There he sat, square in the crosshairs, almost taunting me.
His tail was curled over his back, an acorn clutched in his paws, and he seemed
to be saying: "Go ahead, I dare ya."
I sucked in a breath, eased half of it out, and concentrated
on squeeeeeeeezing the trigger while the image in the scope bounced on the kill
zone in rhythm to my pulse. Thwack! The shot was away and hit the squirrel
square in the pump. He went down like a stone with a distinct clang.
"Good shot," my shooting partner said. So I pulled the string; the squirrel
popped upright, and I shot him again. During the afternoon, I shot nearly 40
animals, most of them twice. It was all part of an addictive air-gunning
sport called Field Target.
What makes field target so much fun is that it holds true to
the Wilcox Principle. Named after Leigh Wilcox, proprietor of Airgun Express,
the Wilcox Principle states: "Fun targets fall down, break or bleed."
Field target involves shooting at metallic silhouettes of
animals: squirrels, crows, rabbits, turkeys, pheasants, armadillos, snakes, even
Tweety Bird. When you hit the target properly, it falls down. At first glance,
it sounds a bit like silhouette competition, but there are major differences.
First, in field target competition, each metallic silhouette has a hole in it, a
kill zone. Behind the kill zone is a paddle. To knock the target down, your
pellet must pass cleanly through the hole and hit the paddle. The targets are
designed to lock in the upright position if your pellet grazes the edge of the
kill zone on its way through.
Second, in the American version of field target, the size of
the kill zone varies from target to target. One target may have a kill zone as
small as one-quarter inch (although these are rare, three-eighths inch is
usually the smallest) while another may have a kill zone nearly two inches wide.
Clearly it is going to be a lot harder to put a .177 caliber or .22 caliber
pellet through a hole that is only .25 inches wide than it is to execute a clean
shot on a 2-inch kill zone.
Third, the targets are placed at non-standard distances
ranging from 10 yards minimum to 55 yards, and one club that I know offers a
75-yard bonus shot. Suddenly, that inch-and-a-half kill zone that looked big
enough to drive a truck through at 15 yards starts to look mighty small when
it's way-the-hell-and-gone out to 54 yards!
Finally, two crucial facts: in most cases, the shooter does
not know the distance to the target (there are exceptions, and we'll get to that
in a while), and the airguns involved in field target in the United States have
a recommended limit of 20 foot pounds of energy. This means that most of the air
rifles are shooting fairly loop trajectories compared to rimfire or centerfire
rifles.
A typical match may consist of 2 or 3 targets per lane, two
shots per tar-get, and 10 shooting lanes, resulting in a forty to sixty shot
match. Most shots are taken from a sitting position, although canny match
directors will mix in some standing and kneeling shots as well. You get one
point for each target that you down and nothing if the target doesn't go down.
Most field target competitions take place outdoors, although some clubs host
offhand-only matches in the winter in which shooters stand in a heated building
and shoot at outside targets.
When you mix all of these factors together, you get a sport
that requires (a) figuring out the distance to the target, (b) compensating for
your gun's trajectory at that distance, (c) doping the wind, and (d) executing
the shot with enough precision to put the pellet cleanly through the hole. What
makes it fun, beyond the clang and bang of the targets when they fall, is that
field target is never the same twice. Each match is a little different,
depending upon the layout of the course. Even if you shot the same course two
days in a row, environmental conditions - weather, light, and wind - plus your
own internal conditions, would make it seem different.
As with many sports, there is some disagreement about who did
what to whom and when. Nevertheless, field target appears to have originated in
the early 1980s in England. Americans adopted the idea soon thereafter and, as a
result, two different strains of the sport have evolved over time. The English
field target rifles are limited to 12 foot pounds of energy, and, in general UK
field target courses are set up with larger kill zones and longer distances than
their American counterparts. An American shooter who went to England two years
ago for the World Championships marveled at the Brits' ability to read the wind
and compensate for it with their lower power guns.
At present, there are more than three dozen field target clubs
spread across the United States, from Atlanta to Tacoma, and there are dozens of
clubs around the world. At most U.S. matches, you'll find two classes: Open and
Piston. Some clubs also have classes for Junior shooters and for Offhand
shooters. In addition, some match directors hand out cheat sheets " which show
the exact yardage to each target, to shooters using low-power scopes. A typical
entry fee for a match is $10 or less.
