As I was compiling and editing all the photos sent to me by various participants, this one grabbed me eye. This is a perfect visual of Xtreme Field Target at Phoenix Rod and Gun club. A beautiful and rugged location. Shooter assuming the position. Squadmates intently focused downrange to determine if the shooter read the wind correctly. It just feels right to start the match report with this one. I think it was taken by Peykan.
And this one was close second for XFT in a nutshell. Smiles all around. Also taken by Peykan....I think.
Well we had 15 shooters yesterday: 1 slug, 2 rimfire, and 12 pellet. Didn't get a photo of slug or rimfire, but here are (left to right) 1st, 2nd, and 3d pellet class shooters.
The temps were great, just about what we all set our thermostats for, a range of 68-73. But the wind was brutal. A lot of sustained double digit winds in there. Lowest sustained measurement I see was 7mph. Worst (circled in red) was 13mph baseline with 20mph gusts. And these were measurements taken at Sky Harbor Airport, I'm guessing 5-10 miles to the north of the match site. I wouldn't be surprised if winds were more shifty and of greater speed at the match site.
We knew going into it that the wind would likely make it an even greater challenge, so the target setters swapped reducers around, mostly increasing all the kill zones by 1/4th of an inch. The overall Extreme Troyer still worked out to a 32.46, not factoring in any wind. There were 6 targets with a T of 37 or greater and the two highest Ts were the 3" kzs on lane 3 and lane 10, both at 100 yards (T of 41.7). For reference, Jan's overall T was a 35.85 with high rimfire scoring a 47/48 and high pellet scoring a 41/48.
And the scores correlate to the wind, even with the generally slightly bigger kzs....(except for rimfire Steve, we're gonna have to get that guy shooting pellets again to keep us all from looking so bad).
- 3 way tie for third was broken by longest streak, longstanding practice at these XFT matches.
- Check out the overall knockdown percentage on the 100 yarders....LOW! And two shooters (Wes and Troy) accounted for 6 of the 16 knockdowns!!!
- Collectively, we knocked down less than half of the targets past 70 yards. It was a challenging day. But a fun one.
- Troy's first ever XFT match, shooting a borrowed gun, and wasn't too far down from the winning score.
- Props to David H for having the cajones to shoot a .177 in today's winds. All at the same time I'm in awe and feel sorry for you for the frustration you probably felt.
Would like to express appreciation for all those that sent me photos (Ben, Van, Scott, Peykan) for the match report, as well as for the work done by the target crew (Ben, Mike S, Scott H, ?), to Phoenix Rod and Gun for sharing their facilities with us, and to Ben for creating this opportunity and continuing to put in the work to keep it happening.
Some news about future matches.....
Ben and Mike and Wayne have been working on a new modular target base. This will allow varying distances every month. Up to this point all the distances have been the same every month because of the complication of staking out the large targets sufficiently in the rocky soil, but the new modular base set-up will allow a completely new course every month. Ben mentioned that bringing laser rangefinders might be a good idea for future matches (they've always been allowed for Xtreme FT, just have not been necessary since distances have always been posted, but with distances being different in the future, keeping updated signage will be difficult). I'm REALLY excited to see the distances changing, it'll be much more like hunting/pesting and make the courses more interesting.
Finally...
As I was getting ready for the match it struck me how little is really necessary to be able to shoot an XFT match.
Here is everything I need, basically a rig, something to sit on, and something to rest the gun on. Simple.
And the above deployed, the caddie is just to keep the gun and pellets out of the dirt and to avoid needing to take it in and out of the case at every lane.
XFT is a simple but challenging and FUN way to spend a couple hours on a Saturday. Come down and join in at a future match!!!
