Those of you that have read the last part of the blog entry on the 2018 Pyramyd Air Cup, will have noticed that  the gun I had taken (a "backup" gun in WFTF configuration), was giving me some headaches. Some truly  unexplainable misses, some unexplainable hits. And I mentioned that the gun finally failed completely at the Nationals. Well, that was just the start, LOL! 
But let's take it one step at a time:

I had not planned to go to the Nationals.
Too many things to do and too many demands on my time between family, company, DIANA, and the rest of the world.
I did want to go to Crosman because it is a super-fun weekend where I get to meet all the friends in the NorthEast and sometimes well beyond. My friends Sean and Eric actually prepare the course and organize the whole thing, and this time they got some well-seasoned help from Crosman and Sean could relax a little and shoot. Eric had had a domestic accident that was very scary and harmful a few weeks before, so he was on the recovery path, but he couldn't shoot. Still, we managed to meet at Sean's house for dinner and it was very nice to see him and the wonderful Peggy.

It was while discussing arrangements  for Crosman, that I got into going to the Nationals, LOL!

At that point in time. I was still trying to prepare for World's, so I did not register to the Nationals.

We settled on a plan that contemplated Eric and Sean arriving home (Maryland) on Wednesday night and preparing to go out next morning so as to travel Thursday, if possible get some lead downrange, register, and be ready for Friday's proceedings (Eric and Sean were shooting Pistol FT). Having Eric and Sean at home is always a ball, for the kids and Veronika as well.

Then, a week and a half before I was to go to the World's, Mark Kaufmann called about which class I was going to shoot in the Nationals, and a posting was done in the Forum about the Open Piston Class having only 3 registrants,
Precious little time and lots of things to do, but I have always considered Open Piston to be the closest Division/Class to what FT SHOULD be, how it started, and how it should have remained. I also think that it is the most capable division to act as an "Entry class" Class.
Yes there are some sophisticated airguns in the Open Piston ranks, but most are pretty much run of the mill rifles, and you CAN do creditably well with true hunting guns in the Class, so after some discussions that included the BoG, the Host Club, DIANA Airguns and Pyramyd Air, I managed to put together a package that would offer an "enticement" to those shooters that perhaps had some interest but needed a little "extra encouragement". You can read the original invitation to all airgunners to come out of the nooks and crannies here, this invitation was posted on August 15th, on August 19th I was already on a flight to Copenhagen and from there to Krakow for the WFTC's, where I would not only be shooting, but also writing a series of reports for  Hard Air Magazine.

Luckily, the experiences afforded by organizing the Minutemen FT League GP's, allowed me to call on previous partners and suppliers and get all the ducks in a row in just a few days. By the time I came back from Europe, awards would be done and shipped, and prizes funded.

And  so the DIANA Open Piston Match idea became the driving force for me to go the Nationals.

My REAL FT gun (a DIANA 54 fully converted to WFTF parameters and lodged in a beautiful and practical "Culbertson" stock modified by my friend Art Deuel was still lost in the Polish limbo. I now had friends in the industry helping me out, one in Poland and one in Germany. People that represent many, many thousands of $ of business to UPS. And so I was fairly confident that the gun would be:
 
-found
-taken out of the "Lost and Found"/to be auctioned category
-sent to a friendly party in Poland
-sent to a friendly party in Germany
and THEN sent home.

UPDATE:  Gun arrived to the USA in time for me to shoot the DIFTA Nov 3rd shoot. Results showed that the gun arrived well!

So, out to the Nationals I went with the "Backup" gun. In light of the unexplainable misses and hits at Pyramyd, I gave the gun a good look-over.
And I sensed some play in the closing of the action. I immediately suspected the pin that links the cocking lever to the linkage bar that connects to the compression chamber. It is not untypical for this pin to erode at the points where the cocking lever touches it because the cocking lever is finished in a parkerizing that is hard as ceramic, and so, it tends to erode some pins. 
I changed the pin to a hardened steel dowel pin and thought nothing more of it.

My friends Sean and Eric arrived on Wednesday on cue, and after a jolly dinner we adjourned for the night.
Next morning we started by removing the child car seats of our VW Passat.
We had a ton of gear and we needed to get more space.
The drive to NC would take about 3 1/2 hrs of actual driving time. The car is equipped with a diesel engine and it had been fueled up day before. Our "autonomy" on one tank of fuel was about 700 miles of all highway or about 600 miles of mixed highway/city driving.

So, we didn't have to worry about fueling up mid-way and when some friends of Sean and Eric from the Bayou Airgun Club called on the phone we were only about an hour away from Roanoake Rapids, our base of operations in North Carolina and we decided to drive through without stops in order to do lunch with the BAC guys.
Lunch turned out to be a blast, and we were informed that we could register in advance. The directions we got to the Range were less than precise and the sign that warned about live rifle fire in the area was only visible going BACK towards Roanoake Rapids. LOL!
Luckily, we found the place and also Ginger Piatt doing marvelously the ingrate job of registering all the kids, I mean  . . .  shooters.
​
​So, after a few back and forth's we finally found the entrance to the range.
Next day a large flag would be there, but we were "pre-registering" to call it something as, officially, registrations would not be open till Friday morning.

One cannot thank enough such volunteer work done with such wonderful smiles and always a positive attitude. Ginger's and Scott's relentless work were truly admirable all along the weekend.

At the hotel we met the ever smiling Lauren Parsons and we extended the invitation that John Eroh had sent.
Between John, Leo, Ray, and Basil they had rented this HUGE Plantation Mansion, and they had invited everyone for a "get together".
We stopped by a gas station to pick up some "Adult beverages" and went to the address we had been given.

All in all, 20 airgunners congregated there and to say that all talk was about shooting, WFTF, Poland, Portugal, Wales and all the ancillary subjects would be a mild statement; it was HEATED, LOL!

By the time the arguments about Springer vs. PCP had been exhausted, out came the rifles and some targets were set up.

