AusVarmint

Just a heads up, if any of you were inclined to try Air Rifle Field Target, the Worlds are coming down under to New Zealand 2013.

That allows some time to prepare and get used to the International format/rules.

New Zealand has regular Field Target National competitions that you could attend in the meanwhile.

Understood you have issues around where and how you can use air rifles over there, but this will be a once in a lifetime event, just a couple hours flight time away.......

cheers
GS

Thanks Greyskull.........

Nice invite, I'd love to attend, but I just have to become a better shooter!

Nice to know it's happening, though. Hope it goes great.

regards, curan,

Hey Greyskull

What are the official class's again?

Ryan

stinkitup wrote:Hey Greyskull

What are the official class's again?

Ryan

Ryan,
Official classes in all WFTF events are (at 12 ft/lbs):

WFTF "PCP class":

World Champion, Top Woman, Top Senior, Top Junior, and places 1 down to 10 getting a trophy.

WFTF "Spring/Piston Class":

World Champion, places 1 down to 3 getting a trophy.

New Zealand "Open PCP class" air rifles up to 30 ft/lbs acceptable ( for NZ Worlds only):

NZ Open champion, places 1 to 10 get a trophy. Shot on same course on same days with Worlds competitors, for those who do not have or do not wish to use 12 ft/lbs air rifles. If enough interest from USFT, Aus, NZ competitors, it may be renamed something more appropriate such as "Pacific" or "Oceania" Open. I'd like to see another competition based around the .22 calibre 20-30 Ft/lbs class shot in the Pacific area either anually or biennially. We'll just have to see how it develops.



Course is 150 shots over three days, distances 10m to 50m, 10% forced positionals (kneel or stand) residual freestyle. All target clothing permissable (shooting gloves and jackets), including single point slings.
All sighting scopes acceptable, excluding laser rangefinding devices separate or part of scope.
Timing will be applied, 1 minute per target +1 minute per lane setup time. (2 target lane = 3 mins).
We are getting quite good at setting these courses out now for a mix of challenge and achievability.


Even if you don't hope to win, being a part of it is an awesome experience, and meeting the Worlds top Field Target personalities is a lifetime high point from my last attendance at the event in South Africa. Well worth making the big effort to go. Having a beer or two with Tim MacMurray of Mac1 Airguns and talking about the USFT model was a hoot. Some of those UK teams know how to party well into the wee hours!!

A trip across the ditch would be a piece of cake for you guys......

With our new Firearms laws in place for PCP air rifles, a NZ visitors Licence will have to be applied for prior to arrival, but with your own FAL regime, you will be easily able to obtain one.

Here's a link to one of our more recent events with the course set in the Wellington bush. there's some photos in the thread, but the majority of photos are in the albums, which are linked in the thread.

http://www.nzairgunners.com/nzairgunfor ... hp?t=10859

kind regards
GS

Do we have an equivalent discipline here in Australia? I often read of this kind of championship in the Pommie air rifle mags and have wondered if such exists here too.

It is shot as a SSAA Discipline in QLD, you can contact them through the SSAA QLD website.

If anyone wants more info, just email me:

gov.nzafta@hotmail.com

Would love to see transtasman FT happening on a regular basis.

regards
Adam

Just an update:

The order of hosting has been amended and New Zealand has been scheduled for 2014 now. Germany has been scheduled for the 2013 spot to host the World Field Target Champs.

This means more time for getting organised and training........and making a few trips across the ditch in the meanwhile.

We were pretty sure about the hosting rights for 2013 since others had declined. As it turns out the decisions were not as definite as we were led to believe, so the dates have been amended.

Sorry for "jumping the gun".......

Thanks GS, I've been meaning to post a correction for a while now but it simply slipped my mind. Trying to get my head around too much other stuff including rulebook changes so that our rules will be aligned with the wftf rules when the final draft is accepted.

Nationals weekend is to be announced shortly on our forum. While I think its still early days for TransTasman meets, the invite is there.

Time is required to get organised for that sort of thing. Usually I look a year ahead of travelling overseas to comps.

I would anticiapte your rules will require gently easing into shape over time as ours are doing. There are still heaps of fellows who like to shoot the high power FT (like the USA) and a growing number of 12 ft/lbs (WFTF) rules shooters like myself now. Even WFTF rules are fluid, changes seem to mooted every year.

First and most important thing we have found, is just to get everyone together for a great shoot, and worry about the rules firming up as and when they appear deficient. Getting together as a group of FT shooters is the first and biggest step forward.

Talk recently among some WFTF Countries has revolved around a "European" sub competition for springers, and there is already a "Europeans" competition annually. I'd like to see us start the basis of an "Oceania" or "Southern" FT championship competition......some day soon.

First goal is 2014 Worlds in NZ. Just meeting and chatting to some of the top shooters from the UK/USA as I have done, is an experience in itself worth attending for.

regards
GS

Damn, bit of bad news to see the Worlds were bumped to 2014. Kind of lucky I checked over here because I didn't realise the change.

I was actually starting to make plans to attend in 2013, including the purchase of a 12fpe rifle to start practicing with as I need some serious work with wind doping with .177 and 12fpe. I shoot a 28fpe S400 in .22 for silhouette and rarely need to add much for wind .

