With the WFTC world championship match being contested in east Mesa, AZ and most of our club members either assisting in running that match or participating as competitors, we were not sure how many would be attending our regularly scheduled November match at Ben Avery range.  We set up only 6 lanes with two targets each, intending to shoot thru twice.  This was done in order to minimize that number of targets and hardware needing to be transported from storage to the range in the event we only had a few shooters.  As things turned out, we did have 10 shooters, competing in two classes; open piston and hunter pcp.

We had a glorious day for shooting!  Upon arriving at the range this morning, there were 16 hot air balloons floating above in order to catch the sun rise, and the full moon was still visible in the western sky.  Although there was considerable heavy cloud cover to the south, over Phoenix, the sky over the range and to the north was clear, albeit a bit hazy.  That and the cloud cover would eventually burn off to a beautiful sunny, but chilly day with temps ranging in the mid-50’s and humidity in the upper 40% area.  Winds were just about dead calm for the most part, with brief spurts of 7 to 9 mph, mostly out of the south, but meandering from SE to SW.  Lovely conditions for our monthly metallic safari.

We had several notable instances that occurred for this match;

• Brand new field target shooter James D. drove up from Tucson for his very first FT match and shot a 40/48!  I believe we will see him again.

• Our club V.P. Wayne shot a perfect score even if it did appear as if he were trying to embed his fingerprints in the grip of his Thomas!  Great shooting!

• And after many thousands of pellets thru the TX200 springer of yours truly, the mainspring broke.  I heard a “SNAP!” while on lane 7, uncocked the gun and started to cock it again, only to observe the cocking lever “droop”.  “Oh, this is not good.”  I retired from the line, quickly took it apart to find a 1” long section of coil broken cleanly at the back of the spring, and had started to telescope into the remainder of the spring.  I guess this is to be expected after shooting it as often as I have. Oh, well, so much for shooting the remainder of this match.  Just a matter of ordering a replacement. Went back and finished scoring for Wayne, and had the pleasure of watching him shoot clean.

Nothing else notable was observed or heard from the peanut gallery until I got home and downloaded the pictures of the match.  The group shot only confirmed the fun that we have when we get together, for there, dead center, was Barry….!  Proves the adage, we may be getting older, but we refuse to grow up!  It was a great day for shooting with this troop of characters!

Respectfully submitted,

Mark Kauffman

Secretary, Airgunners of Arizona, Inc.