After the shots, of course we still did not agree, but it was a ton of fun!

And so, we adjourned to the hotel, to get some sleep and start Friday with a clear mind.

Friday saw us arriving to an excellently laid out sighting-in range:

Actually, there were TWO sight-in ranges, and having read the weather forecast and measured the inclination of the covered sight-in range, I decided to stay there. Some other shooters preferred the "flat" (and shadeless) sight-in range:

I went also to the "flat" sight-in range to chrono my gun. It was a simplification process where guns would be chronoed only once. Piston guns just got the yellow sticker, but PCP's were to receive a "no-tamper" seal also.
I think it was a smart decision. Piston shooters cannot alter easily the ME, and PCP shooters can, so the difference makes sense.
It also saved THAGC of sacrificing one person to the chrono marshalling duties for each day.

Right out of the bat, THAGC had stressed that the main focus of the Championships would be "Sportsmanship" with all that this implies, from safety in the courses to basic etiquette.
Scott Allen had sent excellently worded Emails (4 in total) to all competitors telling everyone in no uncertain terms what would be expected of each and every one of us.
For the most part, I would say we all behaved.

These aspects, laid out from the start, told us that this was going to be an excellently run match.

I shot almost all morning and a good part of the afternoon, but I did take a little time off to go see the "Pistoleros".
The array of "things" you see on the firing line is quite impressive.
My interest, so far is more academic and scientific than practical. Perhaps that will change some day, when I can see a way to "holster" one of the PFT possible rigs. You see? to ME a pistol is a sidearm. If it cannot be holstered, then it is not a pistol.
Many years ago when I hunted with a S&W 29 I liked the fact that the gun was "there" without actually making an effort at it being there. Of course open sights would be completely out of the question in PFT, or ¿Would they?

Of course this is not the way to hunt with a 0.44" Mag, LOL! But the "hands only" class does present itself as an option. Sad part is that it is very scarcely attended and not recognized by AAFTA. Still . . .  who knows?
To have a "looksee" at some of the Pifles (or is it "Ristols" ???) that you can see  in PFT:

If you think this is just a "PRod" look again. You're missing what seems to be an extra air tube, or some extra weight/support. Or is it just a holder for the sleeve that links the pifle to the bipod?
​You wonder ¿no?

And this? Rear focusing scope, modified loading lever, "silvered" parts to battle heat gain inside the scope . . .
as Yoda would have said: mostly scientific,  . . . is my interest.

​It was clear, though, that everyone WAS having fun, even with some bottlenecks in the course:

After all the shooting was done, shootoff's were called, and IMHO, it was a tribute to the "evenness" of the course designed by Paul Porch that there were so many shooters tied so close together:

Mr. Ebersole on the left, Mr. Walker on the right, and the result can be clearly surmised from this picture:

That shot put Randy on 6th and Paul on 5th.
Then came the shootoffs for 3rd & 4th:

After several rounds where excitement grew and grew, Ray Barnett took 3rd and Paul Porch 4th

And then came the clash of the Titans:

By the time the day was over, we were all tired and hungry and so, we adjourned to the Texas Roadhouse where we all had our fill and chatted till we were too tired.

After a night's rest, we were all back at it again next morning. A short session in the sight-in range confirmed zero and trajectory, but still something I couldn't quite place was off, and yet the show had to go on.

I was squadded with Amon and Noah Piatt, which would make the shoot very interesting.

We addressed our first lane and unexplainable misses started.

We then went to our next lane, and these are, possibly the only TWO pictures of me with a DIANA in this Nationals. At this very lane, the linkage between the cocking lever and the compression chamber broke and it was impossible to fix, but just for the record: I did start the Nationals with my "Backup gun"

It's a nice gun, but I just cannot get truly comfortable with it.

After the breakage, I took some time off to try to gather myself. Amon and Noah went on without me and I went to the registration/score desk to hand in my score card. I was decided to not shoot.
BUT, that is what good friends are for. Ginger Piatt immediately suggested I "borrowed" one of the prize/auction rifles.
Indeed some of them were VERY tempting:

But I was not totally convinced.

I handed in my scorecard and started walking to the car.
On the way to the car I had en "epiphany": IF I didn't finish the match, there would NOT be 5 shooters in Open Piston, and AAFTA awards would not be given. That kind of felt like a 1-2 punch to the stomach! All the things we had gone through to get the 5 shooters and now I was the one defaulting? NOT on MY watch!

I went back and requested my score card and tried to put my scope onto the HW97, but the ZRMounts would not clear the large objective from the  mechanisms tube without a riser block, so I abandoned the idea because all guns with the dovetail rails milled directly on the tube would present the same problem.

So, I decided to borrow one of Eric's LGU's. I located him, asked permission, located the range card that seemed to fit and off I went to get my score card.
I had to wait for two 4 man squads to go by, by the third, I decided to suggest that the 4+1 be split into 3 + 2  squads and Cliff Smith was kind enough to allow me to shoot with him.

Needless to say that I didn't hit much. I didn't know the trajectory and the zero was completely different from what I normally use, also I would not change the settings of the scope on a gun that is not mine, and would be shooting with hold-offs on hold-offs; but, ¡Hey! I was shooting!

Shooting with Cliff is always a good experience, it is worthy of note that Cliff was the AAFTA Meritorious Achievement Award winner for the year 2008. He is a true gentleman and friend.

By the time we had gone almost completely through the course I started connecting, out of the last 3 lanes, I think I missed just 2 targets.
Still, ending with 16 hits was not too bad, after all it could only get better the next day, ¿right?

​As we finished and handed in the scorecards and got ready for the evening proceedings, I saw Eric and he was not happy. His gun had been acting on him and he wanted to try the "loaner" gun next day.
So, we agreed to install my scope onto his gun that night so that I could shoot with a scope I could change.
Gunsmithing was done and I felt as ready as I could be for the second day.

