guys and a special thanks to Tom for graciously offering up his property for us to have such a great couple days of shooting and story telling!
Thx
Dan

 

[XSUltimate]

Rex and I were talking about it during set up that he wanted to put one high in the tree which would be very Bobby-esque.. You would have a very hard time finding a better FT course than Rex or Bobby!
Thx
Dan

 

[Franklink]

That high one was my first lane! I hadn't walked the course prior so it was the first time I'd seen it. And yes, it reminded me of Bobby placing them at steep upward angles. For those not there, it was a 3/8" kill zone at something like 14 yards, and I'd guess it was 10-12 feet off the ground.

My last lane was that darned squirrel with the kill zone that was welded, and then the welded repair has since gotten peened in. Another 3/8" kz (or maybe less wit he peening). And of course that was the target on the big deadfall that was swaying in the breeze. BIG sigh of relief when I knocked that one down on both shots.


Then there were the sharply angled targets BELOW the shooters box. A vertical target with a small kz set below the height of the shooter makes the kz even smaller, since it's got to squeeze through a no-longer round hole.


Really fun course. Lots of challenging targets. I'm away from the slip of paper with the course details that Rex gave me after the match but I wanna say 5-6 targets past 50 yards, on a day with gusts into the 30mph realm! And there were targets with tail wind, head wind, cross wind, quartering in, quartering out......

 

[Solo1]

@ Franklink see your son did well congrats to him he’ ll be catching you soon! Lol

 

[Franklink]

@ Franklink see your son did well congrats to him he’ ll be catching you soon! Lol

Thanks.

Colben's interest has waned a bit lately so very little practice from him. He shot a 33/60. Quite respectable, considering.

Cabe shot from bipod for the first time during the match. He's been fighting that tripod for about a year. We've been putting blocks under his feet to get his knees high enough for elbow contact. He shot the first lane like that and was frustrated so we decided to try the bipod on the second lane. MUCH BETTER. First time he's tried the bipod and it worked really well. So he used it that way for 9/10 lanes. This is also the first time he's been able to complete the course without losing his cool. So he shot the entire course. Tough course for a 6 year old. He was clicking the scope, which made him Unlimited, otherwise he was all Hunter class legal on those 9/10 lanes.

All three of us shared the .20 Veteran in the aluminum chassis stock. Worked really well.

 

[Solo1]

Thanks.

Colben's interest has waned a bit lately so very little practice from him. He shot a 33/60. Quite respectable, considering.

Cabe shot from bipod for the first time during the match. He's been fighting that tripod for about a year. We've been putting blocks under his feet to get his knees high enough for elbow contact. He shot the first lane like that and was frustrated so we decided to try the bipod on the second lane. MUCH BETTER. First time he's tried the bipod and it worked really well. So he used it that way for 9/10 lanes. This is also the first time he's been able to complete the course without losing his cool. So he shot the entire course. Tough course for a 6 year old. He was clicking the scope, which made him Unlimited, otherwise he was all Hunter class legal on those 9/10 lanes.

All three of us shared the .20 Veteran in the aluminum chassis stock. Worked really well.

Its a shame i hope colbin doesnt go like my grandsons they all would rather do it on a screen than for real.