THE BAYSTATE CHALLENGE
The match was held at the oldest running gun club in the nation, Mass Rifle Association https://massrifle.com/
Friday, June 10th was a perfect day. As we waited for contenders to arrive and register, the weather conditions couldn't have been better - 79 degrees, cloudy a little breezy with 10 mph gusts and swirling conditions. After registering, shooters gathered around to check out the courses, do a little chatting, and of course, get the welcome bag. It contained the 2022 MRA Baystate Challenge Shirt, as well as some other cool items like the Devil's eye spinner, AirArms pellet sleeves, keychain, sticky notes, and notebook from Pellatage. Leo Gonzales and Matt Brackett were a massive help to John Eroh and me. Honestly, it would have been incredibly difficult to pull this shoot off without their assistance. Between course preparation such as painting targets, trimming branches, etc., setting up the sight-in range, and giving the shooters meeting on Sunday they In addition to this, Leo collected all registration data and Chronograph readings. Thanks again, guys!
Day 1 Saturday The Blue course
This course is in the shotgun field and is a 64-shot match with 17 lanes including 2 standing lanes and 1 kneeling lane. Sight-in began at 8:00 - 9:00 am when the temp was in the high 60's. After that, we had a 20-minute safety meeting and got to the lanes. We had 27 competitors including myself, which makes this the most successful shoot to date. John was able to squad us in pairs, with a few vacant lanes to keep things moving. Recently made some course alterations to increase the overall difficulty by adjusting some positions including the firing line back 4 yards. We also moved 3 more targets beyond 40yards, which definitely made any sudden gusts very tricky and switching winds a major factor.
Once on the lanes, we had 4 cold lines due to a few targets that malfunctioned that were not noticed when we prepped the course, as well as some misbehaving strings. Other than that things went smoothly. As the match moved along, I noticed there wasn't much wind at the firing line, or really overall, it was fairly subtle at the targets, making windage decisions difficult. The subtle wind was very misleading, visiting for brief moments and then nothing. With all that being said, we had some pretty impressive scores for day 1 of the Baystate Challenge. Everything went well and all seemed to enjoy the course.
We finished shooting around 1:00 -1:30 and started getting people inside for lunch for the door-prize raffle, and a terribly run auction done by yours truly, lol. We received a great deal of support from our sponsors including New England Airguns, RX Target Forge targets, and also shirts from FX, and items from New England Airguns as well as AOA. We had a Sightron scope and an Air Ventury Avenger rifle provided by Pyramyd Air in addition to some RX targets and Patchworm kits for the auction. At the bottom are the scores and equipment list from days one and two.
Day 2 The Yellow course or the woods course
This course is in the woods behind the shotgun field and is a 64-shot match with 17 lanes including 1 standing lane and 1 kneeling lane.
Sunday was another day of fantastic weather starting out a little cool in the 60s and warming up to the mid-70s by the afternoon. With another threat of rain, Matt B. and Leo started the shooters meeting at 8:45 am and were off to start the match by 9:00 am, and with everyone finding their lane we got started shooting by 9:15 am. We had a few cold lines due to some tangled string and a broken string that was shot right off the leader attached to the target face, honestly, it was a perfect verticle miss. The woods course is a newer course and full of brand new targets with a variety of face plates from Flop Over Target in the UK. I think having the different target shapes makes this course more fun to the eye and a little more exciting to shoot. The light in the woods is a very important implement of the course making range finding difficult at times, combined with heavily forested areas and a cutout section along the back can make seemingly calm winds near impossible to detect until it's too late. These lanes have many shots over 50 yards making it more about the wind and range finding than tight kill zones at mid ranges. We almost had someone clean the course but they didn't ... Lol a fantastic shooting for Mr. Brian Van Liew. All in all, it was a success and we finished up at 1:00 pm and went inside for lunch after that we went outside to declare our winners and give out some awesome Air Arms gear to the top places shooters. This was definitely a great experience prepping for an event like this with John, Leo, and Matt B a massive thank you to those who made it out to participate in this year's event and I am looking forward to next year's MRA Baystate Challenge
The match was held at the oldest running gun club in the nation, Mass Rifle Association https://massrifle.com/
Friday, June 10th was a perfect day. As we waited for contenders to arrive and register, the weather conditions couldn't have been better - 79 degrees, cloudy a little breezy with 10 mph gusts and swirling conditions. After registering, shooters gathered around to check out the courses, do a little chatting, and of course, get the welcome bag. It contained the 2022 MRA Baystate Challenge Shirt, as well as some other cool items like the Devil's eye spinner, AirArms pellet sleeves, keychain, sticky notes, and notebook from Pellatage. Leo Gonzales and Matt Brackett were a massive help to John Eroh and me. Honestly, it would have been incredibly difficult to pull this shoot off without their assistance. Between course preparation such as painting targets, trimming branches, etc., setting up the sight-in range, and giving the shooters meeting on Sunday they In addition to this, Leo collected all registration data and Chronograph readings. Thanks again, guys!
