Let's continue then

As I wrote before, Team USA had contacted Lazio Airguns with a view to have some "quiet time" to prepare for the WFTC's. We had done the same in Germany, New Zealand, Poland, and England; so we knew it was important.
​When we arrived, we saw a very well setup field. Mostly for HFT, but perfectly adequate to our needs.

Targets were out, but strings needed to be run. As you can see they remain spooled at the gates.
Here are some more pictures of the excellent Lazio Airguns field:

For the next three days, this would "FT Shooting Home" and we were very grateful to have this opportunity.
Sadly, some of the members of the team were experiencing extreme delays in getting to Rome. Some shooters even arrived without a rifle to shoot, and so, some agonizing trips to the Fiumicino Airport ensued, trying to get hold of the guns.
In then end, "with a little bit of Luck" all shooters and guns showed up, in time for the official "Zeroing/Practice range" to open.

As originally planned, the shoot was going to take place in the mountainous region of GrottaFerratta.
GrottaFerrata is a small town in the "Parco dei Castelli Romani" that basically houses all the "Summer Manor Homes" of the most powerful families in Rome.
Next to GrottaFerrata is the well known (and famous for its wine) town of Frascati. Where the new "Social Venue" was located, Villa Tuscolana.

But the terrain between GrottaFerratta and Frascati is pretty similar:

Now, compare the region originally intended for the match to the one that had to be used, given the difficulties encountered:

As a long time Piston shooter, I have come to the conclusion that you should not fight reality. For sure, you are going to loose; and spend much energy doing so.
As soon as we could register our equipment and get it approved for competition at Villa Tuscolana, we adjourned to the range and took some time trying to learn the conditions.

Once the first day of "practice and zeroing" was done, and somewhat satisfied that everything was doing what it was supposed to be doing, we adjourned to Villa Tuscolana for a night's sleep and the first day of competition.

I have always been an admirer of the Italian "Rinascimento" (Renaissance).
The two and a half centuries that span the 1400 to the 1650 saw a number of absolutely genial minds come to grips with nature's mysteries.
We could write a book about the advances in Medicine, Anatomy, Astronomy, Physics, and Military Sciences, but the essence of this Blog is not so wide and the audience would get bored to death, so let's center on the basic knowledge base that is pertinent to us here: Ballistics

Towards 1495 Leonardo Da Vinci was writing in his peculiar "mirror image script" about what he thought the trajectories of projectiles were. He differentiated between "natural motion" (drop), and "accidental/violent motion"  (propulsed).
His incredible mind and eye for reality is astounding, even today, if we pause to analyze the correspondence of his graphics and reality. Let's just take a look at it:

At first these do not seem to be too breathtaking, but let's see a quadratic parabola overlaid and the mirror reversed so we are more in tune with the "normal" left to right form of writing:

Peculiarly, about half a century later than Leonardo, Tartaglia would publish the first ideas of the trajectories of projectiles.
In his mind, the "violent motion" of a projectile would come to an end, and when that happened, the projectile would follow the "natural motion" it had to follow, according to Aristotle, and then fall straight down to earth. This rendered some very peculiar trajectories:

A bit more than a century after Leonardo, Galileo (1638) would pose a more formal explanation and in his theories he clearly outlined that projectiles with "Natural" motion would behave different from projectiles with "Violent" motion. And, not only that, he would lay the borderline at what we would call, in modern terms, about 400 fps.
He would, however, NOT take into account air friction and his tables published for bombardiers would be most helpful to those artillerymen who shot at very high angles and slow speeds (large caliber mortars were called bombards back then).
Galileo's experiments were conducted using inclined planes to "propulse" balls that would later fly off flat planes, while the trajectory was recorded.

So, it is quite astounding that the most accurate depiction of reality was hidden from humanity because of fear of reprisals from the establishment.
Even Galileo, quite famous in his own time, was processed by the Inquisition for postulating that the earth moved around the sun.
But that is a different story
What is important here is that the three scientists that we are analyzing here understood that in the "human reality" things cannot appear and disappear, they move along under a CONTINUOUS motion. There are no breaks/jumps or discontinuities (it would take 300 years more of scientific development for humans to get into the quantic realm).
The next BIG THINKERS in Science's evolution would come 50 years after Galileo:
Newton would develop the differential calculus needed to describe in all precision the trajectory of a projectile around the 1690's and the first edition of "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica" would establish the mathematical relation between physics and mathematics. We all learn the Three Newton's laws, but we seldom stop to think that the three laws are just specific aspects of the conservation of energy in a closed referential system  (and there is an equation for that).
Leibnitz would "invent" Integral Calculus (1675) and it was up to Euler (works in the 1734-1738 time frame) to use that (with improved notation to simplify things) to develop the tools to do the reverse calculations needed to find a drag curve and a BC from a trajectory.
So, when we say that we can only look far into the horizon because we are standing on the shoulders of giants, we truly mean it.