Next day dawned foggy and dark. I would be shooting the "White Course" laid out in the right of way of a gas pipeline, it presented NO cover from the sun, so the organizers had setup gazebos. In the early morning hours, it didn't seem to be necessary:

Of course, as the sun "burned off" the fog, it started to  heat up everything. In the end, it would be one of the hottest shoots I have ever been in, and I was glad to have carried my gel-filled neckerchief that could be soaked in water to keep my head cool.

As Eric has put it in his excellent reports for Hard Air Magazine: "everyone was melting", LOL!

The gasline right of way ran roughly North-South, while the targets were set to the right and left alternately, in the early morning some targets presented a backlit condition with the attending glare problem in the glass etched reticles, an interesting test for the sunshades and louvers; to the shooters, it also presented the condition that you felt like a chicken in a rotisserie being "turned over to well done", the shadow of the gazebos was sought out by everyone, and not always completely out of the way of the shooters; it was, probably, the only situation where proper etiquette gave way to survival instincts.

It was, let's say, an "interesting" experience.
​
Still, I had a ton of fun!

As the day wore on, I was doing better than the day before, but the POI kept going more, and more, and more to the right. I will admit to at least part of it, clearly I am not a good enough shooter to shoot a recoiling spring gun with perfect consistency, but I do think some of it had to do with the architecture of the LGU.

Shooting under such punishing conditions is always a good test of character.

In the end, I posted a 24 that improved on the previous day by 50%, so I was quite happy.

I have to publicly thank Eric for lending me his guns, it was a great gesture that will be remembered and appreciated. I also have to thank Ginger Piatt for allowing me to test the raffle/prize guns to see if my scope would fit, to Cliff Smith for shooting with me the first day, and Scott Allen for allowing me to jump into the match again.

Final results were quite good with an AMAZING performance put up by Steve English in the WFTF Piston Class. Wish he was registering for England 2019!

As I explained above, the intention of the DIANA Open Piston Match is to promote the class that seems best suited as "entry class" into FT.
And that thought is shared by the sponsors (DIANA Airguns, Pyramyd Air, and Connecticut Custom Airguns). ¿Why?  because we see it at the local level. EVERY FT shooter starts somewhere. And most start with what they feel is an accurate airgun, usually bought from a large department store, a sports outlet, or on the net, always with a view towards price.
And here is where the new management at DIANA has seen fit to listen to the customers, there are now several options to get reasonably accurate and good quality airguns starting at UNDER $300, whether spring gun or PCP's, the new range of offerings is marking the way in the industry.
And there will be more changes to come, but that is another story.
For this entry, let's just say that we would LOVE to make the DIANA Open Piston Match a yearly thing, but that also means that the shooters need to respond. We do not plan on making it a "brand only" competition, we understand the value of getting new shooters into the sport, and we understand that not everyone can spend upwards of $2,500 in a fully set-up-to-go FT rig. Nor would everyone choose to. Some shooters will feel that FT is good enough practice for their other airgunning pursuits and keep to it ,whether steadily or occasionally, but we do need a living class to allow them company. There is little interest and fun in shooting by oneself, and if you are going to shoot by yourself, then why bother driving to the FT Match?

And so, with all these thoughts in mind was that, when prompted by Scott Allen, I took the floor to thank THAGC for hosting the Match, Pyramyd Air, for being a pillar in the promotion of FT, and  DIANA Airguns for having supported my idea of creating the DIANA Open Piston Match

It was with great pleasure that, in the name of the sponsors, I was able to bestow award plates and prizes to the winners:

Scott Hull took a commanding lead on the first day and ratified it on the second to take first place, his score of 81 would have placed him 4th in WFTF Piston and I do hope he has a good showing in England 2019

Lonnie Smith shot well, his score of 71 would have put him in 3rd in Hunter Piston, or 6th in WFTF Piston (his more usual Classes)

Clifton Montgomery, while not a beginner, was a good find, hopefully he will continue shooting Open.
And I hope he was happy with this award and prize.

One of the things that I like about Open Piston is that it allows a number of different styles of shooting:

This is Scott Hull's "Pretzel" position (technically called  the "SouthAfrican"  or "DeadMan's"  position.
While it allows great stability, it does present problems when the targets are elevated or declined, and sometimes it presents visibility problems when there are low lying obstacles between shooter and target.

This is Lonnie Smith's position, closer to the DeadMan's than to the more traditional position. Lonnie uses a really hard bumbag and that would solve a few problems with targets with moderate inclination; and his usage of part of his buttstock to create his riser has always been cause of fascination to me.

Clifton uses a more traditional position and uses the "Price Harness" as well as a small "sandbag" to attain proper target elevation.

My point in these pictures is to show that more than reasonable scores can be attained with relatively little expense: a quality gun a quality scope, some ingenuity and a good knowledge of what works for EACH of US; even counting custom/self-customized stocks and scopes, the rigs here do not exceed the $1,300 to $1,800 range, and, perhaps more importantly, they are eminently practical rifles that no one would hesitate taking to the woods after squirrels. They are rifles to which the non-FT shooter can relate. 

I believe firmly that the more rarefied we allow FT to become, and this is my MAIN "beef" with current WFTF leadership (from the Presidency to all the WFTF Reps of the RGB's), the harder it will be to get into a sport that is ALREADY extremely technical and demanding.
​
To ME (again, a strictly personal POV),  it seems that is precisely what the current leadership of WFTF wants, and if my perception is correct, then FT will never grow beyond a mediocre level of participation (not more than 30-50,000 sportspersons worldwide); and  marksmanship, because more and more the advantage will come in the expensive gear you can buy because there seems to be an intention of barring/forbidding $15 industrial kneepads, or $6 apps., while allowing $300 jackets and $4,000 scopes.​

To ME (and I emphasize this as being purely personal), shooting the Nationals in the Open Division of Piston is a great cost. It means one important score that I cannot make count for the World's Team classification, but it is a cost I am willing to bear because I think that part of the future of FT lies there.

