Tar Heel Air Gun Club was pleased to host the 2018 AAFTA National Championships. We appreciate everyone who came to the match and hope you had a good time here.
104 shooters arrived in Pleasant Hill, NC from Brazil and 28 states for the rifle match. The event was hosted at the Twin City Rifle Club and Chris Corey was the Rifle Match Director.
We learned a lot from hosting in 2015. We were determined not to repeat some of our mistakes that year and try to do some things new and different than previous nationals. We had a tough act to follow with the 2017 Phoenix Nationals, and we decided to do everything we can to make the shooter experience as good as we could make it.
We had no target failures and just a few cold lanes over two days of shooting. The weather was mostly in the 80’s and sunny. No rain!
We knew from the beginning that our normal woods course, which became the Blue Course, could not support 100+ people. So, the first thing to be done was to find another location for a second course. After walking the TCRC property, Chris decided on using the gas line to create the White Course. This gave me a lot of shooting scenarios to keep things interesting. It allowed woods, open field, and multiple angle shots during the match. I didn’t want anyone to get complacent. Staggering the lanes allowed me to have wide lanes for angled shots & keep the course length to a minimum. Switching side to side on the lanes always meant you would have different wind angles on each lane. This, along with the Euro-style solid color paint jobs selected by Chris, helped to change things up a little from past Nationals.
The woods course (blue course), had to also be modified for the Nationals. Chris set five lanes up on our normal THAGC sight in range. This kept ten lanes in the woods. This was done to keep the line of fire parallel to the gas line. Chris didn’t want a stray pellet wandering from course to course. Safety first!!! Both courses had the same number of KZ sizes. This was done to keep each course difficulty as equal as possible. Chris did set the white Course up with a slightly lower Troyer difficulty since it was more affected by wind. The courses worked out as follows:
White Course Blue Course
Shots >40 yards: 12 13
AVG KZ Size: 1.05” 1.05”
AVG Distance: 33.37 yards 34.17 yards
SD: 5.98 5.06
Troyer Difficulty: 34.43 35.44
Squadding was determined by class. Chris wanted to keep all the classes together on the same course in the order of fairness. With 104 shooters, he was a little worried, but it worked out in the end. Saturday, Hunter PCP, Open PCP, & Open Piston were set to shoot the Blue course. WFTF PCP, WFTF Piston, & Hunter Piston squared off on the White course. Winds were light to moderate shifting winds. Just enough to make a 12 fpe shooter pay attention. Plus, on the White Course, it helped keep the shooters cool and comfortable, for a while anyway. At the end of Day 1, the White Course high score was a 51 & the Blue Course was a 58.
Sunday came around for Day 2 of the rifle match. All shooters switched courses from the previous day. The wind decides to take a break for most of the day to take pity on us. Unfortunately, the temperatures rose & the Hunter & Open shooters were roasting on the White Course. At the end of Day 2, the Blue Course had a high score of 57 & the White Course was a 56. This led to several shoot offs in Hunter PCP & WFTF PCP.
Sportsmanship was on display throughout the weekend and our thanks to shooters like Ken Hughes and Brad Troyer for showing everyone how the sport should be.
Special recognition to all the THAGC members who attended and helped out as well as Ginger Piatt. The marshals took time in advance for training, Philip Hepler did a fantastic job with design, signs, trophies and tee shirts. Keith K. managed the parking and sight in range and kept it all working as it should. Many thanks to Janice Himes for taking photos over the three days.
The scores:
The Photos:
Hunter Piston:
Greg Sauve – High Score Veteran
Thanks to Rifle match Director – Chris Corey
WFTF PCP
National Trophies to Scott and Lonnie and special recognition from Connecticut Custom Airguns to top three in Open Piston. Thank you, Hector!.
Open PCP
(Garrett K not shown.. he got his trophy but had to make a flight back to AZ)
WFTF PCP:
Hunter PCP;
High Score Junior – Noah Piatt:
Special award from Hector Alfaro to the high scorer from NC – Will Piatt
Winning Rifle Team – Steve English (not shown), Doug Vinson, Miguel Sanchez, Will Piatt, Ken Hughes… Team Deep South.
Paul Porch – Pistol MD. Thanks Paul!
High Score Lady – Lauren Parsons
More Awards Photo:
