As I posted in another thread, I managed to take second place in the 25 meter spring/piston class at Airguns of Arizona's Extreme Benchrest Match last week.

First, when you enter this big event, you come back with quite a bit of stuff.  Some of the stuff depends on which events you entered.  I did forget to put the EBR t-shirt in this photo as it was in the laundry.  But, there are two 75 yard targets (with holes), the 25 meter score cards and score statistical data sheets, 10 meter pistol targets, and the other SWAG.  Most of the SWAG fits into a shopping bag, so it does not take up as much room as it might appear.




The rifle was my FWB 300 S topped with a SWFA SS 20 X mildot scope on a B-SQUARE adjustable base.  The rings are Vortex.  I shot JSB 10.34 grain Exacts.



The three cards (25 bulls each) are shown.  The wind was quite tricky to read and I did not get it right very often, though for the most part I was fairly close.  The end of the range where the spring gun shooters were seated is supposedly the most difficult of the entire range (at least according to the locals who shoot there quite often).  I will attest, that the conditions were a bit more difficult than my local ranges, and these are not wind friendly by any means.  

To give you an idea of how much the wind affected my pellets, consider that the scope is a true mildot.  The pellet impact in the scope was a bit more than + 1 and - 1 mil in the horizontal and about +.5 and -.75 in the vertical.  Fortunately, my hold off was for the most part compensated for most of these.  Had I just held center on all shots my score would have been pretty dismal.  








More importantly than the stuff, was I came home with a lot more information and ideas.  This is going to take quite a bit of time to digest all of it and to process it into more coherent thoughts.  

Outstanding!   I was looking at the scores earlier today, some outstanding shooting.   Was the FWB 300 series the most popular type used in that event?

It is not even close to being the most popular.  In the worlds (which use the same target) it does have a significant showing, but there power levels are limited to about the same.  There are other 10 meter rifles that compete alongside them in those events.

However, the class of rifles used at the EBR were the 12 to 18 ft-lb, except mine.  A higher velocity would have helped reduce the drift judgement and thus increased my scores.  The rifle I wanted to use (but had some precision issues) was my RWS 48. It may be due for a rebuild/tune.  The FWB 300 S just shot better in practice, so I went with it instead.

So I forgot to ask, what speed do you get on that pellet?

That was some good shooting and with the wind you guys had, I am very impressed.

LD and Tim are often shooting BR these days. I'm way behind on life and can't join the fun for at least another year and a half. They know I love my USFT, but that I have an addiction to springers and it can't be helped.

While I appreciate the PCP guns, I admire your spirit for doing it with a spring gun. It certainly is a challenge and keeps you humble.

The wife won't be happy when she learns that I will be needing to have Tim build a new one since the other one is FT dedicated right at 20 ft*lb.

Tim was there shooting  I think) the gun he one with two years ago--a .30.  

I still do not know what the velocity is with that pellet, but the 8.18 H&N match wadcutters are pushed out at about 570 ft/s.  But, if I assume that the energy is about the same but a bit more, those pellets should be going a leisurely 515 ft/s or so.  

In the 25 meter competition, the USFT at 20 ft-lbs would do quite well.  There was at least one who shot his and did well, though he probably was at the worst firing point on the line---lane 1.

The 75 yard / 100 yard final targets are a different challenge.  There you really need a .25 or bigger to do well.  I used a borrowed Gen II Marauder for this, but I did not have the practice at 75 or 100 yards to even entertain the idea of going into the finals.  I also don't read wind flags that well either, and mirage (my preferred wind indicator) wasn't visible enough.  

I did not compete in the Big Bore which uses cast or swaged bullets (not pellets).  This is shot at the SR-1(the short range highpower target reduced for 100 yards) at 200 yards, and then at some steel swinging flagging targets at 80 (?) and 190 yards.  The shorter range had a 3" diameter plate, while the longer was 6" diameter.   These rifles use up a lot of compressed air.

To illustrate the complexity of what I had to do, here is a picture.  The first one is the image of my reticule superimposed on the target.  The one to its right is my aiming area with typical aiming points represented by nine-ring sized circles.  The one on the bottom is the are where the pellets actually hit, with the extremes noted by pellet sized circles shaded in darker grey.

For the most part, I underestimated how much the wind would affect the pellet, but there were several shots where I over estimated.   The ones that are outside of the seven ring happened when I missed a wind change.  There was a bit of a delay with my wind indicator.

Gives a whole lot more respect to the difficulty of our friends over The Pond who must shoot <12 ft*lb during FT matches.

The windage is substantial when compared to getting the heavies right up to sonic. Far less forgiving of a bad wind call.

Putting your time in with this will certainly sharpen your over-all abilities.

At the 12 ft-lb mark, the lighter 8.x pellets are actually going about the speed at which wind drift is minimized.  A heavier pellet at that same energy level probably does a tiny bit better though traveling slower.  Their chief challenges are trajectory, and that they only get one shot at each target.  

However, I was only shooting this at about half that energy .  That ~6 ft-lbs made this event  most interesting.  I believe the winner was using a TX 200 at about 12 ft-lbs.  His score was something like 664, while mine was a mere 641.  His higher velocity rifle could only have helped, plus he is quite an experienced shooter to boot.