Canadian Airgun Forum

Match report October 14, 2023 By Rob Wright, Match Director

The Fudd is a fall tradition in Southern Ontario – the focus is on having a fun day out shooting airguns and the competitive side is dialed back a bit. This usually encourages people to bring out different guns and try things that they might not in a typical Field Target match.

We had 19 shooters attend with a great assortment of guns. The shooting was fun, Chris’ famous chilli was a welcome warm-up afterward, and Geoff’s carrot cake rounded things out nicely. This match was a great way to have some fun after the more serious test of the Nationals and the Provincials.

We again had the “True-Blue Elmer” Division and 6 shooters used open sights vs. the high power scopes that are so common in a typical FT match. The course was set up shorter than a usual match since trying to even see a hit zone at 55 yards with open sights is certainly beyond my ability. This does not mean that there were no challenges. The mouse target with the 3/8 hit zone at 14 yards was only knocked down 6 times out of the 38 pellets shot at it. Not surprising that the people who knocked it down were the ones who were at the top of the leader board since they knocked a lot of other targets down: Tom, Marc, Lanny, and Peter all knocked it down once and Dennis went 2 for 2. The Elmer shooters with open sights all hit the face plate but no knock downs. In the pictures below you can see that the poor mouse was beaten up quite badly. I actually drew a vertical and horizontal line on the target before the match started so that shooters later in the match could see where the hit zone is since after a few pellet strikes it is hard to tell the lead colored paddle from the lead colored face plate. The vertical line was completely obliterated by the end of the match and you can see a couple remnants of the horizontal one.

I ran with the idea of a fun shoot and added a few odd things to this match. We had a “three legged lane” that was set up to shoot standing, but with the addition of a monopod just for something different (you can thank Rob G for the idea for that challenge). We also had the “Naked Lane” where what was naked was the targets, not the shooters. With the faceplates removed these targets actually provide a larger hit zone than usual – the largest paddle is just under 2.5 inches compared to the usual maximum of a 1.5 inch hole that you have to get the pellet through. A “split” (what we call it when the pellet catches the edge of the faceplate before hitting the paddle) may or may not hit the paddle with enough force to drop the target. If you see the pictures below you can see a few of the hits on the naked targets just caught the edge that would normally have been protected by the faceplate. I hid the base of the targets with wood so you either hit the paddle or nothing.

Huge thank you to everyone who braved the forecast and came out to make it a great day. Chris made the chilli and Geoff made the carrot cake. Tom took the pictures as well as being the first to arrive and doing a ton of work for the setup. Speaking of setup, I do not recall having such great participation in a long time – thank you to everyone for jumping in. Same for teardown as the rain was picking up – everyone pitched in and we got it done quickly before digging into the food and the scores. Big thanks also to the HAHA club for hosting us – we really appreciated the roof and walls of the rifle range when the rain started pouring down and the wind picked up.

It was great to see one new shooter join us for this event (we hope to see you again soon Jeff!) as well as welcoming back a few that we have not seen nearly enough this season.

On to the results:
For this match in honor of everyone’s favorite hunter Elmer Fudd, we all shot Hunter style scoring (2 points for a knock down, 1 point for a face plate hit, 0 for a miss). Everyone was shooting for a maximum score of 120.


Thanks to our Course Marshals for this match: Geoff M and Jeff H.
There are still a couple more chances to get out and shoot this season. The next is in Hamilton on October 28. I hope to see you all there!

Here is the much maligned mouse with the 3/8 inch hit zone.
Plus a selection of other targets showing the results of a rough day at the office.
The last one is the "lollipop " which has very little face plate - although you can see that I (and a few others) managed to hit it.