Got to love internet memes 
BTW, there are blog entries about RIAC and Intershoot on the way – it’s just hard to find time to blog when training, competing, moving house, in a crunch time at work and when Herself Indoors is eight months pregnant. But I’ve got my notes and I’m getting through them…
I said a pressure drop,
Oh pressure, oh yeah
Pressure’s gonna drop on you
-The Clash
Ahem. Right. So the evening’s training was to try to see if I was still holding the rifle on target rather than letting it just sit there. Warmed up by sweeping up the range (no, I don’t want to think about lead dust toxicity, cheers) and then into the kit and up to the line and did about ten to fifteen minutes of holding and dry-firing before starting in earnest.
The idea was simple – go through the routine as normal, then just before firing, close both eyes and count to 1-and-a-bit in my head and fire with my eyes closed. Safety note: I was doing this alone, on a closed range, and my eyes were closed for all of about 1.5 seconds at the most – this wasn’t a case of “Use the Force, Luke” we’re talking about here, but a specific training drill.
Anyway, the results seemed relatively clear – no matter how good the initial hold and sight picture were, the shot never got closer than a high 10.0:
There was such a pronounced bias to the right that I actually shot a ten-shot string as normal, with eyes open to check:
Ignoring that lovely flier (which I think also proves that Matt was right and I’m muscling the rifle about still), the group was nice and tight and off to the right. So I adjusted my position slightly, and shot some more with my eyes closed:
Okay, now that’s a bit odd. I’d expect some loose grouping, even a lot of horizontal sway like that, but I wouldn’t expect all the shots to be consistently low. It was so odd that I stopped shooting that string and tried a few more shots with eyes open:
Now during this string, I’m checking buttplate position, I’m checking my inner position especially around my back, I’m paying attention to my elbow placement, looking for what the heck is dropping all those shots low. I mean, this is with eyes open, and the hold and the release all look fine (except, ironically, on the one ten shot in the string). And then eventually, I twig to the problem:
Ah-ha! See, this is the problem with a gauge you have to look down the barrel to see Pressure’s well into the yellow, the regulator can’t get the pressure up to the standard level (Dammit Jim, I’m a regulator, not a compressor!) and so the shots all fall low. And at that point I throw both hands up in the air (metaphorically, I’m still holding the rifle and it’d be a bit expensive to replace – as in, about €2,750) and wrap up for the day.
Lesson learnt – check air before a live-firing drill…
On the upside, I didn’t realise it until later, but I was so confident in the shot routine that I was checking the rifle to find the problem, even when I was shooting with my eyes shut. That’s a major improvement on just six weeks ago.
The Peashooters list from the NTSA National Airgun Championships 2011 is up:
| Shooter | Club |
|---|---|
| Ray Kane | DFST |
| Sean Baldwin | DFST |
| Terry Wearen | DFST |
| Aisling Miller | DURC |
| Emily Wallace | DURC |
| Frank Lavery | DURC |
| Heather McLoughlin | DURC |
| Ivan De Wergifosse | DURC |
| Katharina Wilhelm | DURC |
| Logan Hasenbeck | DURC |
| Michael Cullinan | DURC |
| Siobhan Scarlett | DURC |
| Cillian O’Sullivan | UCDRC |
| Claire Leyden | UCDRC |
| Donal Bourke | UCDRC |
| Joe Thompson | UCDRC |
| John Lancaster | UCDRC |
| Tian Carey | UCDRC |
| Yuecong Wang | UCDRC |
| Laura Cunningham | WTSC |
| Mark Dennehy | WTSC |
| Paul O’Boyle | WTSC |
| Susan Cunningham | WTSC |
And here’s the Spudgun list :
| Shooter | Club |
|---|---|
| Peter Friend | Addiscombe RC |
| Joe Conroy | Fermoy |
| Tom O’Brien | MPAI |
| John Lancaster | UCDRC |
Congratulations all
The Peashooters list from the UCD Open is up:
| Sean Baldwin | DFST |
| Terry Wearen | DFST |
| Aisling Miller | DURC |
| Emily Wallace | DURC |
| Frank Lavery | DURC |
| Kate Wilhelm | DURC |
| Michael Cullinan | DURC |
| Siobhan Scarlett | DURC |
| Cillian O’Sullivan | UCDRC |
| Donal Bourke | UCDRC |
| John Lancaster | UCDRC |
| Tian Carey | UCDRC |
| Mark Dennehy | WTSC |
| Paul O’Boyle | WTSC |
John (from UCD) and I were talking about this idea and we thought we should also have an air pistol version – garden peas aren’t really at the same level of difficulty for pistols, so we took the score you had to hit to hit a pea, figured where than landed on an air pistol target and walked through the vegetable bin to see what qualified, and guess what, small new potatoes do 
So here’s the Spudgun list :
| Tom O’Brien | MPAI |
| John O’Brien | RRPC |
Congratulations all
One of the many funny jokes airgun shooters get from people who’ve never tried the sport because airguns aren’t loud enough for them, is the title of “Peashooter”.
I’ve been thinking about that, and I’ve had a fun thought.
