We all know that "life happens".
I had hoped to use a little quiet time to do the writeups for the Pyarmyd Air Cup and the Pennsylvania State Championship, but suddenly I had to devote time to fix a situation that should have never happened.

I had been watching a thread in the Gateway to Airguns Forum, but everything pointed out to a relatively simple problem.
Now I LIKE to leave the forum alone because in that way, people that have learned over the years how to do things and fix problems share their knowledge. If I were to jump into ALL threads, the forum would become a boring place and there is no "community building" in that.
By leaving the users help the other users, a "Community" is built where trust and friendship are clear and evident. And THAT is worthwhile.

At first I thought that the problem was a broken mainspring guide.
Why?
Because the OP said: "I began to cock it but stopped at the first ratchet of the bear trap so I could reposition my hand. I then grasped the lever and it would not move. Tried it again and this time put a little more force to the cocking action and it still did not move."
So, that meant, in my mind, that the sliding compression chamber had moved freely to the first ratchet position.

Lots of good advice was given, but still the 54 refused to cock.

By then I got in contact with the OP and suggested he returned the gun to the seller. But I also said that, given that he had demonstrated being a careful individual, I would not consider his warranty to have lapsed or gone up in smoke if he tried to do the repair himself.
Still, I insisted that he return the rifle to the seller, as sellers have a contractual obligation to let DIANA know what is failing in the case of returns.

He then offered to drive 5½ hrs to Ohio, to witness the repair process.

So, you can see he had an attachment to the gun, LOL! And so, after the seller refused to do anything else but replace the gun, I made an offer to repair the gun and learn from the experience, as well as share it with all of you.

Learn was the operative word here, LOL!

The gun arrived to Maryland well packed and  boxed.

After unboxing, I tried to cock the gun and was completely taken aback, there was a strong resistance from the first movement of the sliding compression chamber.

Hmmmmmm, this was no broken guide.

​Off to the table:

Sights and stock removed:

Everything seemed to be normal in the bedding:

On to the spring compressor:

Cocking lever was removed:

Slave/Dumb pins inserted:

Out came the action pins and when the slave pins had been centered

The trigger block came out:

Spring and guide were good.

Trigger worked properly

Without the spring, the cocking lever was used to bring back piston and compression chamber

But then, things really got stuck.
The piston did not come out, the compression cylinder refused to move

Ah, well, this is going to be one hairy ride!

Let me digress a little: I was once asked what I thought the difference was between a "Home tinkerer", a "Tuner" (whether professional or not), and a "Gunsmith".

And I still think that this appreciation is correct:

A "Home Tinkerer" will use general tools to the best of his knowledge and ability. He MAY even have some commercially made gunsmithing tools, but he will stop when major modifications are required for a gun to operate properly. He will use commercially made replacement parts, or "kits", whether OEM or not.

A "Tuner" has specialized in changing and upgrading parts, doing minor modifications, and possibly altering some parts (barrel, or piston) so that the best possible performance is attained from the engine. In general, Tuners will not deal with problem guns because that is not their job. If something is not working, it gets replaced. Simple and expedient.

Now, based on the principles of the old guilds'  apprenticeships, I THINK, that a gunsmith makes himself many of the specialized tools he uses. They can be as simple as a properly ground screwdriver, to a jig to support a workpiece and move it within the desired path for a good result.
And in many occasions he will make a tool to solve ONE problem. That problem may present itself at a later date, but it may not.
The other aspect of the gunsmith is that he understands WHY things happen.

In the old days, apprentices passed their first year when they could take a lump of steel and with nothing more than a set of files, a ruler and a compass, come up with a perfect cube of steel.
Sounds Simple? Try it! Note that you need to start by creating a square.

Second year, apprentices learned how to forge, temper and draw springs (Flat), how to case-harden parts, and how to blue them.

By the third year they could forge a barrel, ream it, chamber it, backbore it, or choke it (most of the long guns back then were smoothbore)

By the fourth year they could rifle a barrel, time the locks and set up loads and sights.

Along this route, the lads built their tool chest. One by one, the tools they made were what they would be taking away to hang their own shingle. Apprenticeships of 5, 6, and even 7 years were not uncommon.