The First Edition of the DIANA Open Piston Match is now history.
It was truly a pleasure and a privilege to be part of this event.
Let's hope we can make it a yearly thing, as long as the shooters respond, we will.

The rest of the shoot and the awards ceremony has been better reviewed  by Scott A in his Official report, and there are tons of photos all over; here I would only like to emphasize the large smiles and brotherhood feeling that permeates all FT events,  but moreso this, the National FT "Schützenfest".

Officially, the 2018 AAFTA Nationals closes the 2017-2018 season. All shoots after the Nat's are part of the NEXT season (2018-2019).

Tons of work to do for next season, not the least, get prepared for what will be, for sure, the MOST hotly contested WFTC's ever.

Let's face it: we ARE going into the Lion's Den

But more than become afraid, or cautious, this should steel our determination to practice more, practice better, go to all the shoots we can, try new things between now and May, but beyond May, stick to whatever we have decided to be the best possible combination for each of us.
And, IF we find that magic batch of pellets that seem to not be able to miss, save at least  two tins (1,000) for the WFTC's 2019.

Spring-Piston Team USA will be going as defending champions. England will be shooting at "home", and Hungary will go as well prepared as they can, they always do.

I am starting to see some initiatives that tell me that, at least the Springer shooters, are beginning to think as a Team.
​
​I am sure we will all give it our best!

Best regards to all from Maryland!



​HM

As I explained above, I had invited each and every shooter in FT Team USA to write a short entry. Alas, it seems everyone is very busy prepping for the Nationals, among other stuff. So I will close this with some personal comments that go above and beyond the real-time reports that were written for Hard Air Magazine.

An interesting aside is that my gun is still stuck in Poland!

After the WFTC's I had to travel to Germany on business and I decided to ship the rifle (action+stock) to the USA via UPS.
I called UPS and they accepted the shipment over the phone, I packed the gun, made the waybill, paid with my CC and left the package to be shipped from the hotel I was staying.
Went to Germany and then went home. It was then that I received a note from UPS (Poland) letting me know that the gun had been declared a "Weapon" and therefore they were unable to ship it.

As much as I had declared the goods under a Harmonized Tariff System number that is SPECIFIC to spring-piston airguns, they just would not listen to reason.
To cut a very long story short, more than 30 EMails have gone back and forth and still the gun is stuck in Poland.
Hopefully with the help of some friends in the industry (Poland and Germany), we can get it unstuck.
What is frustrating is that UPS does not truly answers Emails, and when you send an Email, you do not get a confirmation of receipt.

But, life has to go on, and I managed to put together a gun from parts I had around and I am slowly getting used to the "new" gun.
I feel for my stock, that had been made by a very dear friend whose health is failing at the moment and that had proven to be very stable. But we'll learn and live on.

Let me start by saying that it has been a long road.
Back in 2011 when I first started shooting Piston, there were a total of 16 piston shooters out of 79 at the Nationals held in Tennessee.​
And that included 8 in Open and 8 in WFTF.
Then in 2012 that I shot the season in WFTF Piston, there were 19 Shooters in Piston classes at the Nationals of that year. Out of 67 total shooters. It was also the first year that we went to the World's; held in Norway that year.
By 2013, the Nationals in Texas, there were 13 piston shooters, out of  87 Shooters.
The 2014 numbers were 9 piston shooters out of 77, but it was the first year that we had a major player switch over from PCP to Piston.
By 2015, the Piston shooters had grown to 21 out of 88, but the WFTF Piston shooters had grown to 11
2016 saw again 11 shooters in WFTF Piston out of 106 shooters
​By 2017, there were 10 WFTF Piston shooters out of 103 total.

The names you see in the WFTF Piston roster have also changed, Matt Brackett should be regarded as a "seminal" shooter in the sense that he has always shot WFTF Piston. Ray switched over from PCP to WFTF Piston when he realized that there was an architecture that allowed him to shoot piston without too much strain on his shoulders.
We'll see how things go this 2018 Nationals, hopefully, we can attract more shooters into the Piston categories. Eventually, some of those will find a way to WFTF Piston and that is the way a Team gets stronger.

Parallel to all this, I have to say that becoming an American Citizen late in 2011, and being able to shoot for the USA Team has also been a dream come true.

So, it has been a long road, but one that has been worthwhile every day of the way.

About the 2018 WFTC's:

Perhaps the picture that best describes the 2018 WFTC's in Poland is this one:​

As is customary, for every day of competition, when you get your rifle choronoed, you get a third of the overall logo of the event.

This "2/3 rds"  logo will be a permanent reminder of the fact that the competition was not a full competition.

Please understand that nothing in this blog entry must be construed as criticism. As someone who has organized large events and been a project manager (including some projects that have run into the hundreds of millions of $), most of his professional life, I understand that "things happen".
So, let's try to take a constructive point of view and analyze those things that were truly outstanding:

TARGETS:
Most of the targets used in the Match were locally made.
They worked perfectly well at the practice range, the system is well made, simple and reliable.

For sub 12 ft-lbs. it is ample enough, portable, and as long as no one thinks he is reeling in that world-prize Marlin, the resets work perfectly well and the target does not move.

Sadly, when placed in the courses, the psychological factors overtook rationality and a few overzealous PCP shooters derailed the whole shoot.

The VENUE

The place where the shoot was held and the courses prepared were absolutely amazing:

Yes there are a few targets there, you can see the white speckles, and some of the strings.

The hard work and unfailing efforts from the Polish Marshalls was always welcome!