So what do you need to competition field target? First, an air
rifle. You can enter with almost any.177 or.22 air rifle that is less than 20
foot pounds (although it's rare for top shooters to use anything but .177), but
to be competitive, you'll want a rifle capable of shooting one-hole groups at 10
yards and holding a half-inch group at 30-35 yards. Open class guns are
generally "pre-charged" air rifles; that is, they are powered by compressed air
stored in a cylinder usually located below the barrel of the gun. Pre-charged
guns are typically filled through a yoke attached to a SCUBA tank or through a
high-pressure hand pump. You'll see all manner of pre-charged rifles at a field
target match, including .22 caliber repeaters designed for hunting.
The Formula One cars of the field target world, though, are the
specialized .177 caliber rifles that are purpose-designed for field target.
They have adjustable stocks, including butt plate and cheek piece, match
triggers, and free-floating barrels. In short, they have all the finesse and
control of an Olympic 10-meter match air rifle, but with more power. There are
many Open Class pre-charged field target rifles that will shoot
sub-minute-of-angle groups at 50 yards. A full-out Open Class air rifle can run
$1,000-$3,000, plus optics.
Piston Class rifles rely on a spring or a gas ram that is
cocked, usually by a lever under the barrel, to supply the energy to drive the
pellet. When the trigger is pulled, the spring or ram is released, driving the
piston forward and the pellet down the barrel. Because a lot of machinery is
moving inside the gun before the pellet leaves the muzzle, piston air rifles
are more difficult to shoot accurately. As a result, it is unusual to see Piston
Class shooters equaling the score of top Open Class shooters at a field target
match. Highly accurate piston air rifles suitable for field target (the Air Arms
TX200 and the HW97 are the dominant choices in this class) can be purchased for
less than $500. In the right hands, a piston rifle can produce dime-sized groups
at 50 yards.
Second, you'll need high quality optics. Many field target
shooters favor very high power scopes - a minimum of 24X - because they use them
to range-find on the targets. They use the adjustable objective to get the
target clearly in focus, and then read the distance off the front of the scope.
Most top-notch shooters do not leave the range-finding to chance and have
previously calibrated their scopes at various distances. The Bushnell Elite 4200
6-24 x 40 and 8-32 x 40 are becoming the dominant scopes in both Piston and Open
classes.
Once the shooter knows the distance to the target, he or she then
needs to make adjustments for the loopy trajectory of the air rifle. There are
two main ways of doing this. Some shooters get their "dope" by shooting the
various distances at a sight-in range. Others chronograph their guns and then
plot the trajectory using some sort of ballistics software. I use the "A" team
Easy Airgun Ballistics Program (ATEAB) available from Raymond Apelles
(845-896-9792 or visit http://users.bestweb.net/-ateam-ray/ATEAB-program.htm).
Once you know the trajectory of your gun you can: either
hold-off to compensate for the rise or drop relative to your sight-in-distance
or click the scope's elevation knob until the crosshairs are dead-nuts on at the
yardage to the target. A number of sources sell custom oversize elevation knobs
that can be calibrated with trajectory and yardage of your gun. As a result,
once you know the yardage, instead of counting clicks to the correct elevation
(the software will calculate the number of clicks at various distances and print
a chart), you simply spin the dial to the correct yardage. It's a slick system,
and most of the top shooters that I know use it or something very much like it.
Having said that, I would be less than candid if I didn't
mention the following: I've never been to a field target match where someone
(including sometimes me) didn't get screwed up on elevation (either counting
clicks or using a custom elevation knob) by getting a full revolution off of
where they thought they were. (Most common mistake is to return the knob to zero
in the wrong direction.) As a result, at my last match, I decided to avoid the
problem. Instead, I decided to simply hold off. I shot a 12x Bushnell and used a
chaft produced by the ATEAB program to decide how far off to hold. In the end, I
took third in my class. There is even a case of a gentleman shooting a match
high score with a 6x scope and a .22 caliber hunting air rifle, also holding off
using the information from an ATEAB ballistics chart. In his case, and mine, we
were both furnished a yardage-to-target cheat sheets by the match director. (A
few match directors will furnish cheat sheets to competitors shooting with low
power scopes.)