And once they were a practicing gunsmith, they would have to present, within a reasonable amount of time, a piece to the guild's council to be accepted as "Master" and THEN he could take in apprentices of his own.
That piece was the "Master-Piece" ("MeisterStuck").

To this date, there are museums where the tool chests of different craftsmen are exhibited and one wonders if the system really had to disappear.

Now, back to reality, and the reason why I made the long comment, is that to get the piston and the compression chamber out, I had to make two tools, one straight relatively slender dowel to push the assembly from the inside, and then one curved one more beefy, to give the pair the final "whacks" to get them out.

Once out, this is what I found:

Now, this is a lubricated piston, but there was something more on the edge of the bell, that, when taken out resulted in this:

Yup, that is a small sliver of steel. It had gotten lodged between the bell and the tube and created a strong "interference".
But steel, specially heat treated steel, does not generally gall, so why did it occur in this instance?
And why did the compression chamber also needed to be extracted with a dead-blow hammer?

Upon cursory inspection, there was nothing wrong with it. On the left the "problem" compression chamber, on the right a "normal" one.

But, ¿Were they really the same?

Careful measurement showed that while in most places the compression chambers were identical, there was ONE place where the problem compression chamber had a difference: and that was on the OFF side of the cocking lever attachment point.
From a working diameter of 1.209" the non-working part went to 1.211"
Now, 0.002" may not seem much, but consider that when working with steel (not heat treated as this was), an interference fit of 0.002" on a 1.209" piece can hold around 36,000 newtons (about 7,900 #)

So, now we knew what had happened: this specific compression chamber had the "bad luck" of receiving the cocking lever attachment point perforation where it presented the "fattest" diameter.
With the cocking system in place, the compression chamber pushes more on one side than on the other, and the huge pressures created, caused the galling.
And not only that, but the whole assembly was getting stuck because while all the proper tolerances were kept, the accumulation of errors created an impossible condition to work in.

I think we need to revise or GD&T for reference points from where to define the tolerances. But that is "homework" for the technical guys. We're here to see how we fixed it and along the way, created a gun that will be unique.

One solution could have been to grind off a thousandth from the compression chamber, but in my experience, compression chambers usually last a LONG time, as long as the rifle itself, so, ¿Was there a better way?

And of course, the answer was ¡yes!. We had the opportunity to hand-fit the compression chamber to the mechanisms tube.
​I started by making a tool to de-burr the cutouts of the action:

Using water and a fine sanding paper, I managed to open up the inside of the tube to the point that the piston entered with SLIGHT effort, but not too much.
At first I thought that the cutouts and the pressure put in the welding of the sled-rails support bracket were the culprits, but then I remembered that the compression chamber had posed resistance from the first movement.
So the problem was all along the raceway of the compression chamber.

What to do?

​Of course, make another tool!

The reason is simple:
Hones are made to work on cylinders and jackets, but not when they are located 8" into a mechanisms tube.

So, I made an extension:

There are two hones that a gunsmith can use: Either the little stones that are made for honing motorcycle and other small motors, or the "Flex Hone".
Fixed hones, when properly extended and weighted, can do a good job of polishing and truing the internals of a compression chamber, but for mechanisms tubes where the uniformity of the inside diameter is not as critical as in the compression chambers, a flex-hone will do nicely.
It is NOT recommended for the inside of compression chambers because it cannot reach to the bottom of it.
Unless you can disassemble the compression chamber, do NOT use a Flex-hone on the inside of a compression chamber.
I like to use diamond-loaded honing oil, so what you see on the flex-hone is the extremely black "dust" that is the industrial diamond honing additive.

After some work, taking it slowly, measuring often and being careful not to overdo it, it became possible to assemble the whole thing.

The rifle feels like a vault, even if I had WANTED to button the piston, there is no space to do so. Of course vaults do not operate at 100 m/s (328 fps)

Now, would it be possible to hold this level of precision fitting from the factory? no way! A hand fitted gun costs a lot more than the run of the mill DIANA.