The Host hotel was good and they did every possible effort to cater to our needs, from allowing a practice course:

And a sight-in range:

To allowing us an extra 5 mins at the pool

That the shoot did not go completely as planned, is an unfortunate event, but it is in part the unintended consequence of a no-cost to the shooter protest procedure ensconced in the WFTF Comprehensive Rules.
As the Rules stand, anyone can protest a target and it has to be addressed immediately. While that is an OK procedure for a "Bowling Green" style of course, it was completely inappropriate to this setting and this course.
Getting an officer/Marshall up the Cliff to check a target was an exercise that took at least 5 minutes per protest, if you count the 21 protests that were lodged, it all adds to more than 1½ HOURS of delay.

That is enough to derail ANY event.
Add to that the very strong weather we had on the second day that impeded even further the catching up of time, and you get, literally, the unfortunate results of a series of unintended consequences.

While it is true that no one can control the weather. It is a known factor that there are some areas of the earth that are more prone to thunder and lightning.

HOPEFULLY, organizers in the future will take advantage of this information that exists for all the world on a per month basis to choose the location and the month when the WFTC's will be held.
​
Probably, and most importantly, this shows that WFTF needs to be present at several points in the course of the year it takes to prepare all this. It is very hard for someone who has been working real hard all year to suddenly receive comments that would have changed substantially some things if those comments had been issued opportunely

All in all, I really enjoyed my visit to Poland, it is a great country, with great people, the Polish FT RGB did its best to provide us with a great experience.And they stuck at it to the end. I am sure Pawel and all his crew would have gladly chucked everything out at some point in time, but they didn't.
They carried out their end of the bargain to the last consequences and this is admirable.

To me, Poland will always elicit a bittersweet memory​. It was a great place, the shoot was run by great people, and it is a historical date for FT in the USA because it is the FIRST time that a Team wins the Championship.
As an airgunsmith, three of the four highest scores in Team USA were guns made here or had parts made here.
​
Yes, it's been a long road. And there is still so much more we can do!

I have invited each and every springer shooter that was part of Team USA to write an entry for this Blog.
Why? Because I think that EVERY story is worth hearing, because I think that ALL shooters in TEAM USA are worthy individuals, and because I truly believe their voices deserve to be heard.
So, for the first time, I am only providing the "Soap Box".

Matt is not only a great shooter, he is an outstanding individual whom I have the pleasure to know and the privilege to call my friend.
He is one of the persons that keeps me shooting FT.
Besides having placed 2nd in Lithuania's WFTC's, he has placed well in almost all matches he enters, and has beat me several times, LOL!
In Poland, he performed well, and I am sure he will perform better in the future. He is one of the "young values" of Springer FT shooting in the USA.

It is with great pleasure that I write this introduction to Matt Brackett's story.

​My Worlds account begins with a major reckoning inspired by my performance at the Crosman All-American Field Target Championship a month earlier. With a busy family and professional life, I don't get to put much money or time into my field target passion. But over two previous winters I had made slow headway on re-fitting an old Maccari CS1000-style stock for my TX200 Mk3. I had carefully re-inlet it by hand, re-carved the pistol grip area, mended a hairline crack at the wrist, mortised the forend to fit an inlet rail and adjustable hamster, and coated it with hand-rubbed oil and wax finish. The Crosman shoot was when I felt the Maccari stock was ready for a debut.

​Other elements of the rifle remained unchanged from my competition set-up from last year's Worlds: I use a three-year-old V-mach spring with guides, and a Vortek o-ring piston seal in a custom-honed compression tube that Hector machined for me. I have been using Krytox lubes on the spring and o-ring and Air Arms 8.4gn pellets. Last year I inspected and sorted pellets with the Pellet Gage, but when I experimented with lubing pellets this past winter, I got inconclusive results among sorted, lubed and untouched pellets. With such a toss-up, I packed virgin tins of pellets to bring to Crosman.

Crosman is an event that for me seems to test endurance in heat, wind and humidity. During sight-in in the open field, I saw that my rifle was shooting straight and true to my expected trajectory. But even though the range showed strong winds from 10 and 9 o'clock, the pellets didn't seem to be drifting out among the field's grassy channels as much as I anticipated at the more exposed firing line. Somehow this valuable data didn't sink in, however, and paved the way for what I think was my downfall for the weekend's performance: inflexibility. On Saturday's session in the field, I stubbornly refused to account for the reduced wind's effect, and missed many shots holding too much into the wind. And in Sunday's rain and humidity, I stubbornly refused to remember that my TX action tends to shoot a little high when wet. I wanted to think that my freshly-prepared Macarri stock would solve this quirk, and so instead I kept holding center, while struggling to spot my misses through annoying scope condensation in that day's dark lanes.

Dejected with my performance in the competition, I retired once again to the sight-in field with my wet rifle to discover where it was shooting. Sure enough, it was grouping very nicely, BUT ABOUT TWELVE CLICKS HIGH at all distances! I failed to act on the weekend's lessons in time.

I was disappointed in placing so far down in the WFTF piston class, but when your competitors are some of the most accomplished in the country, it lessens the sting. I spoke to some of them about my complaints with my rifle's inconsistency, and they had some good advice. Ray Apelles, Nathan Thomas and Jerry LaRocca commented that they seal rifle stocks with urethane, and not oil. Since I knew that Ray's and Nathan's rifles were remarkably repeatable, that seemed like good intel. Hector suggested looking again at my rifle's lubrication, and since Nathan swears by SuperLube and I've had to fuss a bit with Krytox, I thought I'd look into that, too.

Precision air rifle shooting is a messy mix of physics, engineering, and psychology. With one month to go before the Worlds in Poland, I reluctantly decided to overhaul my rifle between family vacations and work due dates, in part to address all three topics. After much effort, I managed to:

• harvest the fore end bracket and trigger safety pin off my alternate TX200 to replace the stripped and snapped ones I found after Crosman

• strip, re-inlet, re-bed, dry, and seal the Macarri stock with urethane

• remove, deep clean, and lubricate internals with SuperLube

• install a sunshade on the Sightron scope to aid in rain protection

• fit new foam for the rifle and Macarri stock for my airline travel case

• verify all holds and zeroes for the refurbished stock

​The stock, stripped
​
Then, when I was getting close to being done, my precious stock slipped off my workbench and hit butt-first on the cement floor. The wrist area was snapped in a NEW place! So, after all that work I had to glue the joint as best I could, and install two dowel pins across the grain to try to reinforce the area.