Once you have an accurate air rifle, some good optics, and a
ballistics program, you'll need some good ammunition. Air rifles are notorious
for "liking" one pellet over another. Even two rifles of the same model just a
serial number apart may prefer different pellets. You have to test to see which
one your gun likes, and then stick with it. In one case, I saw group size shrink
from an inch and three-eights to just seven-sixteenths simply by changing
pellets. The Crosman Premier 7.9 and 10.5 .177 are the dominant pellets in use
by FT shooters, but what matters is what works in your gun.
You'll also need something to sit on, since the majority of
field target shooting lanes are designed for the sitting position. I use an old
boat cushion, but whatever gets your rump off the dirt and is comfortable ought
to work just fine.
But you don't need the best of the best to go out and have
some fun with field target. My brother-in-law and I shoot together frequently.
One Sunday afternoon he was absolutely taking me to the woodshed and whipping my
tail by outshooting me on a tiny kill zone at sixty feet. I was shooting my
expensive English spring-piston field target rifle, and he was shooting a Beeman
R7 break-barrel spring-piston rifle that barely makes 6 foot pounds of energy.
We switched guns, and I beat him. It became clear that his gun was easier to
shoot accurately.
So we hatched a plan. At the next match, he brought the Beeman R7 fitted with a
BSA 2-7 x 32 scope, and I brought a Daisy Avanti Valiant pre-charged match rifle
(an entry-level rifle designed for 10 meter shooting, it makes just 6 foot
pounds) fitted with a Bushnell 4-12 x 40 scope. The theory was that the ease of
shooting well would help us to hit more of the close targets (and frankly, we
tend to miss the long ones anyway) and would compensate for the lower power we
were shooting. It worked. We each took third in our respective
classes. The total cost of my brother-in-law's rig was less than $300, and mine
was less than $500.
Even when you don't do well at field target, it can still be a
lot of fun. At a match in Connecticut, I failed to concentrate early on and
missed a number of easy close shots. Later in the match, though, I "got in the
zone" and was able to hit the two hardest shots on the course: a turkey at
54-yards with a 1.5 inch kill zone and a blue jay up in a tree at 16 yards with
a .25 inch kill zone. (The shooters' response to that tiny kill zone was
universal: "You gotta be BLEEPing me!") I managed to hit both twice. So while I
finished dead last in my class, I still had the satisfaction of knowing that I
had made a few good shots. I was "bloodied, but unbowed."
I've also found that field targets shooters are, by and large,
friendly and generous of their time and expertise. Match directors usually
divide the competitors into "squads" that will stay together as they shoot each
lane. At every match that I've shot, somehow I've managed to be on squad with
other shooters who added to the enjoyment of the match with encouragement, a
helpful word or two and, of course, a little good-natured kidding. Looking back,
I've never come home from a match wishing I hadn't gone to it.
The bottom line: if you want the joy of shooting steel crows
and causing metallic squirrels to faint, field target delivers a lot of fun,
great camaraderie, and the challenge of a high-accuracy sport. Even better, you
can practice in your back yard. And if you already have an old 10-meter match
air rifle stuck in the closet, drag it out, pop a scope on it, and get ready to
have some fun.
Resources: To find out more about field target, visit www.aafta.org or write AAFTA, c/o Cliff Smith, 8725 Osage Dr., Tampa, FL 33634 or phone 813-884-0507. AAFTA also has a list of suppliers of field target air rifles, scopes, ammunition, etc. For nearly encyclopedic information about all manner of airgunning stuff, visit Brad Troyer's www.airguns.net. It includes airgun clubs, manufacturers and dealers, free classified ads, links to ballistics software, and much, much more. Highly recommended. High quality Nockover field targets, suitable for home practice or competition, are available from Precision Airgun Shooting Accessories, Ltd (PASA, Ltd), 6309 E. Eliot Street, Long Beach, CA 90803, Ph: (562) 430-9195 E-mail: pasaltd@earthlink.net. I've shot thousands of rounds at these targets, and all they demand of me is an occasional shot of spray paint.
This Article was originally printed in the March 2003 edition of The Accurate Rifle and reprinted here with their permission. Please help support their efforts to promote airgunning and Field Target in the US by visiting their site and their companion publication Precision Shooting. Both magazines are a wealth of information about guns and shooting in general and make for hours of enjoyable reading.
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