For assembly, I chose to use Ultimox 226 paste, as it is the only lubricant that can guarantee a good performance under the pressures that such a tight-fitting action will give for the first year or two.
Small price to pay for a good gun.

They say the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and so I tested the gun with open sights at 15 yards. I am sure there are better shooters than me with open sights, but the results are not half bad:

For effects of establishing "Provenance" I will say here that the above applies to the rifle serial number 25036871  and that I am sure that this provenance should be worth at least $1.98 above and beyond the BBA values  (private joke).

;-)

Keep well and shoot straight!









HM

If this sounds like the header of cooking thingy, you're right, LOL!

I am seldom enthused by the modern pellet trap offerings.

"Silent traps" that rely on duct seal to reduce the noise are a pain to clean the pellets from and, in the end, you are left with a lump of contaminated material that is impossible to recycle, or extract the lead from. Little shards/shrapnel are extremely difficult to find/remove.

Cardboard boxes filled with rubber mulch work real well, until you need to clean them/extract the lead. Dumping everything in water works so-so, as it is a long and messy process and you end up with a bunch of wet mulch that takes a few days to dry. If you put it into new cardboard boxes, these get wet and loose all resistance.
Also the raffia web that is most useful to hold the mulch in while allowing the pellets to enter but not allowing them to go out is not easy to get.

I've also tried the "curtain" type of traps, where hanging pieces of cloth are supposed to slow down the pellets enough so that the rear steel plate backer can stop them. Useless by the 100th round, curtains were replaced with genuine sown Kevlar cloth, in itself a pain to do because cutting and sewing Kevlar is not precisely easy. And it was still a mess.

Normal, "assemble yourself" pellet traps rated for 0.22" RF cal. have the great defect that they have a junction where the rear of the slanted plate and the horizontal plate meet, and lead shards/dust escape through there.. NOT ideal.

Those that are welded are, by far, the best option, but they are not truly portable, weighing in excess of 20#

​So, when I saw this pellet trap at a Cabela's store:

I was almost going to just jump over it, when something struck me: It looks VERY similar to the old "Cabañas" pellet traps that I used to use in México
Picked the box up . . . . Hmmm, light enough
How does it go together? Pretty easy.
Hmmm, well there is a well to catch the spent pellets!
Rating? apparently 0.177" pellets, but when you read the small print, it is 0.177" lead pellets at under 800 fps from a distance of at least 10 yards.
Still, the design was good, it had "Possibilities".

When I reached home, I took some measurements and contacted the good people at Online Metals to see if they would be so kind as to cut steel plate to measure.
They agreed, and so I ordered four 0.19" x 7" x 7 1/2"  ANSI 4130 annealed steel plates (yes I will be constructing a few more later) and they came out at $25 ea.
Great service and great prices. Online Metals recently became part of the Thyssen-Krupp corporation so, you could say that they know a thing or two about steels.  ;-)

In 3 days I had the plates and then "cooking" started.

Then the trap backplate was marked, punched, drilled and deburred:

Short Allen-headed bolts were inserted into the trap's backplate:

1/4" rubber grommets were used to space the plate and deaden the sound:

The resulting "air sandwich" can be seen here:

Then assembly took place as normal.

You can see that the short (10 mm's)  Allen bolts do not protrude from the plate's surface.

And if you do not want to use the swingers, you can use a standard target:

Do take the precaution to put a cardboard and a "foamy" backer behind the paper target. Between the two they will stop any ricochet and all dust and shards will remain behind the backers.

A suitably sized cork stopper can be used to plug both "exit" holes:

Methinks I'll  have to open a couple of good wines, LOL!

Anyway, it took about 10 mins to order the plates from Online Metals. And ordering the "Air Strike" pellet trap can be done directly from Do-All Outdoors or from a number of online retailers at between $17 and $20 per unit. Personally I would not spend more than 5 mins to save $3, but to each his own. Shipping may or may not add to your cost.

Marking, drilling and tapping, and then assembling everything took about 20 minutes.

3/16" plate will stop almost every airgun pellet, just do not use "penetrator" pellets, with steel balls, or bronze points, or other gadgets like that, and you will be fine.

