Airgunners of Arizona Old Farts League match report

Tuesday, May 7, 2019 - BASF P/S range - Phoenix, AZ


Field Target Club

We will be back again next Tuesday, May 14 at 9:00.  Mike will still get there at 9:10, but we will wait for him.

See you then?

Embarrassing submitted,

Mark Kauffman
Secretary and bona-fide old fart

Airgunners of Arizona.

You ever have one of those days when you’re better off staying in bed?  Being retired, I can do that whenever I want, but today I had to get out to the range for the old farts match.

Leaving the house, I needed the intermittent wipers on my truck due to the light sprinkling of rain.  The closer I got to the range, the faster they were turned up, and the last 10 miles it was raining pretty good!  I was beginning to wonder if anyone would show up.

I got the range office and picked up the paperwork allowing our user group to run our Tuesday old farts matches on the Pistol Silhouette range, when a lady pulled up in a BMW and asked where the fly-fishing seminar/demonstration was being held.  She had never been there and needed directions.  I was thinking to myself, who in their right mind would come out on a day like this to attend a fly-fishing seminar?  Good thing she didn’t ask me what I was doing there.  She would have laughed herself silly if I told her I am meeting some buddies to shoot our BB guns!

I drove over to our conex container and sure enough, there they were, waiting for me.  They didn’t look none to happy about the rain and the wind, but we gathered our needed target paraphernalia and headed to the range.  After several weeks of setting up like this, we usually are finished by 9:10 am.  Sure enough, at 9:11 here comes Mike!  Well, today we waited for him and he did help finish setting the targets.  Once we finished that and were back underneath the overhead canopy, trying to dry out and stay warm, the rain stopped.  Figures!

With only 4 of us today (Bill went back to Chicago for the summer and Ben had something to do today that I should not mention) we got a quick sight in and were ready to go.  I should also mention that a new guy, Lance, showed up to see what our old farts league is all about.  Someone actually reads these reports on the forum!  Amazing!

We had our usual 5 lanes / 2 targets per lane/ 20 shot course/ shot twice after adjusting targets the first time around.  With the rain having stopped, the wind did not.  The wind blew the rain clouds away and the blue sky that appeared had numerous heavy cumulus clouds moving west to east quite rapidly.  The hillside that forms the northern “backstop” for all the firearms ranges at the facility, also funnels or redirects some of this wind.  Today, it was right into our faces, coming a little from the left and a little from the right.  Late in the match it would swing around and attack us from behind.  The NWS forecast 5 -10 mph winds after a 20% chance of rain.  I guess we were in the 20% of the valley that got the rain, but the winds were a little blustery, actually a lot blustery.

My three other compatriots were shooting 13.4 grain pellets at 19.something fpe.  They buck the wind pretty well.  My little 8.43 pellets were taking a nose dive with the head-on wind.  Remember when I said some days are better left staying in bed?  I tried adding elevation to get the shots up into the KZ. I don’t think Viagra would have helped to get them up.  I kept finding these groups outside the bottom of the KZ between 5 and 7 o’clock.  Jeez, I had my butt handed to me today thanks to mother nature and her sense of humor.


Anyway, here are the scores, with mine at the bottom;