The 13th national Field Target Championship is coming up this weekend. I've put a total of less than 100 serious pellets down range all year. Too much going on, no time to practice. But the ProSport got a going over, cleaned up the grease and relubed the bits that count, confirmed it's reasonably consistent again, ran a few pellets down the hallway to confirm it's close to sighted in and now it's sitting in the gunslip waiting to be placed in the trunk for the trip tomorrow. Not ready, but we'll give it what we've got. Looking forward to a couple of days with some great folks. See y'all when I get back.

Relaxe, aproveite e divirta-se. Eu estou com você em espírito.

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Took off dark and early this morning. 11 hours drive across the Central Range of the Andes, down the Magdalena river valley then up the Eastern Range of the Andes. Lousy roads, but a good trip anyway. Here's a picture from shortly after daybreak.

Shoot the eye out of 'em.

500+ kilometers through the Andes is much more tiring than 500+ miles through the US west.

I took off dark and early last Friday and made good time across the Central Range of the Andes. Got down to the Magdalena river valley and headed north along the highway. It's called a highway due to the altitude some of the potholes will launch you too if you're not careful! As it was the Friday of a 3 day weekend here in Coffee Country I made sure and kept it at the legal limit of 80 km/h (50 mph) as I've no desire to enrich any of the municipalities along the way. As I went from a 2 lane bumpy road to a section of 4 lane bumpier road there was a Ford Explorer glued to my bumper, less headful of legal limits. He blasted past me through the pothole in the beginning of the left lane (ROTFL) and on down the road for a couple of miles to where I passed him as he presented his documents to the local gendarmes who were waiting for heedless folks with photo radar gun in place.

But I digress. Arrived at the hotel after a 10 and a half hour trip, checked in and had a quick 20 minute nap to stave off the impending crash of somnolence. After greeting some of the other shooters I grabbed pretty decent hamburger at the hotel restaurant and called it an early night.

Saturday dawned cloudy, humid and relatively hot. It's amazing what 1,700 ft elevation difference makes this close to the Equator, although we were further north and thus further from the equator. Anyway, after an early breakfast I headed to the place they'd set up for the shoot, registered, chronographed the rifle, picked up my ticket for the day and the implements for the squad. They placed me with two new shooters, a local business man who'd been largely responsible for local arrangements and a retired military fellow. We started off on lane 13 and had a good time for the most part, although the retiree started cranking on his windage turret for some reason or other (that I never DID figure out) and ended up with an 8/50 (4%) score. I offered to give him some coaching and help to figure out his trajectory for Sunday's shoot, but he flat gave up and didn't shoot the second day. As expected, my score was below my average, but I had hopes of picking up a better result on Sunday. After a shower and supper with some of the other shooters we again hit the hay early so as to be ready for the next day.

Sunday dawned bright, sunny and hot, the humidity making itself felt even more than the previous day. Rechecked my rifle's power and found it wacky, giving a large variation in speed/power compared to the results of the day before. Saturday I started out with 777, 777, 777 on the chronograph. I don't recall the readings on Sunday, but the average came to 762. Weird. Sunday's squad included the association's president and another long time member, the first time I'd shot with either of them. We had a blast and started off well. But somewhere along the way the heat and humidity seemed to kick in and my lack of practice raised its ugly head again. The first several lanes went well, giving me hope of picking up my usual score, but the last several blew that hope out of the water. I'd started off picking up some of the long range (40-50 meter) targets which I'd missed the day before, but then started dropping the midrange targets (20-35 meters) that I'd done well on, and even blew up on a 9 meter target which I'd not missed a single one of the day before. So the day ended giving me a total of 43% average for the two days instead of my usual 50-60%. Seeing I'd not shot a FT silhouette since last year's national, for some reason I wasn't TOO surprised.

As with all such events, the best part was the fellowship with like minded folks. Although I'm a bit of an odd duck as there were only two of us shooting spring power this year. Here's the entire Piston Class for this year's National Field Target competition.
I took first, he took second. But his results are impressive as he's shooting a Gamo Black Bear in 5.5mm and using a Hatsan 3-9X32 scope for sighting.

Carlos carried his rifle in a hard sided case from Medellin on the bus, then caught a moto-taxi to the meet, again carrying his rifle with him. I put it in my car overnight so he'd not have to carry it around town. I'm trying to encourage him to send me a 4.5mm nitro-piston rifle he has (with a busted gas strut) to refit to spring power at WFTF level. If he'll do that and we can source a better scope, I'm sure he'll outshoot me the next time we meet, unless I get serious about sending lead down range through ONE rifle at FT type distances/targets.

At any rate, a good time was had by all, or at least by most.

As a total coincidence, I was shooting two of my pellet rifles just today (see a newer post). I was thinking of you whilst doing so. Good report. Thank you!