A few months after the 2019 World's in England (just 'google' the following string: https://www.ctcustomairguns.com "2019 World's"), CoVid struck. I was just returning from Germany when the World was shut down; in fact, if I had planned a return just two days later, I would have gotten stuck en route.
When the time came to hold the 2020 WFTC's no one was prepared, travelling was severely curtailed, and some countries were simply closed to all international visitors.
It was therefore, impossible to hold the 2020 WFTC's and the SouthAfrican's very properly asked if we wanted our registration money back.
I found no sense in getting the money back and decided to donate the funds to the clubs.
The world went into hybernation.
 A year passed, and then two, it seemed as though time had frozen.
So, when news came that the Italian FIDASC (Federazione Italiana D'Armi Sportivi et Caccia) was willing to put up the 2022 WFTC's we all jumped at the opportunity.
Details started to trickle in and when the initial venue was announced, I was somewhat surprised.
Anyone who has been in Rome during the summer knows that the heat is pretty high on the scale, going from "uncomfortable" into "unbearable". And a few kilometers distance didn't encourage the idea of a much fresher climate.

To the credit of the organizaers, they very clearly stated that we should be prepared and able to shoot at temperatures that exceeded the 35 C.

I took contact with the organizers and started arranging for some trigger time for Team USA that had to deal with the jet-lag, as well as all the other changes in a trip that takes you 7,000 kms, and 6 hours biorythm) from home, at the very least.
And so, we agreed to access a private range in the Lazio province.

As time approached the FT Team USA Whatsapp group started buzzing with flights and hotel information and as some members came on board and others dropped out, the final group was formed.
All in all, 15 shooters would be traveling to Italy under the US Flag.
I considered myself VERY fortunate to be able to go.

All of a sudden, we were informed that the venue had to change. As it usually happens, the rumors started flying and all sort of information and dis-information circulated.

When we finally got solid information, I was completely taken aback, Google World's topo map showed a plain, with barely 50 meters difference between the summit of the lonely hill and the lowermost point on the side of the match, and about a 100 meters to the BACK of the plot of land designated, where there was a "cliff".
A VERY challenging place to shoot airguns.

All the terrain research done over Villa Cavalletti, went out the window; the venue we expected with groves of old vines and some old orchards (the Agricultural preserve of Villa Cavalletti) where we would be shooting among century old trees over quite interesting differences of level, were gone; and in its place a plain. As flat as it could be.

Information from the local airgun club where we had arranged to practice, also revealed that the winds would be "vicious".

Shooting local matches showed that a hamster would be a good idea and so, it was added:

I had also worked extensively and intensively with an interesting scope: a Tac Vector Optics Continental.
The 34 mm's body posed an interesting challenge.
On one hand the erector tube was not really "spring-piston compatible" Loss of zero was evident. This was solved with a custom made ZR Mount. I had to go through four iterations of the mount till I finally got all the points solved.

Months before I had secured my plane ticket using miles, so, in essence the ticket costed little. The outgoing AA flights connecting through Charlotte proved a good decision, I arrived into Rome on time.
When I arrived, I went through passport control, and then directly to baggage claim, expecting to find the baggage services office there. I waited and waited and waited, and the gun didn't come out, so I went looking for it at the oversized baggage claim, but nothing was there either.
I inquired about where the BSO was and was directed to an AA  employee, who told me there wasn't any.
Somewhat reluctantly, I asked then where could my airgun be and I was told to look for it at the Police office which was, you guessed it, BEFORE passport control.

So, back and forth, I finally was able to find the police office and as I was going in there, I found Garett Kwakkestein.
So we shared the misery of having to get our guns through their own "passport" control.
Police issued new papers with stamps, seals and signatures all over and told us to go through the police office BEFORE checking our bags with the airline.
Getting to the rental car agency was an ordeal. A LOOOONNG walk through the airport, then two flights of stairs and finally I found the SIXT agency.
Of course they tried to "upgrade" me, but I refused. Italy is a conflictive country for driving, probably only third to India and Egypt (in my opinion), so I had purchased additional insurance.  By taking precautionary steps, the rental was not all that bad. In GENERAL, it is a good idea to look into supplemental insurance for many parts of your trip. From delays and cancellations to driving and baggage.

​Which was the only lane towards the lake. USUALLY, the wind from the lake plays goofy tricks with the shots, but this time I was lucky and I had some calm.
I had shot the two shots on the first target when John told me:
-There is a person in the lake beyond the middle target, not that you are going to miss, but just to make you aware"
WHAAAT???!!!!
Stood up and tried to locate the person, but he had rowed past, so I deemed safe to shoot again.
I calmed myself down, breathed real deep a few times and asked John which was the next shot.
John informed me that I had to take my first shot on the second target, so I started there and the rest of the shots went well.
Enough to close the Match with a clean lane that is always very nice.

After the Subway lunch, we chatted a little, and we agreed to repeat Logan's for dinner.
Next morning we met, checked our zeroes, and I found the gun shooting just a bit to the right, took mental note and decided to shoot as it was.
I was fairly confident that the more calm day and the woods course wouldn't be as challenging as the open wind-tunnel course.
Till I saw the targets.
All targets painted in blue.
In here we have to say that THAGC is a strongly-WFTF leaning club. Shots are long and they adhere to the basic concepts of shooting by target number, using the standard colors designated by WFTF, lane markers that inform the shooters of where they are, what they are shooting at, and keeping timers on track.
We DID shoot twice at each target, as is the custom in the USA.
So, BLUE they were!
​

Keep well and shoot straight!




​HM