While not completely silent, it is much easier to clean and to retrieve the lead from. Babies can sleep at two doors' distance and not be bothered by the noise.

Do NOT use for ANYTHING OTHER THAN AIRGUNS AT UP TO 35 FT-LBS ME WITH LEAD PELLETS

DO NOT EXCEED 35 FT-LBS MUZZLE ENERGY

ALWAYS WEAR SAFETY GOGGLES  WHEN SHOOTING AT LESS THAN 30 YARDS

I hope you enjoy this short project. I did!

Keep well and shoot straight!







​HM

I have received quite a number of messages, EMails, Texts, seen posted entries in fora, and even phone calls about the 2019 World's.
So, first of all, THANK YOU!
Thank you for reading, for paying attention, for expressing your sympathies, commiseration, and even "condolences" (in somewhat of a playful mood).
But most of all, thank you for showing that you care.

So, what did we learn from the 2019 World's? What will transform a hard experience into a lesson and concrete actions?

Truth is there are many facets and answers to that question. Most of which can be viewed as part of the "Gunsmith's Paradox" which says that a Gunsmith will not have the best possible gun because he is always too busy with OPG's (Other People's Guns).
During the last day of shooting, Hellen, my squadmate told me:
"When you get home, you forget about other people's guns and get yours working!" 

Nice thought that I greatly appreciated.

But let's go back in history exactly 40 years:
Back in August 1979, I arrived in England for an extended stay, I was looking forward to doing post-graduate work at UMIST (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology).

I found it was not easy to fit into English groups. Yes, student life is somewhat of a "bubble", but it was somewhat illogical to keep on seeing the same guys from way back home when you were living in a foreign country with all that a different culture has to offer.
I had always enjoyed shooting and was quite good at it, so I became a member of the University of Manchester Rifle Club.
Went through the process of getting my FAC, purchased my small-bore and then my full-bore rifles and I discovered that I was now, truly, one more "bloke" in the domestic crowd. Because Hector was complicated for the Lancastrians, I ended up as "Howie".
After a year and half I was offered the position of "armorer" for the Team and I gladly accepted.

Three Imperial Meetings at Bisley were some of the most incredible experiences of my life. The University Team posted good results that only improved as the years passed.
Last year I was there (1982), The University Team came in Champion in some events, among them the long range Universities cup (800, 900 and 1,000 yards), which earned us our "Full Maroons". The Match was a whole day deluge. EVERYTHING was wet. There was NO way to keep water from pouring down your barrel. There was no thunder, however, and so the shoot went on.

Because of the way the "stints"  are organized, you had to be ready at least 20 minutes before your scheduled time and at the line of fire. Even if it was pouring rain.
When your time came, you went down to the line, got to the prone position, blew the water off your (iron) sights and awaited for the command to load and commence firing.
You took two sighters and then your "for score"  shots (7 or 10, depending on the specific competition).
And then it was  done.

When planning on the purchase of my full-bore gun I had thoroughly thought about it. A full-bore rifle is a lifelong investment. Caliber was simple, you HAD to use "service ammunition" (7.62X51 NATO), either the "Small Mark" or the "Green Dot" produced by the military arsenal. Berdan primed, you couldn't keep the cases. You had to account for every shot fired.

And so, I chose a gun I was already familiar with: The Steyr SSG-69
I loved it, and knew it was completely impervious to weather; ANY weather.

Part of it was the stock, one of the first successful precision "plastic" stocks in real service it was way ahead of its time.

Other shooters took other ways, from laminated stocks to metal inserts in the stock. In the end, the scores showed that the whole synthetic stock, when properly made, is superior to any form of wooden stock.

Nowadays plastic stocks are also cheaper to make, but there are few and far between that are truly well made, do not feel "hollow", or flimsy, and perform under all conditions. Not all "Synthetics" are the same. And those synthetics that are truly good are not cheap.

When I started shooting airguns seriously, I came up with a number of different solutions, as it was not easy to have a special stock made. Perhaps we can talk a little bit more about that in another entry; for this one, suffice to say that I decided to put a full length "bedding block" into a wooden stock (a Culbertson Match/Prone style).
The work was executed masterfully by a good friend of mine, Art Deuel, and when he delivered the stock, he said:
"I left some wood for you to adjust and you will need to finish the stock". Sure! I said. I was so happy!

