We had the November match yesterday at Phoenix Rod and Gun Club. Beautiful weather (if not a bit warm for my high elevation acclimated tendencies and preferences). Very minimal wind to deal with and temps that were probably 75-80 degrees. Bright sunny day, up to being even a bit toasty out in the full sun.
Starting with (rather the the typical ending with) thank you's and acknowledgements......JDs Custom Design (@ https://jdscustomdesign.com/ ) and Robert Buchanan, representing Airguns of Arizona (@ https://www.airgunsofarizona.com/ ) very generously sponsored the match this month. JDs Custom supplied 4 prize packages, sending two shooters home with gift certificates for 2 complete scope wheel packages, and two additional shooters with $50 each. Thank you JD's Custom Design!!! Robert of AOA thought it would be neat to give a lucky shooter an early Christmas gift, and donated a wrapped package. There was a lot of excitement and anticipation about what could be underneath that wrapping paper. Sandy and I even hefted it and had fun speculating about what it could be, like two kids sneaking into the gifts under the tree. Thank you Robert and AOA!!! I'll share what it was towards the end of the report.
And thanks to PR&G Club for supplying some awesome medals this month! (and for letting us use your facilities every month)
Here are Robert's gift and the medals.
And much appreciation to Ben for all the behind the scenes work, as well as Van and Mike and Barry and whoever else helped set up and tear down the course. It wouldn't happen without all of that mostly unwitnessed effort.
Some photos taken along the sight in line.
We had a total of 17 shooters and at least 5 spectators, checking it out to see if they'd like to shoot in the future. I think Centercut held the record for furthest traveled, coming in from San Diego. I'm likely next, at just about 3 hours away, we also had some Tucson shooters and some from Flagstaff, and Camp Verde, and even Tonto Basin.
"You're killing me Smalls!" I was shooting with Van and that was his assessment of the course. Not too many shots in and we all realized we were dealing with a pretty tough course. Ben (Match Director), when planning for the match saw that we were forecasted to have minimal wind. So he shrunk the kill zone sizes down just a bit from the previous match. That's the beauty of these targets that he and Mike S developed, just swap out the kill zone and drastically change the difficulty level/course design. Ben told me that he came down 1/4 of an inch on all the kill zone sizes from what they were in October, minus the offhand lanes-he left those the same size they were in October. We marveled at how much harder that 1/4 of an inch made it, as it was blatantly apparent that we were shooting a tough course. Steve M also had a 100% accurate assessment when he told me something to the effect of his scope movement was larger than the kill zone sizes, essentially saying the kzs were too small to hold on.
So, I did the number crunching and the Extreme Troyer Factor for the course was a 41.6975, or basically a 42. The long explanation of what that means is here- https://www.airgunnation.com/topic/extreme-troyer-factor/ The short explanation of what a ETF of 42 means is that the course was extremely difficult.
For some perspective, last month's overall Extreme Troyer score for the match was a 37, and Van shot a 31/40 on that course. Last Feb's course rating was an ETF of 40 and the high that month was 26/40 and last March's course was an ETF of 32.6 and the high score that month was a 29/40. In short, this month was freaking tough! I can't even imagine how demoralizing it would have been if we'd have had to deal with much wind yesterday. I think I would have cried if the wind had come up during the match.
It has been interesting to see the trends in the numbers and how that relates to being a shooter on the course. For me, I start thinking targets are pretty tough when theyre in the ballpark of an inch, and past 50 yards ( a 1 inch @ 50 yards would be a ETF of 50).. Well, yesterday we had 6 targets with ETFs greater than 50. I was curious if the results matched my impression so I ran the numbers for those 6 hardest targets and this is what they look like.
Edit: found a mistake in the above table, Lane 2 Near was a 1.25 inch kz @ 61 yards (not 37 yards), for ETF of 54.9.
Of the collective shots taken at those 6 hardest targets, less than a third made them fall. And that dirty "near" lane 9 was the highest/hardest ETF of the course, a 1.25" kill zone @ 65 yards...only about 10% (or 1 in 10) shots taken at that one made it fall. TOUGH!
(I don't have anything to do with the course setting, but just throwing it out there, in hopes that the Match Director reads this.....I'm thinking those 1.25Inch kill zones need to not find themselves much further out than about 52 or 54 yards in the future. Please.)
The scoreboard and equipment list looked like this. (holes are from incomplete scorecards)
Always fun to look at the forced position stats (offhand in this case).
Slug shooter Chris...
Rimfire shooters. Mike S with the sun glasses and Steve M with the Team Centercut apparel (orange and black). I timed this photo poorly, sorry Steve. Good shooting to Steve! He was overall high score of 31/40 with his rimfire. And Mike S was next highest score. Those dang powderburners.