​cross-grain dowels with drying glue

Traveling to the Worlds has become a rare chance to build more adventure into my life, and this year it was a pleasure to share the airline slog component with John Eroh and Matt Sawyer. Somehow I managed to sleep nearly all of the 8-hour, cross-Atlantic flight, and all three of us and our luggage made it safely through Frankfurt to Krakow. Given than many of our teammates weren't so lucky, we didn't know how good we had it! From there, it was an uneventful drive north to the sponsored hotel near the town of Zawiercie.

​The Villa Verde turned out to be a fine place to stay for competitors, and one of the nicest features was a fine sight-in range and a wonderfully-varied practice course to use in the days prior to competition. That, a large water park and a sauna complex met most of our recreation needs for the week!

​This section of the practice range looked uphill for some long, exposed shots

​The Villa’s zero range

​Team USA!
​
With the rifle re-assembled after travel, I was very pleased to see that I only needed a few clicks to re-zero even after all the changes, and that it was just shooting low at perhaps 750-760 fps. I've learned this doesn't matter much and accounted for the trajectory. In subsequent days, the rifle needed NO adjustment clicks in maintaining zero, which was unprecedented for me. As someone who had a reputation for disassembling rifles at every previous Worlds, I began to hope that this year would be different!

The first day of competition arrived, Thursday, and it was HOT. Those of us in the springer class had all morning and early afternoon at the sight-in range, and I noticed my rifle-mounted thermometer rose to 110 degrees! As we waited for the delayed PCPs to finally leave the course, most of us collapsed in the shade like desert dwellers.

​Springer shooters meeting
​
You've heard about the course, and seeing it was like walking into an amusement park. Everywhere you looked there were interesting features, angles and sight lines. I was really happy with it. I was squadded with Fredrik Mäkeläinen from Sweden, and it became quite a pleasure to shoot with him. Reminded of Crosman, I tried to neutrally observe wind in the quarry, and I felt I made some progress as we moved from lane to lane. Shortly, however, everyone noticed the failing light until it became clear we could not continue the shoot. Henrik and I had only shot fifteen out of 25 lanes, while we learned other squads had managed many more.

​shooting into the bowl

​Fredrik contemplates ‘the cliff'

​Me and Fredrik

Shooters heading home in twilight

Later that night over beer, we heard the decision from the powers that be that we would have to shoot our remaining lanes the next morning before proceeding immediately to shoot that day's scheduled course. I sometimes struggle with sleep in normal life, and I've noticed that travel and competition nerves amplifies it a bit at Worlds. But Thursday night I just couldn't fall asleep. I lay peacefully in bed, almost meditating, and only really got between three or four hours of sleep. Still, I woke feeling prepared for the day.

When we got to the range, my rifle was still shooting dead on, and I thanked the air rifle gods and those friends at Crosman who gave me their sound gunsmithing advice. Fredrik and I set up to begin on the next lane from yesterday's course, but then marshals marched in and informed us we had to separate! They wanted to speed up our progress by making us shoot individually, and to each be scored by a marshal. I saw a few other squads being directed the same way, but it wasn't everyone. This meant I had to shoot 20 consecutive shots with no break in the heat. I tried to keep my breathing down and to stay mellow, but it was very difficult. I missed the highest ratio of my shots during this session than any other, and I was sweaty and beat when the scorecard was finally filled.

​After that ordeal, it was time to shoot a fresh course! Fredrik and I reunited, and we got on with the day. I noticed my positionals were pretty wobbly, and I wondered if my poor night of sleep was to blame. I did feel like I had a good bead on the wind, however. I found that I was picking up more information about its action, and choosing my points of aim well both when the wind was swirling or more gathered from one direction.

Finally we springers finished our session, and with enough time for the waiting PCPs to swap places. I was happy with a combined 36 for Thursday's complete score, and a 38 for Friday's. However, as we recovered at the Villa's bar, the sky opened up in a pretty intense lightning storm. We knew the PCP's were in danger of not finishing their day's shoot, and that meant the competition was in danger of not being completed. That had never happened before.

Still, it made for a kind of giddy atmosphere, and many of us spent the afternoon and evening comparing theories of how it would all be decided. We welcomed the soggy PCP's back to the hotel as light fell, and confirmed they didn't finish. I was pretty certain the springers wouldn't shoot a third course and would be judged on 100 shots. Sure enough, late into the night we were informed that the PCPs would complete their 100 shots on Saturday morning, and that the championship would end there. Hearing scores by word of mouth, I was pretty sure that I was somewhere in the midst of the top ten, and that most likely Brit John Farbrother was the springer champion. He and I hung out that night with John Eroh, Matt Sawyer, Tyler Patner, Hector and Canadian springer teammates Zach, Jeff and Joel. Some beers later, I had the silly pleasure of defeating John Farbrother in a similar game of sharpshooting, 8-ball!

venturing out for late-night, delicious kebabs!

Before going to bed however, I received word that I was scheduled to perform Saturday morning in a shoot off for fifth place with last year's Springer Champion, Jan Homann from Germany. I wasn't concerned much. After failures at Crosman, my goal was to reach the top ten. At either 6th or 5th I was going to get a medal to bring home!

After the heat and stress of the week, I was a little depleted Saturday morning. This isn't uncommon after the marathon of the Worlds experience. But once again on the sight-in range, my rifle shot center of the target out of the case. That was confidence-boosting. However, my positionals were still unsteady. I just swayed all over the kill zone. I knew that since shoot offs at the Worlds proceed quickly to kneeling and offhand shots, that I'd be lucky to make it far against Jan.