I never took the time to truly adjust the stock apart from a little shaving off the pistol grip here and there, and I did run a coat of rub-on poly just to be sure that the stock would not stain too much.

For years, the stock had kept a reasonable zero, in some pretty harsh conditions:
New Zealand saw a day long drizzle
Nationals at Ennice, NC saw us drenched like soaked puppies and shivering
Long Island saw a shoot in the snow.
and others

So, I was fairly confident of my stock holding zero.

BUT this time in England, we got soaked two days in a row, and that was a bit much. Plus, as finishes go, Rub-on Poly is good, but it is not a "Marine Grade" varnish. It slowly erodes and I never did re-finish the gun.

Rifle went up 3 MOA's (24 X 1/8 clicks), and left 1.785 MOA (15 X 1/8 clicks)

Worst of all, not all at once. Part of it from finish of day 1 to Day 2 and the other with the drenching of Days 2 and 3.

So, Lesson #1.- SEAL YOUR STOCK. Inside and Out. Whatever it takes, just SEAL IT!
I have said this many times to friends, but never did occur to me that I should also follow my own advice. :-(

So, by the end of Day 2, I had finally found the "new" zero, and I was fairly confident that as long as suddenly we did not see a completely dry day (which would have spelled more "zero wandering"), I would be OK.

And I was, day 3 started and went on with target after target falling with a few interspersed misses, but basically because I was underestimating my pellets. I was over-correcting for wind. Many of the misses were perfect 3 O'Clock strikes when wind came from the right, and at 9 O'Clock when wind came from the left.

And here is Lesson #2.- KNOW YOUR PELLETS. If you did your job in selecting the brand, profile, head size, weight and ballistics in the short and long ranges, then GET TO KNOW THEM.
Practice, practice, practice WITH THE PELLETS YOU WILL BE SHOOTING.
Of course that needs a substantial amount of pellets, and once you have found the "good pellets", buy as many as you cannot afford and then create stashes reserved for important matches.
Yes this means finding a "Second Best pellet", but it is an effort that is worthwhile.
A good friend has used the same batch of pellets for the last 3 WFTC's, of course in normal competitions he uses a "second best".

As good as things were going, you can read about it in the correct entry, gun stopped cocking at our 30th target. I could feel that the safety was being pushed backwards, but the piston's button didn't manage to latch on the trigger retaining hook.

At the WFTC's I was almost positive that the piston's button had broken; I make the pistons' stems out of tool steel that is then tempered/hardened and drawn, but I couldn't be certain until I could disassemble the gun completely.

Taking heed of Hellen's admonition, I took apart the gun only to discover that the piston was 100% complete.
Of course this restored my confidence in my judgement of colors of steel at different temperatures, as the tempering and drawing of the temper had been correct.
But it also meant that some other part had failed, and so I had to disassemble the trigger unit/block to see what had happened.
To cut a long story short, the safety plate "carrier" failed.

I really should NOT complain. This part went through more than ¼ million cycles before failing. This is the accumulated shot count of this gun over the last 8½ years.

What is somewhat annoying is that the gun works perfectly well without that prong.

If I had had my portable spring compressor, I could have probably fixed this "on the run" and finish the course.

Once the broken bit was removed, everything works well. It was the bit of broken metal what prevented the piston's button from latching.

Obviously I discussed this with the top echelons at DIANA, because I would contend that a well made plastic piece would have provided better service, but it is hard to argue with something that worked properly for over ¼ million times.
And the perception of the public about plastic pieces is still far from reasonable.
There is little knowledge about what modern plastics can do (even with the huge success of the Glock).

In my particular case, the problem was not the failure, but the moment of failure. If the piece had lasted 20 more shots, and then broken, I would never have found this out.

Or, if I had shot more regional and local matches (the WFTC's was the 4th match of the year for me), the part would have broken during one of those, not in the WFTC's.