Mike S had a couple health scares in the past few months and we're really happy to have him back shooting with us. He's bout half the man he used to be, in size, but still as full of it as he always has been. Good to have you back around Mike, we missed you.
The top three pellet shooters and their medals...
and their prizes.....
(Tie for third broken by longest streak without a miss).
After all that it was time for the early Christmas present from AOA. We put 17 numbered slips of paper in a basket and predetermined that each shooter's number would be the order in which they signed up for the match, hours earlier.
Stinkin Centercut's number got drawn out. He wasted no time in tearing off the wrapping paper. And an MTC rangefinder was the result. Neat gesture on Robert and AOA's part. Thanks again.
This was Wes's first Extreme FT match and he wasn't too sure what to expect. He told me he didnt have any dope date for past 50 yards. He went on to shoot a quite respectable score, given the lack of dope data. He may have even been shooting at sub20fpe, as he came to his first regular field target match a few months ago up north. If that was with sub 20fpe, I'm very impressed. Hope to see you at future matches Wes.
I think we had some other first time XFT shooters this month in Stephen, Andrew, Donne, and John. I've been to most but not all of the events so I apologize if you've been before and I didn't happen to be there that month. We're glad you came yesterday though, and hope you come back to enjoy some more of the maddening and addicting game that this is.
Best thing about these matches is that they're fun no matter what the score ends up being. I really like that they give me a reason to shoot through the month, practicing and figuring out how to improve myself or my equipment. Gives a purpose to at-home shooting and goals to work towards.
Almost forget! Photo and short story of this beauty...
This is Ben's gun. I LOVE that brown lam Red Wolf combo. It's an outwardly impressive looking gun, but has some very exciting stuff going on under the hood. Ben has done tons of independent R&D on the Red Wolf platform. Just in the past few months he's narrowed down some optimizations that have lead to him winning the Arizona State Field Target match in absolutely miserable rainy and windy conditions. He was the overall high score that weekend too. The following month he was the winner of the Extreme FT event at EBR. Ben is a great shooter and his .177 and .25 Red Wolf are exceptional examples, but he'll be sharing some of what he's done to get that extra little bit out of them in the very near future.
No Extreme FT match in December, as the 4th Saturday is Christmas Day. Next XFT match will be in January, 4th Saturday. We'll get announcements out as we get closer, but put it on your calendars and plan on coming to see how fun and challenging this long range/high power flavor of field target can be.
Starting with (rather the the typical ending with) thank you's and acknowledgements......JDs Custom Design (@ https://jdscustomdesign.com/ ) and Robert Buchanan, representing Airguns of Arizona (@ https://www.airgunsofarizona.com/ ) very generously sponsored the match this month. JDs Custom supplied 4 prize packages, sending two shooters home with gift certificates for 2 complete scope wheel packages, and two additional shooters with $50 each. Thank you JD's Custom Design!!! Robert of AOA thought it would be neat to give a lucky shooter an early Christmas gift, and donated a wrapped package. There was a lot of excitement and anticipation about what could be underneath that wrapping paper. Sandy and I even hefted it and had fun speculating about what it could be, like two kids sneaking into the gifts under the tree. Thank you Robert and AOA!!! I'll share what it was towards the end of the report.
And thanks to PR&G Club for supplying some awesome medals this month! (and for letting us use your facilities every month)
Here are Robert's gift and the medals.
And much appreciation to Ben for all the behind the scenes work, as well as Van and Mike and Barry and whoever else helped set up and tear down the course. It wouldn't happen without all of that mostly unwitnessed effort.
Some photos taken along the sight in line.
We had a total of 17 shooters and at least 5 spectators, checking it out to see if they'd like to shoot in the future. I think Centercut held the record for furthest traveled, coming in from San Diego. I'm likely next, at just about 3 hours away, we also had some Tucson shooters and some from Flagstaff, and Camp Verde, and even Tonto Basin.
"You're killing me Smalls!" I was shooting with Van and that was his assessment of the course. Not too many shots in and we all realized we were dealing with a pretty tough course. Ben (Match Director), when planning for the match saw that we were forecasted to have minimal wind. So he shrunk the kill zone sizes down just a bit from the previous match. That's the beauty of these targets that he and Mike S developed, just swap out the kill zone and drastically change the difficulty level/course design. Ben told me that he came down 1/4 of an inch on all the kill zone sizes from what they were in October, minus the offhand lanes-he left those the same size they were in October. We marveled at how much harder that 1/4 of an inch made it, as it was blatantly apparent that we were shooting a tough course. Steve M also had a 100% accurate assessment when he told me something to the effect of his scope movement was larger than the kill zone sizes, essentially saying the kzs were too small to hold on.
