I usually wait for the "official" report to come out, but since CoViD 19 has driven everything into a "limbo" (and not precisely of the dancing kind), there is precious little information about results, classes , equipment, etc.
In fact, there have been precious little matches going on.
SOME clubs, like Rochester Brooks, or Connecticut Airgunners never lost pace, except for the absolute lock-down phases, but others, like DIFTA, have been forced by range rulings to only re-open the season fairly recently, when "Stage 2" of the opening up had been achieved.
All this to say that few shooters have kept pace with activity, training, or match participation.

When the news came that the North Carolina State Match was going to be held at Will & Ginger Piatt's place at Ennice (right at the heart of the Blue Ridge Parkway), I told my wife and we decided to make a road trip out of it. It would not be the dream road trip we had imagined in 2015, but now we would have a lot more company, LOL!

Besides, my niece is now in the last stages of her driving practice, she'll be taking her final in-car exam soon, so what better opportunity to have her drive the highway and night time requirements?

We set out on Friday and arrived  late night, as we got stuck in traffic in two spots.

After a good night's sleep, I was packed and ready to go! Everything I needed was in the range bag, and with the appropriate rain gear (remember 2015? LOL!)

As is often the case, when you are best prepared, things are not too bad, or at least they do not LOOK too bad!

After an early morning breakfast (we were staying in Elkin, about 45 mins from the range), we got there on time, I got setup and started the process of shooting some pellets downrange to see how he trajectory had changed (notice it is NOT a question -if the trajectory had changed-,  that is a given when you go from 500 FASL to 2825 FASL), as my MV had probably gone down from 780 to about 745 fps.
It didn't occur to me to check a chrono, I thought there would be a chrono station, but there wasn't. Should have checked. Now I am dying of curiosity! LOL!
As the match developed and as the rain came and went, it was obvious there was something not quite right. Inexplicable misses, POI changing all over the place . . . not the usual quirky behaviour of a springer, more like a schizophrenia.

But, never argue with reality.

I had been testing reverting to the DIANA OEM style of bedding for my 54 and it was clearly not as stable as the CCA designed one. At home in the backyard, it had proven accurate, but once different inclinations and positions where thrown in, the POI changes proved too much for the OEM bedding.
Anyway, I have reverted to my own design and hopefully, this will cure some of that.

The Match, as all matches sponsored by THAGC, was a hard one. 40 T would barely start to describe the deviousness of the MD, LOL!
But still, if you do not shoot hard matches you never learn anything worthwhile, so after all was said and done, we did have a ball, we learned a lot, and I think we will convert those learnings into experiences.

Rain gear performed like it should, pellets performed as they should. The gunsmith . . . hmm so-so. And the shooter did its best to keep a stiff upper lip and go through lane after lane of complete surprises.
​
Apologies are in order on the quality of the pictures, but I had taken my waterproof camera and it is not as good a camera as the normal one. So that, added to my limited skills as photographer, will make you think that the things were rougher than they really were.
Now, Let's see some pictures!

Will Piatt delivered a succinct and precise shooters meeting:

There was a wooded section, an open section, and transitional lanes. This lane is peculiar because the lane is in the open, but the wooded section is right next to it, so any wind will "bounce" and create very interesting challenges to the WFTF shooter

Another example of the MD's crooked mind  ;-)  :

High score was something like 63/68, so that gives you an idea that the course was designed more with the 20 ft-lbs PCP shooter in mind.
It would be interesting to see the difficulty rating of the course.

In true FT fashion, and in the tradition of all "Southern Belles", Ginger Piatt served us a bountiful dinner with Shepherds' Pie, home baked rolls and an absolutely fantastic "Eclair pie".

My family arrived in time for desert (you can bet the 3 and 4 year olds were happy about that, LOL!

I love shooting with the THAGC crowd, they challenge you and they feed you well. LOL!

Hopefully, we'll meet again along some lanes.

Keep well and shoot straight!





​HM

First of all, apologies for posting this a little late. But one of the disadvantages in shooting one afternoon to then shooting the nexrt morning is that you have precious little time to eat, get your next day in order and take care of yourself (shower BADLY needed, LOL!)
But if I have learned anything going to the WFTC's over the years is to take things in stride.
As heartbreaking, and distressing, and depressing, the scores may be, you are still here.
You owe it to yourself, and to your gun, to craft EACH shot to the best of your ability.
Sometimes it will seem the gun does not agree with you on this but, if you look closely you will find that you didn't fully supported her needs. More on that when we post the Day 3 entry, but for now, I will only say that to improve in FT you need practice and dedication, and one more important quality: you need to be truthful to your own self.
But, we're getting ahead of ourselves, let's take an overview of the Day 2 that is the first day of actual competition.
Day starts with another round of practice and sighting-in. After this, competitors concentrate at the entrance to the courses and await the safety briefing:

Up until today, weather has been favourable, tomorrow will be different, but for the time being, it has been a few days of very nice weather.
A bit windy, but that is in the nature of a country where no point is more than a 70 miles from the sea and there are seagulls everywhere, just to illustrate how "flat" it is.
​As explained yesterday, the courses had been set in the woods, which would offer some cover from the open wind.

