10 meter Air Rifle Match History

For the first match of 2013, I seem to have a bunch of excuses.  All worthy.  In short, holidays, kids home from college, fighting 2F (-16c) in a 200 year old farm house, I have created many reasons to not practice.  But, here is the silver lining.

My Tuesday night 10m air rifle match resumed.  Two 10m rifles and two 10m pistols.  Good use of the range for a Tuesday night.  I went in without any practice.  About the only prep work I did was to ENSURE I had the 3.8mm front insert and replaced the 3.2mm.  A "too small" insert which I use for shooting the 10m silhouette animals. I also used the JSB SCHaK pellets.

My ability to build a stance and hold to execute quality shots was about a 6 out of 10.  Bad.  Lack of practice, muscle memory, myelin, who knows.  You won't do well at this game without practice.  PERIOD!  As Tom D. says, "Have a desire to do well.  If you don't put in the effort, your scores will reflect in...."  Simple and clear.

Learnings:

• I am experimenting with resting rifle on my fist instead of my silhouette split finger.  It shows promise but I learned, it somehow changes the geometry of my trigger finger and I started to pull through the second stage and had 4 ADs, one lost me 6 points! Should NEVER happen!
• Fist support.  Works well and gives me a more stable sight picture and thus lets me focus on trigger execution.  BUT!  For some odd reason I wiggle on a horizontal plane when I do break the trigger yielding 8s or even a 7 when I had expected a perfect 10.
• Sometimes I find it best to forget about using the spotting scope and just focus on better shooting.  Looking at a bad shot to confirm is was a bad shot is only a distraction.  I improved when I just skipped spotting by the middle of the match.
• JSB vs H&N.  My hold was not good enough to discern lower accuracy as I was able to in match #5.  I write it here so as to not forget the issue.  Truth be told, when my indoor range was put away for the holidays, my 4 tins of vintage H&Ns which shot so well vanished.  Sigh.
• PRACTICE!

Results.  Given the number of ADs I had, and my need and ability to "re-learn" how to shoot or should I say, do more good things than bad things by the end of the match, I am at peace. More often than not my scores decline by end of the match due to energy and focus.  Tonight my last shot was a deep 10 (see picture) as it should have been.  Unclear about the impact of using the 3.8mm insert.  Too many other issues to focus on so the jury is out.  I stick with it until I can truly evaluate it when my hold and trigger finger is better.

2012-13 Season score log

#1 501 (81 81 84 85 82 88)
#2 515 (87 88 89 83 85 83) 11 7s or lower, 15 10x.  previous practice 1x (3.6)
#3 485 (82 82 80 77 86 78) 19 7s or lower,  7 10x. Daisy pellets, reduced barrel weight.(3.6)
#4 494 (88 74 87 88 76 81) 14 7s or lower, 11 10x. JSB SCHaK pellets. First Tuesday night.(3.6)
#5 522 (89 88 90 88 82 88)  7 7s nothing lower, 11 10x. Many high value 9s! H&N + SCHaK (3.2)
#6 492 (75 85 76 84 86 86)  14 7s or lower, 6 10x. SCHaK (3.8)

2011-12 Season score log

#1  515 (87 83 87 88 90 80)
#2  510  (85 89 85 86 82 83)
#3  532  (94 87 83 91 89 88)  (season high, 94/100 tied best ever 10 shots)
#4  530  (87 90 90 93 89 81)
#5  524  (86 84 88 91 85 90)  
#6  517  (88 85 88 87 90 79)
#7  524  (82 91 88 91 84 88)

2022-24 Season score log

#1  467    (74 78 81 70 85 79)  not pretty.  2 snowbirds.  3 10s. A place to start.

Personal Top three 600 scores.  Goal, 540.

539  (93 90 90 85 87 94).  11x 7 or lower, 22 10x.  11/??/08
532  (94 87 83 91 89 88)   3/??/12
530  (87 90 90 93 89 81)   3/??/12

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