I was really grateful to the teammates and friends who came out to the two lanes at the sight in range to spectate, and Jan and I took our positions beside each other. We each faced two targets, a 1" kill zone at around 21 yds, and a 1.5" kill zone at around 39. 'Relatively easy shots for sitting, even in the slight wind, and so both of us advanced to the next round, which would be to shoot both targets kneeling. Jan sped through his shot quickly and felled the near target before I had really lined up. My crosshairs wobbled around the hole as they had for three days, and my shot smacked the edge at 9 o'clock. Of course, Jan had to hit is next shot at the far target to seal his win, and he did so very quickly after my miss.

Short and sweet, folks! I was a little sorry I didn't give a better show, but I was grateful for my finish.

Jan and I
​
The awards dinner that evening was yet another noisy and cheerful affair. Some of us had peeked at scores posted online, and we were thrilled to learn that the scores of Ray, me and Cameron had earned the U.S. Springer Team a historical first place for combined scores! I travel to Worlds mostly for the adventure, but also for the distant hope to try to actually win the class. But it never really occurred to me that a whole team of us could become World Champions together! That was the best surprise of the week, and it was a fantastic way to end. Assembled together on the podium, we belted out the national anthem when it was played in our honor. I felt really proud to stand with those guys.

And hey, TWO medals!

​Matt Brackett

Photos by MB, JH and some taken from published photos in social media.

I have always enjoyed shooting at DIFTA, it is truly one of the more beautiful courses in the Eastern Seaboard.
It is challenging. Maryland is a maritime state and the weather can change at the drop of a hat. Wind is also very tricky in the woods where there are open fields to both sides of the little woods patch and a depression runs alongside the shooting lanes, creating interesting shooting positions and conditions.
The forecast had always been that Sunday, June 10th, was going to be rainy. What was on the balance was at what time it would start to rain.
Following closely the trends in the forecasts, it was fairly obvious that it would rain at about noon.
And in Maryland, when it rains, it pours!
Just to give you an idea, courtesy of my friend Mark Mayer, there is a video here, that shows how hard it was raining, and how suddenly the sun started to peek in again.

The other thing I love about shooting at DIFTA is that, occasionally, my upstate NY friends Sean McDaniel and Eric Brewer will come down the night before and we can spend some time sharing a meal and shooting the breeze.

We decided to start early, even if the Match had been called for a 09:00 hrs start, we were up at 06:00 then breakfasted and at the range by 07:45.
We waited a little while till 08:00 hrs. and started shooting at the sighting-in range.
This time there were no downed trees to clear and so, we re-purposed some old targets and got down to the business of getting ready for the match.

I needed the time, I was testing a new-to-me hunting pellet that is being made by H&N in Germany 

I had had reports from my friend Tony Leach (UK), that these pellets were actually quite accurate, even at long distances (55 yards and up) and, preparing to do the work of testing the Stormrider at higher power levels (you can read tests at low power levels here: Part 1 and Part 2 ), I had bought a lonely tin.

Upon testing, it became obvious that H&N had a great achievement in their hands. But it is such an important development, that it deserves its own entry in this blog, so, for the time being, let us say that I found these pellets more than satisfactory for ANY shooting an airgunner might want to do. Long gone is the need for a different zero, a different trajectory, different rifles, different scopes. A savvy airgunner CAN be the ONE-Rifle Man that everyone should take seriously.

At DIFTA's sight-in range, Sean and I ended up shooting at the same bullseye at 55 yards and I was keeping right up with him. Sean was on fire that day and it was to show at the end of the Match, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. I was having a lot of fun seeing holes appear exactly where I wanted them, and for a Sproinger to keep up with the PCP's, it is a good feeling indeed.
Shooting groups, and inputting the observations into PP-Calc, showed that the data was good, and so with certain confidence, we waited for the match to start.

The match was very well attended, 15 shooters came up to the range and it was very nice to meet old friends that I had not seen in some time: Keith Knoblauch was there, in between his Estonia and Euzkadi trips, Ray Apelles was also there, Brian Van Lieuw, Mike Harris, Al Otter, Chris Cory, all traveled long distances to make the match.

The sighting-in range was full:

After a rather detailed shooters meeting, because we had two completely new shooters in hand, the match got underway with the goal of shooting the 60 shot match (cut down from 72) before the rain struck us.

We were allotted Lane 12 to start, so we had to walk all the way down, shoot a lane, and then walk all the way up to again make our way down.
Because we were the lonely 3 man squad, Paolo allowed other squads to leapfrog us.

The shoot was going well for me, even more so considering I was using my old AEON 8-32X50 scope (because the SIGHTRON is at the "Hospital") that was a serious challenge under the conditions; with the non-illuminated reticle and the targets that are black or brown on black or brown and in a very dark day, it was hard to pick up where some of the KZ's were.

I had only dropped six points between lane 12 (our starting lane) and lane 8, when thunder and lightning forced the MD to call all the shooters back to the sighting-in covered area.
Even the last lane shot before the "hiatus" was called. I only dropped one point in lane #8 and by then it was REALLY coming down on us!

What I didn't know then was that all other squads HAD finished their shooting. We were the only squad that had not.
So, we waited under cover for the rain to pass and when it subsided, we set out again to shoot.

What happened in those 20 minutes that we waited?, I really do not know, nor I ever will (for reasons to be explained later), but when we returned to shooting, the POI had moved a full mrad (3.44 MOA's/15 clicks) to the right. Of course I didn't know that, I just started missing.
​
Over the last two lanes, I dropped 7 points!  Ah, well . . .  that is FT for you, specially Spring-Piston FT.

We had a lot of fun and we enjoyed the good company of friends.
The banter and the conversations (serious and otherwise) is always a good break from the daily grind.
By the time we were finished, most shooters that had to travel long distances had left, but a few shooters were present for their awards.

​Sean McDaniel posted the Match high score with an amazing 57/60 and, once again, demonstrated that the Hunter Division has evolved to the point that it really is a contender for the Match High positions.
Yes, I know that, officially, this is discouraged, but it is very human. So, a big "CONGRATS!" to Sean!

