Friday, October 27, 2006
My First Real Airgun & FT
I bought my first real adult airgun in the fall of 1994 from Bob Koschler in Tampa. I was looking for a FWB124 since that was the airgun my dad had and I really liked it. Bob talked me into one of the new HW97s. I bought a Bushnell 3-9x scope for it and shot a lot in the back yard when I got it. Bob also talked me into calling Rodney Boyce about field target. I read about FT in the Beeman catalog and asked a couple of questions about it when I was talking to Bob. Well, Rodney talked me into shooting at the Florida State match in December of 94 at which I place 3rd. I hit 24 out of 60 shots. I remember the first target I hit was a full size blue jay placed in a tree at about 30 yards or so. When that target went down I knew I was hooked. I shot over 100,000 rounds through that rifle in the first couple years. I did a lot of shooting and I kept the pellet tins and boxes for the first few years to keep track of how many pellet I sent downrange.
I knew I had to get a better scope if I wanted to keep shooting FT so I got a Bushnell 6-18x scope and shot in Standard Piston class at the US Nationals in Baton Rouge the following April. I took second place with a 60 out of 100. I was only 1/2 point down at the end of the first day and ended up losing by 9 shots because I got tense and messed up a lot of shots the second day. It was on the way home from Baton Rouge that I decided that I would have to start a club so that I could shoot more in competition and do better.
Rodney gave me some pointers on making a wood target that I could use to get a club started. I went to the board of my local gun club and talked them into giving me some money to start up the FT discipline at the club. I made about 15 wood based targets and started promoting FT shooting. My first match was September of 1995. I had one shooter show up for the match. As time went by I had more people show up to shoot and I made & bought more targets and held more matches. I held three State matches and one Nationals while at that club. Since then I co-hosted two more Nationals and several more State and local matches.
I still have that HW97 and shoot it occasionally. The rifle I shoot now is an HW97 that I bought in 97 or 98 from Bob Zimmerman. He had three club rifles that he was looking to sell and I got first shot at them. He said that he sent me the best of the three and he wasn't kidding. When I got it and shot it, it was easy to see that it was more accurate than my original HW97. In late 1996 I got my first Macarri target stock for hte 97 and my scores increased. Then in 1997 I ventured into the world of PCP rifles with a CR97. I played around with PCP for a few years buying a CR-X, Anschutz 2025, Falcon FN19 and Beeman Mako but eventually I came back to my first love and now I still pretty much all spring guns. I don't know what it is about airgunning but man it is addictive.
I knew I had to get a better scope if I wanted to keep shooting FT so I got a Bushnell 6-18x scope and shot in Standard Piston class at the US Nationals in Baton Rouge the following April. I took second place with a 60 out of 100. I was only 1/2 point down at the end of the first day and ended up losing by 9 shots because I got tense and messed up a lot of shots the second day. It was on the way home from Baton Rouge that I decided that I would have to start a club so that I could shoot more in competition and do better.
Rodney gave me some pointers on making a wood target that I could use to get a club started. I went to the board of my local gun club and talked them into giving me some money to start up the FT discipline at the club. I made about 15 wood based targets and started promoting FT shooting. My first match was September of 1995. I had one shooter show up for the match. As time went by I had more people show up to shoot and I made & bought more targets and held more matches. I held three State matches and one Nationals while at that club. Since then I co-hosted two more Nationals and several more State and local matches.
I still have that HW97 and shoot it occasionally. The rifle I shoot now is an HW97 that I bought in 97 or 98 from Bob Zimmerman. He had three club rifles that he was looking to sell and I got first shot at them. He said that he sent me the best of the three and he wasn't kidding. When I got it and shot it, it was easy to see that it was more accurate than my original HW97. In late 1996 I got my first Macarri target stock for hte 97 and my scores increased. Then in 1997 I ventured into the world of PCP rifles with a CR97. I played around with PCP for a few years buying a CR-X, Anschutz 2025, Falcon FN19 and Beeman Mako but eventually I came back to my first love and now I still pretty much all spring guns. I don't know what it is about airgunning but man it is addictive.
