First Regular 2008 Match!!   
Idaho Airgun Field Target Cub Pocatello, Idaho March 15, 2008

“Good morning Pocatello!  Today, there will be a high of 41 degrees and a 70% chance of snow this afternoon. We hope you choose to have a great day!”

         Welcome to the first day of the Idaho Field Target season.   

         Yesterday, I dug the targets out of a show bank behind my garage.  It was too cold to paint the face plates.  In the late afternoon the sun came out, and I was able to get one coat on white and one coat of yellow on the paddles.  Where are the stakes?  Don’t forget the paper targets for the side match.  First match of the year jitters are not about shooting, they are about all the stuff that has been set aside, or lost under the snow, for 4 months. 

Speaking about snow, only the lightest of dusting had fell by the time I got to the range.  Good thing we put off the match until 9AM.  Maybe the sun will come out soon.

Another thing about the first match is that everyone is so glad it finally came there were plenty of smiles to set aside the cold while setting out the targets and planning the match.  To save time on a cold day, we would shoot 4 lanes with three targets per lane and three shots per target.  But there was more from George, “There are no big prizes or titles up for the winner today, so let’s shoot our new Crosmans.”  We had planed a Crosman match for April 19th but faced with instant gun club democracy I said, “OK. Today is the Crosman Warm-Up Match.”

         George was shooting CO2 in his 2250XT.  He knew his gun’s velocity and sight corrections at 40 degrees, but that is not the way it turned out.  During the match the skies darkened, it started to snow and the temp went below 30 degrees. “It was like chasing a rabbit down his hole.” was the way George described tying to get the right sight settings.  He had cleaned the first lane of 9 shots; hit 5 on the second and, after the cold set in, hit only 2 targets on the last two remaining lanes.  However the lead over the other Crosmans he had built on the first 2 lanes was not to be denied.  Ash Covey shot his Daystate and his score is a reality check for the Crosman scores.

The match ended at noon. 

         After the match there was a meeting of the “Lunch Time Physicists”.  During the match, temps that started at nearly 40 fell to below 30 degrees.  George estimated that his gun’s velocity dropped from 470 to 440 feet per second. Since all of Gorges trajectory information was from one print out for 470 PFS he without data.  He also raised his cross hairs when he should have lowered them to follow the dropping trajectory curve.  Was George disappointed?  No. later he told me that he had a great time because he was doing something new. 

         After lunch we all went home.  That afternoon it snowed 6 inches.       

           George waves after making 9 straight hits from 15 to 30 yards with CO2                               

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