How about the NTSA – or one of the airgun clubs – brings in something akin to the old DURC Standards, namely the “Pea Shooter” title?
See, here’s the thing. Your average garden pea is about 8mm in diameter. That’s just inside the 10.5mm diameter of the 8 ring on an air rifle target:
In fact, if my math is right, you have to shoot a 8.4 or higher to hit the area on the target that’s the size of your average garden pea. Which is about the 516/336 level in air rifle, which is a good point for a mid-range novice prize.
Seriously – this might be a neat way to get people to enjoy the first few months of the sport – get some badges made up, like the old DURC standards, it’d be easy enough to measure off the electronic targets, no extra prizes, just a list of “pea shooters” published in the results and rankings, that sort of thing…
Every morning I go to the gym, I pass this painted on the wall as I leave the National Aquatic Center:
There are several on the wall around the lobby, but that one keeps getting under my fingernails.
Yes, there’s a third thing. No, it’s not unknown. It’s called the polar covalent bond, it was discovered several years before D.H.L. wrote that poem in 1929 and it’s the basis for all known life in the universe. If it didn’t exist, no living creature could exist; it’s why water freezes to a solid that floats, it’s why water is a universal solvent, it’s why we can have cells and life and conscious thought, it’s a consequence of three of the fundamental forces of the universe acting in concert at the quantum mechanical level to give us a macroscopic effect we cannot exist without, and somehow a lowly, half-evolved not-quite-so-hairy-anymore ape with bad knees and a tiny lifespan managed to figure out this enormous fundamental thing using only our limited minds.
But apparently, “nobody knows what that is” makes for better poetry.
I mean, I’m no poet laureate (seeing as how I have a real job), but I would have thought myself that ignoring the incredibly numinous reality in order to pick a line that doesn’t even rhyme wasn’t really poetry, so much as phoning it in.
Anyway. Just had to vent a little. All done, nothing to see here, move along….
Taken at the WTSC Open in UCD today.
Sadly, the camera’s lens is a write-off, but happily, I have one I can cannibalise for spare parts…
Ouch.
That is all…
Right, so first of all, a small note. I dislike winter training in WTSC without the heating
Mental note: must buy oil for the range’s central heating. Also, must reset range clock, it’s still on BST.
Today was the last training before the DURC Air Open so I thought I’d just put lead downrange and do some final tweaks, and afterwards do a few minutes live-firing off of these puppies:
You might remember these from an earlier mention from Kuortane. The idea’s simple: stand on them and shoot.
They’re also easy to find in Ireland. And they worked very well, though you have to remember to keep your toes overhanging the edge of the cushion so that when you’re in position your weight is centered on the cushion – otherwise, balance isn’t hard, it’s actually impossible.
As to the tweaking, it went fairly well:
And who said coaching is all hard labour and no laughs?
The results weren’t too bad either:
(though you can see a bit of confusion with the sights there at the end. I really do need to benchrest that rifle and get some hard data on how many clicks per ring those sights give me with my sight base length, but there’s no time before the DURC Open, so I’ll do it next week in WTSC. Oh, and that last 8.7 was shot standing on the balance bags, so the other shots give an idea of my current best horizontal hold – the vertical hold is okay too, but when you’re mucking with your elevation setting on your sights, it’s hard to measure vertical hold 
)
As to the DURC Open, what do I expect? Well, given how the rifle feels right now, I’m guessing I’ll start well, but given that I’m still coming off the tail end of a cold and that I have to shoot late on the 2030h detail, I’m guessing I’ll have some stamina problems. I’m hoping to break 540. The plan is to finish work around 1800h, get home for 1830h and eat something and change into the underarmour and tracksuit, head off around 1900h, get there by 1930h and spend at least 20 minutes warming up by wall-watching and be on the line in full kit and good to go by the start of prep time so I actually have my prep time for prep rather than the usual mad rushing about. I’ll post here after the match when I have the scores. Wish me luck…
When you’re in the Midlands, you can shoot an awful lot of stuff (really, only airgun and archery are omitted at the moment). Joe Costello (Chair of the SSAI and one of the NRAI committee) decided we should be introduced to the full range of fullbore shooting while we were there for the VCRAI shoot, so it was on to .308 shooting and .223 shooting:
Two shots, 200 yards, one (slightly ragged) hole. Nice 
And of course, if you’re already doing all that, you have to do some pistol as well. So we invented the brand new sport of outdoor ISSF 10m Air Pistol. First time I’ve ever had to use the windage adjustment on the pistol to actually adjust for wind…
But you can’t go to a fullbore pistol range and just shoot air pistol, so…
Apparently, that’s not how you’re supposed to do it, but four inch groups at 10m like that doesn’t seem so horrible given the kind of kick the 9mm has and the lack of grip the pistol grip has compared to ISSF pistols.
But when in Rome…
And yeah, the results are better:
Playing about with the camera yielded some neat sequences, here’s Joe in full flight (observe the path of the brass as it’s ejected):
Our ISSF .177 -v- Bullseye 9mm match may become a new fad
All in all a fun day’s plinking on the range. Not exactly training, but you have to have a break from work every now and then
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