Forget spring; we went from winter directly to summer with temps today ranging
from 84° up to 93° by the end of the match, and topping out at over 100° before
the day was over. With that heat came a decision to shoot from under the range
canopy instead of out beyond the berms. This turned out to be a wise move.

It was a beautiful day! Clear, cloudless skies with BRILLIANT sunshine, and
variable winds, and lotsa GLARE. Although the wind was only 3 mph up to 7 mph,
it came at us from numerous directions. At the beginning of the match, it was
predominantly out of the north, with some shifting NNW to NNE, then shifted
west, a bit out of the east, then settled on SE to SW by the end of the match. At
times, we seemed more focused on wind direction than actually making the shot
count. We had no idea where it was coming from next. Frustrating…..

Of course, I am giving this to you from piston shooters point of view. Some, ,but
not all, of the guys shooting PCP did not have the same issues. There is a big
difference from those shooting 18 – 19 fpe as opposed to 10.5 fpe as the scores
will indicate. Either way, the 11 of us that came prepared to shoot did have an
enjoyable time. We would have had 12 shooters, but when one of our merry
band loaded his car this morning, he seemed to forget his gun! He had his range
caddy – check. He had his air tank- check. He did not notice his gun was missing
until he got to the range. So as to not embarrass him, we are keeping his identity
private. He was offered the use of several of the other’s guns, both piston and
PCP, but he declined.

The course today was a real doozie! With numerous guys helping to set up, the
distances ended up being a bit…..distant, and therefore challenging. We were on
the rifle silhouette range today, aka the Frank L. DeSomma memorial range. It
was wide open and we used the entire width of the range to set our 12 lane / 24
target / 48-shot match. Distances were misleading, therefore we had 10 targets
set beyond 40 yards. The ½” targets were set between 18 and 21 yards. That was
36T out to 42T. A ¾” target was set at 32 yards or 42.67T. There was nothing set
inside of, or even close to 30 Troyer. In short, today was a real bee-itch! The
floating and shifting winds did not help any.