This is a typical lane:

And you have to look real hard to see the targets.
As we have always maintained, FT at the World's level is a distance game.
Almost ALL targets are between 38 and 55 yards.

Apologies for the pictures but these were taken the full extension of the ExiLim telephoto.

Along the lanes, you find the Chrono station. All rifles get tested each day.
WFTF has taken the determination that the official Chrono for these events is the Czech Air-Chrony

A constant worry of  shooters, specially when you travel long distances is to stay "legal".
And so, there are always chronys available at the sighting-in range and at the equipment checkup.
It is per the rule book, in WFTC's, to number the targets so you have a correlation between the target you are shooting and the lane in which you are.
If you are on your first shot and you are in lane 19, then the first shot has to be on target 37 and the second on target 38
Shooting out of order gets the hit (if any) cancelled.

So, let's take a look:

A detailed picture reveals that the bunny is "floating" in a base that is attached to a diagonal fallen log.

Quite imaginative, and quite hard, because it is very hard to rangefind something that is backlit and has no "surroundings". Our eyes do not compute that very well.

The organization, again, was excellent in general, there were only two cold lines called and those were quickly and effectively resolved.

It called my attention that, for years I have been advocating using grass marking paint/survey paint for the targets, and that is exactly what the WFTC's is using:

One thing that needs to be continually improved is the Marshalling.
It is normal for Marshalls to revert to what THEY consider "good", in other words, what is done in their respective clubs or federations, that is human. But in the WFTF there are more than 35 countries, and there ARE comprehensive rules.
Marshalls should STUDY those rules, abide by them and not "invent" rules that are not in the Comprehensive Rules. Nor should they stop enforcing those rules that ARE part of the comprehensive rules.

IF the organizers consider something to be a "SAFETY" issue, then it should be part of the "safety" briefing. That is what it's there for.

As a common "tourist", if  you see that the pathways are narrow, the positions somewhat restricted and you want to be respectful of the shooter that is in the box, you do NOT approach the line to put down your rifle. You remain respectfully BEHIND, where you know you are not distracting him/her.
Well, after doing just that and watching a lot of people do that

I was "chewed" by a Marshall for not putting my rifle under the line of fire rope, and facing muzzle down-range.

I guess it's part of the cultural differences. We consider a cased rifle a "holstered gun", but here it is not considered "safe", even in a case.

I am not against each range adopting whatever safety measures they want/deem proper, that is what Marshalls are there for, BUT there should be more coordination and safety issues should be part of the safety briefing.

The other side of the dis-coordination is the non-enforcement of rules that have been discussed long and hard

A LOT of fuss was raised by some of the RGB's within WFTF about the foot position in the kneeling lanes.
Endless discussions about it ensued but in the end, a solution was decided upon and the rule was adopted that the foot needed to be vertical.
But this was not uncommon among the UK shooters:

It was also decided that the foot could not be covered by the jacket:

 to the extent that FT jackets are shorter than the Olympic counterparts.

​As I have always maintained, there is no rule more unfair than that which is not enforced.

Did I go looking for a Marshall? Nope. I'm an American, we are not snitches.

Did I present a formal observation or comment? Nope! I did that in Lisbon and never got an acknowledgement or an answer.

So, ¿Why worry?

Because in two years' time, there is a good chance we (the USA) could be hosting the WFTC's 2021

And if we want to do things well, we need to take note of all "the small stuff".

EVERY GP safety briefing I've been to, usually presents the question of the kneeling position, and so, it has become almost a habit to re-hash that. Expediency should not take the place of completeness.

We'll  see what happens in the future. It is always good to learn from each day we live.

And on this note, let me confess that I did badly.

I CHOSE to believe what the sighting-in range was telling me. And just as the Long Island (NY) sighting-in range, it fools you (this is another lesson for when it is time for us to organize it.- providing a GOOD sighting-in range is more than putting a lot of paper targets out there.)
People will travel thousands of miles if they go to the US to shoot, as we all know, things happen to airguns when we travel. The least we can do is provide a good sighting-in range.
Luckily, I had obtained enough ballistic data from BlackBrook and that info is solid, but the zero was simply not where it should be.
The first half of the day was terrible, but I could recover some by the second half. Missing only two in each of the last two "decades".