Yes, we have had reports of this piece failing in OTHER areas, being a pressure cast piece, it is not easy to get a "perfect" one every time. So, we'll see what can be done. If it was my decision, I would have the piece made either in Playmobil grade plastic (I see the abuse that my kid's toys take and I am always in awe at the molding and material used by Playmobil), or in MIM (steel), but that is just me.

I am planning on shooting the Pyramyd Air Cup as the gun is, we'll see what happens.

But, the bottom line is Lesson #3.- SHOOT a LOT. NOTHING will prepare you better for a high caliber match than shooting a LOT.

I'll do my best to shoot more next year, kids are now 2 and 3, both going to school, and we can now travel a little bit more together. It's a question of finding an appropriate attraction near to where the shoots will be.

Next big shoot is the Pyramyd Air Cup, hope to do better there, though this year we will have some top British Spring gun shooters attending. So, it will be an interesting event all around.

Again, thanks to all for showing that you care, and that my ramblings somehow provide entertainment and, hopefully, some ideas to think about.

Keep well and shoot straight!





​HM

Different from other years, and possibly another thing that merits repeating is the separation of the Awards meal (whether lunch or dinner) from the rest of the event.
People have time to relax, re-connect with reality and start thinking about the long trek home.
​To ME, that means disassembling the gun

Packing almost everything, and getting ready for the flight back.

I wasn't happy flying with Aer Lingus on the way out and I wasn't happy with the return, either, but we survived, the gun arrived well and you cannot really ask much more than that.
But, we are getting ahead of ourselves.

One of the criteria of choosing the venue was that the "main hall" could house a 600 person meal.
Why so many? because out of 436 shooters, some take a "significant other" to the official ceremonies, there are a bunch of dignitaries that also need accommodating, not the least the sponsors, and so, as the WFTC's grow and grow, the needs also grow at an even larger pace.

But let's put some faces to the names you can find in the score's tabulations.

First award given was Piston/Ladies, on the left Ingrid Reinu (3rd) , center Luciana Silveira(1st) and right Heli Jalakas (2nd)

Next, Junior Piston; on the left Rein Reinu (3rd), Faustino Avondet (1st), and Eva Maria Tõnurist (2nd)

Now, Veteran Piston; on the left, Ray Apelles (3rd), and on the right John Amos (1st) Dan Horrocks had departed.

PCP Ladies: left to right: Natalie Shead (3rd), Ana Pereira (1st), and Helen Carragher (2nd)

PCP Junior; left to right: Bianca Müller (3rd), Redvers Gallagher (1st), Dylan Varney (3rd)

Piston Teams, left to right: Germany (3rd), England (1st), USA (2nd)

PCP Teams, left to right: Wales (3rd), Spain (1st), England (2nd) It's important to note that it was a VERY CLOSE result, only 2 points (or 0.4%)  separated 1st from 2nd.
Should we start planning a team shootoff procedure?

And now, individuals, 10th to 4th in Piston:
At rear, left to right: Nicolas Godan, Bruno Silva, Ferenc Toth, Jan Homann
In front: Brian Samson, Leo Gonzales, Joel Goodwin​

And the Piston Podium: John Farbrother (3rd), Steve Privett (1st) , John Amos (2nd)

Now the individual PCP's, 10th to 4th,
At rear, left to right: John Chopping, Ferenc Sas, Dan Eley, Steve Franklin
In front: Stefan Kawnik, Redvers Gallagher, Luiz Barreiros

And the PCP Podium:
José Redondo (3rd), John Costello (1st), Jack Harris (2nd)​

By the end of the day, we had a wonderful event, really good shooting was posted by the top shooters, we learned quite a lot, and I feel that everyone is pumped up to do our best to go to South Africa in 2020.

As the South African delegation presentation for the 2020 WFTC's took as a motto:

"Africa is calling"

Hope you have enjoyed all these pictures, it is a pleasure and a privilege to go to a sporting event wearing the Team USA shirt, I would hope that many of you now realize that you do not have to be "superman" to take the decision to compete and carry out the dream.

Who knows? we may meet in some place.

Keep well and shoot straight!