Upon returning to home base, I disassembled the gun to dry all the internals and so, I will never know why the gun moved so much.
Following day, after re-assembly, the POI was where it was found after the rain, so I simply re-sighted it in and it is printing great groups again where it should.

I am sure that, by now, some of you have already raised their voices about the choice of pellet for this match, but I assure you all it was a very conscious choice and that I have no regrets about it, I like so much how these pellets shoot that I am considering shooting them in future matches.

I will write a separate Blog entry for the Barracuda Hunter Extreme pellets, yes they are THAT good.

Some further testing needs to be done, specially the testing that goes beyond the simply excellent accuracy of the pellets and their high BC. So, stay tuned for an in-depth view into the wonderful world of total ballistics.

A BIG THANKS! have to go to Paolo, Mark and Vince for setting up the match, running it, and then taking it down on Tuesday when everything had dried out (well, sort of).
​
I am happy that the gun shot well, and that I fully tested my rain gear that came through with flying colors. Some adjustments need to be done in the shoe to trouser interfase, but I think I will not fear the rain anymore.
If Pleasant Hill decides to pull an "Ennice" on us, I will be ready.

I just hope that the shoot does not get interrupted!

;-)

​Keep well and shoot straight!

As I have written before, there is no harder shooting discipline than shooting a high powered spring-piston airgun.

They are the physical embodiment of Murphy's Law.

But, they are so much fun!
​
Last time we talked about loose screws, this time it was a scope the one that caused a less than good performance. Even in a recoil-absorbing mount.

But let's start with the shoot.
DIFTA is a great FT Club, it has been running FT shoots for over 30 years. It has hosted Nationals and other important matches of International reach, like the "Mason-Dixon Shootout".
​This shoot was interesting because it was planned and setup remotely.
Paolo was travelling and it was only through the good offices of Mark Mayer that we could have a shoot, as he set-up the field.
It was sparsely attended, but it was not surprising because the weatherpersons of several websites had been warning of a day of continuous rain.
Reminding myself of what my Norwegian friends say: "There is no bad weather, just bad choice of clothing", I got out the Ridgeline (New Zealand) rain suit and prepared to be wet. And what better gun to take to a wet competition than one that is set in a synthetic stock and is gas-spring powered? LOL!

I had previously received a scope for testing (part of the BSA Familly of scopes) and it had an interesting and, what proved to be a useful, reticle for low magnification ranging. It is a version of the Dragunov reticle that is marked 30-40-50 etc.

Dragunov reticles work under the stadia-ranging (bracketing)  principle of measuring the height of a known object against a graduated pattern and then using trigonometry to establish the distance to the object.
There is a lot more to read about this here.
SOME of these reticles are based on objects of 2,000 mm's height, SOME are based on objects of 1,800 mm's height, the latter ones are specially useful for airgunners.
I was not expecting spectacular results, after all it is a $100 scope, but the scope did provide some useful information and we'll be looking into these reticles a little more in the future.
So, having scoped the AM-03 with this little scope, off I went to DIFTA.
When I arrived, I met Dean Gumby who was shooting his first match, and shortly afterwards, Mark arrived with a chainsaw.
​Why?

A huge tree had fallen across the sight-in range!

I am sure Dean was not expecting to work so hard just to have an airgun Match! LOL!
In relatively short time, the sighting-in range was clear and after setting it up, while the rest of the shooters were rolling out the strings, we had a good sight-in and after the customary shooters meeting, where Paolo made special emphasis on the safety aspects because of the new shooters present, we got the shoot underway.

I was, again, squadded with Vince S

While Paolo squadded himself with Dean G and Mark Mercer, while Mark Mayer was squadded with Mike G

DIFTA is always a nice venue

And, apart from the FIVE 3/8" targets we had, most were reasonable shots.

I was hitting left and right, even at extended ranges, so ranging was not the problem. Nor was there too much wind.
Shooting the JSB's GTO's allowed me to distinguish my hits from the rest (they are the shiny ones), so I was getting good feedback, but scope simply could not take the 20 ft-lbs (yes, 11.5 grs at 875 fps)  was a little much and it was going from one side to the other.

I have tested the scope since then in a 12 ft-lb D54 and it has fared well, much better, but still, it is a $100 scope.
We'll have some conversations with the makers and if they decide to bring out a really serious offering, I will let you all know.

So, when all  was said and done, the scores were tallied and handshakes were awarded to the winners:

All in all an excellent day at DIFTA with old and new friends.
First time I have shot a whole match in AAFTA Hunter style with cross-sticks and I have learned a few things. I'll make some changes to my cross sticks and test some other time.
A successful test of the raingear (not because there was any doubt as to its "waterproofness", but it is the first time that I have worn something like that all day to test how comfortable it can be. Important in a real hunt, or in an international match.
The rifle, with a much better scope now, is shooting as it should:

Result of some Nord-Loc washers and some Loc-Tite, again, the black bullseye is a little over ½".
Which is a remarkable result for a $300, basically OoB rifle, with modifications that can be made by anyone with a modicum of handtools and some knowledge.

And the GTO's gave a BC of 0.0214, which is not bad at all. I would not hesitate to take this rig hunting, especially, harder targets like Chucks, O'Possums, Raccoons, and Badgers; at 41 yards it is still hitting the target with more than 12 ft-lbs and at 54 yards it carries 10½ ft-lbs. and the hardness of the tin pellets would ensure a deep penetration.

I will keep on using sporadically this gun, whose ultimate purpose is to undergo some cold weather tests next winter, it is a lot of fun and a lot of gun for the price!

We may also start working on a 0.177" version setup for sub-12 ft-lbs, but as that will be an all-out FT rifle, we'll go a lot deeper into the modifications.

Hope you have enjoyed the writeups.

Keep well and shoot straight!




​HM