Day 1 Saturday The Blue course
This course is in the shotgun field and is a 64-shot match with 17 lanes including 2 standing lanes and 1 kneeling lane. Sight-in began at 8:00 - 9:00 am when the temp was in the high 60's. After that, we had a 20-minute safety meeting and got to the lanes. We had 27 competitors including myself, which makes this the most successful shoot to date. John was able to squad us in pairs, with a few vacant lanes to keep things moving. Recently made some course alterations to increase the overall difficulty by adjusting some positions including the firing line back 4 yards. We also moved 3 more targets beyond 40yards, which definitely made any sudden gusts very tricky and switching winds a major factor.
Once on the lanes, we had 4 cold lines due to a few targets that malfunctioned that were not noticed when we prepped the course, as well as some misbehaving strings. Other than that things went smoothly. As the match moved along, I noticed there wasn't much wind at the firing line, or really overall, it was fairly subtle at the targets, making windage decisions difficult. The subtle wind was very misleading, visiting for brief moments and then nothing. With all that being said, we had some pretty impressive scores for day 1 of the Baystate Challenge. Everything went well and all seemed to enjoy the course.
We finished shooting around 1:00 -1:30 and started getting people inside for lunch for the door-prize raffle, and a terribly run auction done by yours truly, lol. We received a great deal of support from our sponsors including New England Airguns, RX Target Forge targets, and also shirts from FX, and items from New England Airguns as well as AOA. We had a Sightron scope and an Air Ventury Avenger rifle provided by Pyramyd Air in addition to some RX targets and Patchworm kits for the auction. At the bottom are the scores and equipment list from days one and two.
Day 2 The Yellow course or the woods course
This course is in the woods behind the shotgun field and is a 64-shot match with 17 lanes including 1 standing lane and 1 kneeling lane.
Sunday was another day of fantastic weather starting out a little cool in the 60s and warming up to the mid-70s by the afternoon. With another threat of rain, Matt B. and Leo started the shooters meeting at 8:45 am and were off to start the match by 9:00 am, and with everyone finding their lane we got started shooting by 9:15 am. We had a few cold lines due to some tangled string and a broken string that was shot right off the leader attached to the target face, honestly, it was a perfect verticle miss. The woods course is a newer course and full of brand new targets with a variety of face plates from Flop Over Target in the UK. I think having the different target shapes makes this course more fun to the eye and a little more exciting to shoot. The light in the woods is a very important implement of the course making range finding difficult at times, combined with heavily forested areas and a cutout section along the back can make seemingly calm winds near impossible to detect until it's too late. These lanes have many shots over 50 yards making it more about the wind and range finding than tight kill zones at mid ranges. We almost had someone clean the course but they didn't ... Lol a fantastic shooting for Mr. Brian Van Liew. All in all, it was a success and we finished up at 1:00 pm and went inside for lunch after that we went outside to declare our winners and give out some awesome Air Arms gear to the top places shooters. This was definitely a great experience prepping for an event like this with John, Leo, and Matt B a massive thank you to those who made it out to participate in this year's event and I am looking forward to next year's MRA Baystate Challenge
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