All,
The Northeast Ohio Airgunners (N.O.A.) will be holding a field target match this Sunday, August 19, 2018, at Twin Oaks Air Rifle Range in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. Sight-in starts at 8:00am and match starts at 10:30am. The current weather forecast for now calls for a chance of afternoon thunderstorms and a high of 79 deg.
We have slightly modified our Junior class rules:
For standing and kneeling, junior shooters may shoot the close target from their normal "freestyle" or seated position with the same aids they use on non forced position lanes. (Ex. A junior shooting from a bucket and sticks may use these on the standing and kneeling lanes as well). This is not required, so juniors looking to test their abilities may shoot the kneeling and standing lanes from the forced position if they elect to, although their final scores will not be weighted in case of a tie with another shooter.
Although our attendance dropped slightly from the record numbers of last month, we still had thirty-three shooters show up for our August match. Tyler Patner was not available to act as match director because he was on his way to Poland to attend the 2018 World Field Target Championship. In his absence, Bill Rabbitt and myself took on the course design, making a few slight changes. One major change was the relocation of the standing lane to lane 1 and the kneeling lane to lane 15. This of course meant that once a squad was done with the kneeling lane on 15 they needed to take a long walk to lane 1 where they were greeted with the standing shots. The original standing and kneeling lanes were in turn altered and switched back to freestyle shots. Overall, the course did not get any more difficult and actually the Troyer decreased to about 29.5.
Once again the Hunter PCP group made up the majority of our shooters. Tom and Dennis Himes drove in to battle it out for top honors. The two tied with a score of 57, so Bill Rabbitt decided to make them settle it with a shoot off on our open field sight in range. Both brothers hit the 1.25” dia. KZ target at 55 yards using buckets and sticks so the next shots were from the kneeling position. Dennis ended up victorious by dropping it once.
Mark Evans and Bob Lewandowski were our only Hunter Piston shooters. Mark squeaked past Bob by a point, 30 vs. 29. Roger Barker and Skip Tenney shot Open PCP and Roger ended up with a 45 while Skip had a 38.
Jerry LaRocca made the long trip from New York to get a little WFTF PCP practice in before the PA Cup. He showed that he is more than ready as he delivered an impressive 58/60. Nice shooting and thanks for traveling such a distance to shoot with us Jerry! Bill Rabbit and myself scored a respectable 56/60.
Bruce Scott cannot get the WFTF piston shooting out of his blood. He was the sole shooter in this class and scored a 38/60.
We had 3 Junior shooters with us this month. The Junior Class takes all 4 shots at the close target on each lane. Our winner in the Junior Class was Zach Ohlin with a score of 39/60 followed by Maddex Bellmont, sporting a new Marauder, with a score of 34/60. Robby Lewandowski put in a score of 22/60. It’s great to see the young shooters on the lanes
I would like to thank those who came out on Saturday to help setup the course and give input on the modifications that were made. Larry Justinus trekked in from Erie, PA and Roger Barker and Tim Baylor also helped. A big thank you to Kristen Coss as well who arranged for lunch, picked it up and delivered it back to the pavilion, and helped with clean up and final scoring.
Next month our match is on September 16th, a week before the Pyramyd Air Cup Match which is September 21-23. So, if anyone wants a little tune up before they head down to Tusco Rifle Club for The Cup, come out and shoot with us on the 16th. We look forward to seeing you all next month.
Match Report by Jeff Paddock
