The ESCAA "Frostbite" Field Target Match in pictures

First of all, apologies for not having posted this, but it has been and will continue to be an "interesting" year for us. Anyway, without further ado, here are some pictures of the February Match held by ESCAA's Tom Wade and reported here. 
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After dropping off the wife and kid in Brooklyn (thanks again, Opas!), I arrived a little early to Long Island's Brookhaven Shooting Range.

With quite a lot of snow on the ground (about 5"), I plopped my equipment and started laser ranging the sight-in targets, I was using my 0.20" cal D54 that I had taken out of mothballs a month before and just slapped an AEON scope in ZR mounts to be able to shoot it, this time I would be shooting the pellet that the barrel was designed for: the JSB 13.7's. No DOPE, no proper re-tuning. All part of an extended experiment that started at EFTCC's last shoot of 2016 where I shot an N-Tecc'ed D34 and continued at FTRPA's closing of the season shoot for 2016 where I shot the rifle using H&N's FTT at the maximum allowable speed. But, that is material for a future entry. Suffice to say that  so far the experiment has been enjoyable. Above all because the conversations that it has started, LOL!
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Yup! That is a GinB FT stock.

As much as I tried, Long Island's sight-in range defeated me. It always poses a peculiar set of conditions, it is perpendicular to the usual directions of shooting, it has a berm over which there are peculiar currents and waves of wind when the wind come in from the front, and there are noticeable lifts of the pellet when the wind comes from behind.
USUALLY, I have a little more data from other ranges to detect what info is good and what is crap, but on this occasion, for my life, I wasn't able to elucidate what was happening.
Once the sighting in was done,we had to adjourn to the lanes.
Snow was everywhere! LOL. And where there was no snow, it quickly became mud.
The first time that I plopped down on my bumbag (which I was originally happy to have taken the waterproof bottom'ed one)  and slipped back about 4", I said to myself: "self, this is going to be a workout".

I was squadded with Mark M and Nathan T, both good shooters and friends. We all had a blast. At times I did envy Mark's high seat and Nathan's youth, LOL! but we did have a blast.

Nathan started to tell me how he wanted to put some waterproof material in the bottom of his bumbag, but I do think he fared much better without it. Having to sit on a slippery surface with almost no friction to the ground implies that you get no help from the ground or from friction to hold your position. All the effort is done by your abs. and back.

Perhaps I should contact Daniel in Spain and see if they can make a bumbag with spikes! ROFL!

Though maybe I should contact WFTF first and ask because at the rate things are going, anything that is not "PC" according to the leadership's ideas becomes illegal swiftly and mercilessly. But that is another subject.

Here Leo observes Glenn getting into his Open Harness, not without some sympathy:

Here John Eroh fights his new-to-him "Chuntsman" and celebrates his return to HFT, while Brian Van Lieuw observes and gets ready to take some of his first shots under WFTF rules. Tom W seems happy with the attendance.

What was ice at the beginning became frosty mud and then a quagmire. Should have taken my Pacboots, or, like Mike some Wellies.

Whatever you do, do NOT drop your pellets! LOL!

Apart from the weather, which was unseasonably warm and balmy, it is worthwhile noting that there was NO SINGLE INCIDENT of a cold line. Congrats' to Tom for setting up a course that had no hangups and all the targets worked well!

By the end of the day, the bunch of first timers (almost all of us were trying something new), ended the shoot a little more enlightened about what our rigs were doing than when we arrived. It was truly an interesting and illustrative shooting session!

For the record, and I guess out of habit, Tom distributed awards and the customary pictures were taken:

Our Right Honorable Match Director. Tom Wade

First Place Open PCP Glenn Thomas

First Place HFT PCP, John Eroh

First Place WFTF PCP Brian Van Lieuw

Second Place WFTF Piston, Leo Gonzales

High Score of the Match and First Place WFTF Piston, Nathan Thomas.

I had a lot of fun in the sun! Learned a few things and got good material for my experiment.

We were all happy to have spent a day in the beautiful outdoors with good friends, flinging some lead at the steel critters with whom we have a profound love-hate relationship! Thanks, Tom!