So, I did the number crunching and the Extreme Troyer Factor for the course was a 41.6975, or basically a 42. The long explanation of what that means is here- https://www.airgunnation.com/topic/extreme-troyer-factor/ The short explanation of what a ETF of 42 means is that the course was extremely difficult.
For some perspective, last month's overall Extreme Troyer score for the match was a 37, and Van shot a 31/40 on that course. Last Feb's course rating was an ETF of 40 and the high that month was 26/40 and last March's course was an ETF of 32.6 and the high score that month was a 29/40. In short, this month was freaking tough! I can't even imagine how demoralizing it would have been if we'd have had to deal with much wind yesterday. I think I would have cried if the wind had come up during the match.
It has been interesting to see the trends in the numbers and how that relates to being a shooter on the course. For me, I start thinking targets are pretty tough when theyre in the ballpark of an inch, and past 50 yards ( a 1 inch @ 50 yards would be a ETF of 50).. Well, yesterday we had 6 targets with ETFs greater than 50. I was curious if the results matched my impression so I ran the numbers for those 6 hardest targets and this is what they look like.
Edit: found a mistake in the above table, Lane 2 Near was a 1.25 inch kz @ 61 yards (not 37 yards), for ETF of 54.9.
Of the collective shots taken at those 6 hardest targets, less than a third made them fall. And that dirty "near" lane 9 was the highest/hardest ETF of the course, a 1.25" kill zone @ 65 yards...only about 10% (or 1 in 10) shots taken at that one made it fall. TOUGH!
(I don't have anything to do with the course setting, but just throwing it out there, in hopes that the Match Director reads this.....I'm thinking those 1.25Inch kill zones need to not find themselves much further out than about 52 or 54 yards in the future. Please.)
The scoreboard and equipment list looked like this. (holes are from incomplete scorecards)
Always fun to look at the forced position stats (offhand in this case).
Slug shooter Chris...
Rimfire shooters. Mike S with the sun glasses and Steve M with the Team Centercut apparel (orange and black). I timed this photo poorly, sorry Steve. Good shooting to Steve! He was overall high score of 31/40 with his rimfire. And Mike S was next highest score. Those dang powderburners.
Mike S had a couple health scares in the past few months and we're really happy to have him back shooting with us. He's bout half the man he used to be, in size, but still as full of it as he always has been. Good to have you back around Mike, we missed you.
The top three pellet shooters and their medals...
and their prizes.....
(Tie for third broken by longest streak without a miss).
After all that it was time for the early Christmas present from AOA. We put 17 numbered slips of paper in a basket and predetermined that each shooter's number would be the order in which they signed up for the match, hours earlier.
Stinkin Centercut's number got drawn out. He wasted no time in tearing off the wrapping paper. And an MTC rangefinder was the result. Neat gesture on Robert and AOA's part. Thanks again.
This was Wes's first Extreme FT match and he wasn't too sure what to expect. He told me he didnt have any dope date for past 50 yards. He went on to shoot a quite respectable score, given the lack of dope data. He may have even been shooting at sub20fpe, as he came to his first regular field target match a few months ago up north. If that was with sub 20fpe, I'm very impressed. Hope to see you at future matches Wes.
I think we had some other first time XFT shooters this month in Stephen, Andrew, Donne, and John. I've been to most but not all of the events so I apologize if you've been before and I didn't happen to be there that month. We're glad you came yesterday though, and hope you come back to enjoy some more of the maddening and addicting game that this is.
Best thing about these matches is that they're fun no matter what the score ends up being. I really like that they give me a reason to shoot through the month, practicing and figuring out how to improve myself or my equipment. Gives a purpose to at-home shooting and goals to work towards.
Almost forget! Photo and short story of this beauty...
This is Ben's gun. I LOVE that brown lam Red Wolf combo. It's an outwardly impressive looking gun, but has some very exciting stuff going on under the hood. Ben has done tons of independent R&D on the Red Wolf platform. Just in the past few months he's narrowed down some optimizations that have lead to him winning the Arizona State Field Target match in absolutely miserable rainy and windy conditions. He was the overall high score that weekend too. The following month he was the winner of the Extreme FT event at EBR. Ben is a great shooter and his .177 and .25 Red Wolf are exceptional examples, but he'll be sharing some of what he's done to get that extra little bit out of them in the very near future.
No Extreme FT match in December, as the 4th Saturday is Christmas Day. Next XFT match will be in January, 4th Saturday. We'll get announcements out as we get closer, but put it on your calendars and plan on coming to see how fun and challenging this long range/high power flavor of field target can be.
. The next big opportunity is the 4th Saturday In January don’t miss it! 