Yes, it was a hard lesson.
And we are already thinking of ways to overcome this, part of it is, of course, practice more and test less. I am always testing things, but I need to concentrate on "perfecting", which in latin means "finishing", a system to shoot.
That will be the mission, and the trip will be most interesting.

Keep well and shoot straight!






​HM

I have to congratulate the Organizers of the 2019 WFTC's

The registration procedure was absolutely painless.

Greg Sauve (as AAFTA Rep for WFTF), got all the badges and meal tickets, and we met at the venue to receive them. With Lauren Parson's and Tyler Patner's help, it took less than a minute to get mine.

The whole team had all tickets and badges in less than 10 minutes. Great job and thanks!

We proceeded to the sight-in range.

​Due to WFTF's regulations, this time the sight-in range was paper. LOTS of paper.

Sighting in day is also the day when most strange things happen. We usually see a lot of tinkering with airguns during this first day.

And this year was no exception. Jay Hannon had problems with his gun but, in true "Team Spirit", Cameron Kerndt offered to help and using his own spares repaired Jay's gun and got the "engine" runnning.
Matt Brackett contributed some stock parts that had broken and in less than one hour Jay was shooting again.
With Matt's help, a new trajectory card was made and Jay feels better about his shooting.

Way to go, Team!

Now, some of you may wonder how 450 shooters look like, this photo of the procession to take the group picture should give you an idea:

And this is only a fraction of the whole lot.
I am sure you can find other pictures taken from the other side showing the whole group (that in itself is not ALL shooters because some simply don't care), but this photo is interesting, as it is the photographers photographed (at least some of them):

Welcome dinner was good, but a little short, by the time I got to the table, there was no food left in this one, had to wait a while and go to another table to get some more:

Actually, I don't much care for food, as I need to loose a few pounds, LOL!

Anyway, I'll try to post a few more pictures tonight / tomorrow.

What is important is that the atmosphere is much closer to what I like than the World's at Lisbon; much closer to what Poland's and Lithuania's were.
Whatever craziness drives us to shoot Field Target, one common denominator (and I say this all the time, so if you have heard it, or read it, before please excuse the redundancy):

The greatest part of this sport is the people that participate in it.

As an airgunner you owe it to yourself to at least try to meet the challenge that FT poses because you will meet a lot of nice and interesting people, you will travel places, and you will have your faith in humankind renewed.

Keep well and shoot straight (but always into the wind)  LOL !





​HM

With the Motto of "Field Target comes Home", the World's is this year being hosted by England in a venue called (quite appropriately) "The Heart of England.
It's near Birmingham, and there are enough airgunners here from all over the world that the customs agents at the airport just hear "pellet rifle" and they smile.

Coming here was an interesting trip, my new case is performing well, all items arrived in their proper place without a scratch.
I have to say that, even though they are expensive (as any custom case would be), MASCo, and Bel-Air cases came through with a very good case for our purposes:

Case was designed to conform to the maximum dimensions allowed by airlines (62" max when adding length, width and height).
It compares favourably with our old drop-down duffle bags that were made redundant when TSA demanded hard cases for airguns:

We like this style of case because it does not advertise to all in the baggage handling/service areas of airports that there is a rifle inside and therefore an item of considerable value/rarity.
I bought the case empty, and then used KaiZen foam to make the interiors:

After TWO three hour delays in Dublin, I was finally able to get to Birmingham, and rent a car.
It had been 40 years, almost to the date that I had not driven on the "M6"
Some things never change:

Works and bumper to bumper traffic in the section I would be doing most of my travelling! LOL.
A friend, 40 years ago, said that the M6 would be a fine road . . . when they finished it.
;-)
Obviously, it is a process that is still going on 40 years later.

Anyway, after settling in and finding all the friends, I decided to go shoot a little.

In this occasion, the organizers were good enough to establish a connection with a local FT club, Blackbrook Country Sports and they have done a fantastic job; a big shout out to Darron and Chris for their hospitality.

The setup range is an interestin aspect of how they do things here and something we should consider for the USA
It is basically blank metal plates set permanently at fixed distances in the ground.
You pick a spot, put a mark in it with a pellet, then a group, and then simply get setup by repeating at all distances.

Simple, economical and reliable. Truly something worth considering.

Yesterday we shot a practice course, that gave us a lesson or two of what the wind can do in these latitudes, but I am fairly confident in my pellets this time, and so, today, we go to the real venue.
Get the registration done and re-check the trajectory and data obtained at Blackbrook.

I'll try to post pictures as we go along the days.

Keep well and shoot straight!




HM

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.
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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.
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​I am sure we will all give it our best!

Best regards to all from Maryland!



​HM