Port Colborne match report April 15, 2023
By Rob Wright, Match Director
The forecast was for a warm, overcast day with light breeze – it turned out brilliant sunshine and hotter than expected. The occasional breeze introduced some challenges especially for those shooting slower pellets, but was welcome to help cool off.
Thank You as always to Port Colborne & District Conservation Club for the use of this fine facility. This was one of the earliest spring matches at this club in a few years by using the trap and skeet ranges while the woods are still drying out.
Thank You to everyone who participated, those who helped with setup and teardown, and to those that came out to watch and hopefully will come back again soon and join in the fun.
Thanks to our Course Marshals for this match: Marc Shelleau and Brian Wernham.
We had 22 shooters participating in the rifle section and 15 in pistol. We set up 10 lanes for rifle and shooters had the option of which 8 lanes they wanted to shoot. A couple of the lanes were set up a bit longer than the 45 yard plan (the longest one was pushing 60). Most shooters rose to the challenge and took on the longer shots as well as the shorter ones although 60 yards in a gusting light breeze meant that the far target did not need as much paint touch up as usual!
There was a wide variety of shootin’ irons on display – from the usual high end air rifles that you see at a typical Field Target match, to 10 meter rifles with open sights, to off the shelf sub-500 FPS guns. The same variety was out for the pistol shoot with some using open sights, one laser, a variety of red dots and small scopes, and one scope that was longer than the pistol that it was attached to.
We were very happy to welcome 5 first time FT shooters out to this match and look forward to them turning into regulars. It was also great to see two juniors out – I overheard some good natured heckling from the Dads after a missed shot along the lines of “this is a bit harder than shooting on a Playstation eh?”
I encourage everyone to bring a friend out to a future match, we can always find a spare gun if someone needs one and get more people enjoying the shooting sports.
Remember that there is a match in Hamilton April 22, then back in Port Colborne May 13. For those a little farther east – there are also great matches in Grenville every month.
We will be scheduling a work day to get the forest lanes at Port Colborne tuned up before the May 13 match, please look for the announcement and let me know if you are able to come out and help.
Attachment:
2023 FT Schedule 2.JPG [ 40.23 KiB | Viewed 2942 times ]
Once again thanks to the Port Colborne & District and Conservation Club and all who attended and made this a great day!