Canadian Airgun Forum

Hey, check this out:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/m ... le2202935/

An article with interview of Dorothy Ludwig, from Langley BC, who just won 10m AP gold in Mexico! She took '1st place' in Richmond (I still don't understand these places, thought 1st meant winner) at the Hibernation match with a 3-round total of 1125 (93.75%), beaten out by Lynda Kiejko who tallied 1135 (94.58%) and took the 'Match Winner' trophy. Dorothy gets an Olympic spot for London next year. Congratulations! As I mentioned before, the female turn-out in Richmond was impressive, and it seems the talent is right up there as well.

That's a treat, congrats! When something like that happens (not much lately) it tends to reinforce this lingering notion that somehow I'm just not seeing the whole picture clearly enough. Like there's a 'secret recipe' for shooting them all into the same hole and I'm just too dopey to quite get it. Seems outrageous that one can shoot several 10's in a row, then a 6 and a couple of 8's. Like... what, did I just fall asleep? But no, the same level of attention is there, same procedure - or at least it can feel the same. Especially disturbing is when I feel that a perfect shot has just left the barrel, sights hold for a second afterwards with that same wonderful alignment, then I notice that the hole in the paper is in some random spot out near the edge of the black. Unexplained fliers are most disconcerting.

Happy New Year to all you airgunheads! I've been enjoying my Christmas present to myself quite a bit more than formal target shooting this month. Bought a Webley Tempest, and it's serving well as a somewhat-related distraction from the fact that my shoulder just isn't healing well at all, making practice with my 46m painful and embarrassingly wobbly. But with the lighter Tempest I'm focused on just controlling the twisting rearward recoil of the thing, figuring out just the right amount of grip pressure (quite a lot, but with some kinds of pressure helping, other directions making it much worse), and not too concerned about hitting 10's. Made a set of koa grip plates for it yesterday and it's now slightly easier to control. Here's a scaled target just shot at 7metres. Only an 87 or 88, but nice to see I can eliminate the out-in-the-white fliers on the odd target:



I'd hoped to be in shape enough to do a full 60 shot round for the postal match this month, but unless there's a minor miracle in the next few days that's not going to happen. Takes me 30 or so shots just to get the shoulder holding steady... then at around 50 shots it's getting weak enough that I can't even hold the black. Sure will be nice to get my rotator cuff functioning properly again some day.

Hey V76 thanks for running these postal matches. I enjoy them.

Thanks to everyone who participates.

Have a safe and prosperous new year.

Lee_123

YES, I have a set of these iris's - the smallest one is 3/8" & at 10 meters it looks like a split pea.... really gotta be on top of your game to score on that one.

_________________
"it's not how well the gun shoots;
it's how well you shoot the gun".

Feinwerkbau 500
Pardini K10
Tau 7 Sport
Tau 200 S

I've nothing to base it upon, but I'd favour going from 30 to 40 shots. Not just for women either. On one or two other postal matches online I've seen men's names under the 40 shot header so it's apparently an attractive option for both genders.

That's too bad about the silhouette match. I only just found out about it. Did a sighting in and found out that I can shoot the springer better from a sitting position than from a rest. Right now I would need new rings or a mount to use the scope I picked up for it, or just use the open sights.

I wouldn't consider this a ruckus, though. Not much of a match if I'm the only one.

Dam! That'll teach me not to pay attention. I was just about to post my best 30 shot round, and now I have less than 1/2 a day to get in a good 40 shot round. Hopefully I can get my lazy out-of-shape computer lifestyle muscles back in shape and start on full 60 shot rounds, but for now I'm still starting to get wobbly at the 20–25 shot mark and blowing it with fliers from hurrying the shot. That's what practice is all about. Best to all,
Dave

v76, it's too bad there you can't get the stars to align so that 'zen' kicked in right after the warm up target, and lasted until you finished, totally unaffected by muscle fatigue and that front sight shake that seems to set in after the first few good targets. I guess for the top competitors it's a mental focus thing, but right now for me it's also a physical training issue. Anyone that thinks this is a sport where fitness and training aren't important should see how their results differ when they have to shoot a timed series of targets, and compare the first ones with the last. I'm really thankful for this match you set up. I understand and appreciate the effort involved. It got me started shooting again regularly as opposed to just doing it occasionally for fun or to relax. My thanks to you for a job well done. Best,
Dave

It almost always takes me at least 30 shots to get into it properly, to orchestrate every aspect of my attention to alignment of body and pistol and eye such that I'm not shooting in silly directions. This past week I've been shooting low centre 8's, just kissing the 8 ring, for the first few shots just about every session. No idea why still, and that's disconcerting. For a long time I'd been shooting a 10 first shot of the day, practically every day, then spent the next couple of dozen shots trying to get back to that. It just seems my eye doesn't quite want to participate for the first little while.

But this thread has been HUGE in making me want to participate in competitions. It's a relatively small pond, and so far we've not seen any elite or near-elite level shooters participating. Perhaps that's been part of the inspiration, the feeling that one can rank well even at a relatively novice level here. I shot the Richmond BC Airgun Championships in Richmond this weekend and thanks in very large part to the materials V76 has supplied us with here, and to a lot of his email support and encouragement besides, I came out with gold in the Expert category with an aggregate score of 1622 of a possible 1800 for the 3 x 60 shot sessions. I was out-shot by 3 male shooters there (and Dorothy Ludwig out-shot EVERYONE on a percentage basis, she's just so incredibly talented, hence her spot as the only Canadian airgunner at the London Games) - Allan Harding winning the Masters division with a score of 1683 and Edmond Lee close behind with 1674. And Sharpshooter-categorized Allen Cody shot a 1625, so he'll be ranked as Expert next time out.

So it's gold, technically, but I'm ambitious, largely thanks to this postal match and related encouragement, and have started training that much harder towards advancing to Masters status myself after the BC Championship match (I must be a bit dim; thought a 'championship' was something which happened once per year) at Kamloops this coming June 8 - 10. Need about a 560 or better to make that happen.

Have to admit, I've been slacking in the one-hand 10 Meter shooting. Recently gave the 40-shot a go, but could not really tell if I was hitting two pellets in a hole or missing the target, so I elected not to post to the CAF Match. Ahh, we have April though!

Instead, I set aside some time, and some National Target B-40 targets, and gave the full 60-shot a go. Looking at past targets, I see that the last time I shot a 60-shot had been back in July 2011, and scored 357/600 (43 minutes 19 seconds to shoot). This time, as time goes it was just under an hour, and a score of 403/600 and I noted every bad thing I did from lack of locking (wrist), pressing trigger (shooting when I shouldn't), time management (taking more to relax between shots) and distractions (cell phones). So, I have a baseline.


"It almost always takes me at least 30 shots to get into it properly. . ."

Gerard,

I understand that observation, as it is a problem of mine. Used to be a real ammunition burner at the indoor range shooting 9mm and .45 ammo till those groups tightened up. Shooting .22LR was worse, as it was cheaper. One nice thing that AP has taught me is that there is lots less room for error in that regard. It does remind you that there is a premium on accuracy, not quantity. For a guy who has a bit of the shakes, that's an interesting thing to attempt at times.

Good shooting everyone!