​HM

Apologies for not having posted this entry before, but things went real fast betwen the evening of the 4th day and my return home.
Now that all pending matters at home have been addressed I can sit down and post the ending of the shooting portion of the 2019 World's.
The awards lunch will be posted as a different entry.

The WFTF has a very specific shootoff procedure.
The almost 40 countries that make up the WFTF decided that the American way of a "sudden death" was not really appropriate, and so a different method was devised that falls much more in line with the WFTF concept of a "lane".

As per the rules, IDENTICAL lanes are prepared, as many as are needed, and then shooters are invited to dispute the places shooting at the same targets, same time, same place, under "same conditions".
First round is conducted in the "free position" (mostly seating), if the tie persists, then the shooters go to the kneeling position, and if the tie still persists, shooters go to the standing/offhand position.

And so, there is also some strategy to the shootoff.

In the 2019 WFTC's case, the shootoff was carried out in an open field, while nearly all the targets had been placed in the woods. So that was, undoubtedly, a challenge.

Here you can see the 6 shootoff lanes prepared and ready to receive the contenders.

Shootoffs were a little late in starting, and even with the late start some of the shooters had to be waited for because they were not prepared. The long wait is always an important part of the challenge of the challenge of a shootoff, and so is the fact that there is a "public" now watching your every move.

But, good shooters should be prepared to isolate themselves inside their minds and just dedicate 100% of their brainpower to crafting the best shot possible. One at a time.

Of MOST interest to me, was the shootoff for 3rd, 4th, and 5th of the Piston class.

To the line were called John Farbrother, Leo Gonzales and Joel Goodwin.

It is worthwhile to note that John F had been shooting with 2 broken ribs. Being the defending champion (he won in Poland), he shot to the best he could and won the first round of the shootoff to get the 1-2-3 for England.
Quite an achievement!

With John in 3rd Joel and Leo buckled up and continued shooting.

Round after round, the tie persisted, if Joel missed the long one, Leo woud miss the short one and viceversa.

To the point where Andy C must have said something to Joel and Leo, because they are all laughing.

Finally, after quite a few rounds Leo got both and Joel missed one, thereby placing Leo in 4th and Joel in 5th.

Congrats to them, great job of "keeping it together" through three days of instense concentration, adverse elements, and changing conditions.

I will not mention the scores, those can be found here, and studied by using different filters to sort things out, if you are so inclined.

What you cannot elucidate from a spreadsheet of numbers is the human qualities and values of most shooters.

In any case, it was deeply satisfying to see Leo take 4th, I am sure he still has important successes waiting for him in the future.

And that is something that is important: The USA has been working on  the spring-piston side for some time, the team is made up of young shooters, but also of experienced shooters, and it is this combination that has landed the  Piston Team a place in the podium for two years in a row.

Yes there is a LOT of room for improvement, but with shooters like Ray Apelles, Nathan Thomas, Cameron Kerndt, Matt Brackett and Jay Hannon, I am sure we will be placing well.

The composition of Piston vs. PCP was also interesting, about 20% of the 439 shooters were springer shooters. 

On a closing note, I must set apart a short space to thank those that made this memorable experience possible.
I am sure there are better pictures of him, but this pictures paints his character.
This is Andy Calpin, a veteran of a thousand battles and passionate FT shooter.
This time he did not shoot, he agreed to spend a grueling week as Match Director, a week of hard work just making sure that the match run as it should. And, by gosh, he did it!

There were 7 cold lines that I am aware of in the three days of the competition.
​Targets performed flawlessly, and there was no time lost between the end of one stint and the beginning of the next.
All in all, an admirable achievement.

We also need to thank, Bob Farnworth, who acted as "Captain of the boat", and Brian Samson who designed all the Paperwork/Cyberwork and even came out with a device that allows all scores to be put into the system as soon as they are handed in.
Very kindly, Brian has offered all this technology to future hosts of WFTC's.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that FT has grown because there are MANY persons that do what they can for the sport. Each at his/her own level and possibilities, there are MANY, and in this sense we need to thank the whole crew that made such an excellent event possible.

So, THANKS, to one and all!

Keep well and shoot straight!






​HM