The past holiday weekend something happened that usually does not - yours truly took a vacation and was absent for usual Sunday activities. All because of the first national field target competition sponsored by the Colombian Precision Shooting Association - ACTP for the initials in Spanish. This meet was held in the town of Guarne, just outside Medellin. The departmental government put up three ranges for some international shooting competitions many years ago and the local field target club uses the 50 meter range for their practice and competitions. It was a three day event with competitions in "Plinking", Field Target and Air Rifle Benchrest.

The first day, Saturday, was "Plinking" competition. They had set up some swingers at 25 and 50 meters with paper target tie breakers at 25 meters. We shot in pairs, "sudden death" style. The lower scorer of the two did not move on to the next round. The first round I shot 4 to my partner's 2 or 3, but then he alleged that someone had messed with his rifle so I told him to shoot it again. He was shooting an Air Arms S510 Xtra FAC against my Gamo CFX. I told him, "If you can't beat me with THAT rifle, you'd better sell it and take up soccer!". He shot 4 on the second try and so we shot the tie breaker on paper which he won. That gave me time to wander around and check out the equipment that everyone else had laying around instead of paying attention to the "plinking".

The next day was Field Target, kind of. 10 lanes, 3 squirrels or other silhouettes per lane, ranges from 10 meters to 50 and everything in between. The wind was swirling horribly through there. The safety baffles and high walls gave strange wind patterns which we tried to judge by the wind flags scattered around. First round I managed to smack 8 out of 30, not too bad as I've done exactly NO random distance shooting with a scope in years. Again, the Gamo CFX was my chosen platform (as it's my only available platform for "serious" work) and worked well, all things considered. We shot the same layout twice with there being too many pairs for the number of lanes so we also shot in relays. We started out in the same lane or rotation spot each time. With my second shot of the second lane of the second round I managed to knock the reducer ring off the first target, but upon attempting to reload it became evident that something was wrong with the rifle. Apparently the spring broke and put the rifle out of commission. As we were shooting in pairs I kept score for my partner but was dead in the water. In the meantime the old brain kept churning in the background and when we reached our "time out" in the rotation pattern I pulled the scope off the Gamo and installed it on an old Haenel Super 303 that Rich Hoch cut down for his grandkids. It reached our family as a means of training our boys in the art of the rifle but our little ones have long since outgrown it and it made the trip as a possible sale/trade item. Once the scope was installed a shot on paper at 5 meters revealed a high point of impact. Several spins of the turret knob brought it down to a more reasonable POI in relation to POA and then it was sighted in for a half inch over POA at 10 meters. After permission was given by the officials I took up the rest of the round when we entered the rotation again. With zero experience with the rifle/pellet combination I had an interesting time trying to dope the ranges and wind. A 10 meter rifle shooting out to 50 meters is a hoot! The short length of pull made it even more "entertaining" as bracing against my collarbone was about the only way to get it semi-steady. I did manage to knock down two targets on the remaining lanes to bring my total up to 11 out of 60 - and place me second over all in the springer class! The best shot was a 46 meter chicken, although I did manage to bing the ring on the 50 meter squirrel.

The third day was Air Rifle Benchrest and so the Haenel got checked out as soon as the doors opened - but trying to shoot a super short stocked 10 meter rifle off the bench at 25 meters proved to be unattractive. There was NO WAY it would stay still with the improvised rest in use. This time we were set up in three separate groups. After watching the first group shoot the old trigger finger got to itching and the brain was churning. When they finished I approached the only other united statian in attendance and asked if he'd be so kind as to loan me his 10 Meter Steyr that he'd been shooting. He agreed and I used the same brand of pellet, albeit heavier than his, that he was running through the rifle. 5 clicks up brought me reasonably close to the center of the bull and then we were ready to roll. Again the swirling breeze made life interesting. It was also fascinating to watch the pellets in flight, although that also can be distracting. At the end of the round the owner of the rifle only outscored me by 2 points, 201 to my 199. Not bad for either of us as those light pellets at low speed get pitched all over the place by the horrible breeze "patterns" on that range. Andy finished 9th and I finished 11th.

So now to figure out a way to get a Macarri spring, seal and lube down here so as to get the Gamo back up and running. A course of fire suggests itself to me as a way to hone my random range skills - but gotta get the rifle going first. Next time I'm aiming at giving the PCP guys a run for their money, using a despised springer.