I'm going to start making some targets to see if I can stir some interest at the club and get something started. If nothing more than to offer a different match to the normal silhouette.

JD

Probably more like good news for us JD! It means we have a bit more time to get the discipline up and running here (nationally) and to sort out stuff like selection criteria. It also means that there is an opportunity for a few inerested parties to go over to Germany next year to see how thing are done and to meet people and network etc.

The delay also means more of an opportunity for some of us to get over the ditch and see how the Kiwi boys are doing things. There is also the fact that currently there are very few 12ftlb PCPs imported into Aus at the moment as there hasn't been any real following or need for them but hopefully that is all about to change!

Hi Chris,

Yeah some work to be done here in Australia. It's a tricky situation as we don't have a huge number of people to draw on for airgun events, even fewer that are prepared to buy a 12 fpe air gun. Hopefully things are going well up your way in terms of attendance. It's very hard to get a new discipline started as what tends to happen is you just divide up attendees from other events at the club rather than recruiting new people and at the end of the day, we can only shoot so many disciplines.

I just got a 12fpe BSA Super10 used, unfortunately in .22 (would have been nice in .177) but will most likely look at purchasing a dedicated 12fpe .177 prior to the Worlds to practice with but it will be a fun plinker to go with the 28fpe S400. I am considering trying to introduce Field Target as a fun side match to our air silhouette shoots to see if I can raise some interest. I've already placed some information and articles around the club. In the short term I think I'll build some simple targets (just some simple paddle targets with a deflector plate in front) and won't worry about the full blown animal silhouettes with falling mechanism and reset strings just yet (well maybe one or two to get the idea) but just rely on the paddle targets that can take our 20fpe+ guns that most people shoot. We also may have to extend the distance to past 50 yards to make range estimating more of a challenge as many of the rifles are pretty flat shooting.

I've done quite a bit of field target shooting in California with CASA so have been to a bunch of shoots shot with established shooting ranges and also free style terrain (the best way to shoot it, but very tricky in Aust due to our laws). If I can offer any help let me know.

JD

JD,

Will definately take you up on the offer of help mate as things progress I'll be looking especially for blokes like yourself who aren't already to tied up with other disciplines (I really don't see the point of trying to get people who are already involved with other disciplines to try to stretch their time even further, I want them to be able to shoot a competition for once that they don't have to run and be able to enjoy it).

You'd be surprised at the people that FT is going to pull in there are a hell of a lot of airguns out there that you never see at club shoots, I know how it is with silhouette shooters for example and we can only stretch our time and energy so far. We will be running with 2 classes to start with and maybe progress to 3 or more further down the track...more on that later. I've been working on spreading FT to a much broader audience than our regular club shooters, they'll stick their heads in when they feel like it but most of them get stuck in their routines as you know, and can be pretty hard to get them to change their ways (try moving a regular club day start time sometime and you'll know what I mean). I guess what I'm saying is we need to aim to pick up on those air rifle enthusiasts out there who either get ridiculed by other shooters because they are viewed as "strange" because they like air guns, and those that follow everything that happens over seas but have no outlet here and what we currently shoot holds no appeal to them (there is an absolute shit load of them just look at the number of PCP's being sold in Aus at the moment, not to many of em are getting used to shoot comps with). I'm going to get shot for saying this but after shooting RMS for a long time it does get a little "lack lustre" at times as does field rifle etc, but FT is an interesting challenge even with a more powerful gun.

As for the ranges we can actually set up FT layouts in our danger areas on the sides and at the rear of our current ranges (Tolosa st will be a bit different of course because it is reduced danger area range like many others), obviously we can't shoot whilst the main range is in operation but there is plenty of room for imagination.The big problem we find with it is the set up time puts a lot of people off! Don't let the whole 12ftlb thing become to much of an obstacle, at present I'm looking at it a bit like the hunting rifle thing was in RMS when we first started it seriously, not many were interested then but before long every bugger had an Anschutz FWT. Hell there's about 8 of the things in a certain st in Hobart that I know of

Just a couple of updates now we have some confirmation of sorts to work with:

Classes; according to the new comprehensive Worlds rules, can and probably will include a "High Power" (up to 30 ft lbs maximum .22 cal) class as well as the usual 12 ft/lbs championship classes.

Location: Wellington is a direct flight from Sydney I believe.

Billeting can be arranged in advance with either local shooters or other target shooting groups if hotels aren't your thing.

PCP air rifles will have to be stored in "secure storage" for the event, either a host's safe or a central armoury which will be arranged for the event. As your laws are stricter than ours for owning air rifles, visitor's permits to bring them in will be a simpler matter for you than for say a UK visitor.

Anyone wishing to visit in the interim period should get in contact with me or post a query on http://www.nzairgunners.com forum. If coming over at any time we can try and get you along to one of the shooting clubs for a taste of FT, or organise something specially. Don't waste a trip over and not bring your air rifle.

We do have Silo comps from time to time........

NZ FT Nationals will be in Wellington 20-21 Oct 2012. Open invite to AUS team, if a team of 4 can be made up and make it across it can be an officially sanctioned WFTF International match, WFTF comprehensive rules apply. Inaugural trans tasman match on an annual basis, swap hosting each year. More discussion required between us on this. Start small and see what develops huh? Not just restricted to 12 ft/lbs at this time.

regards
GS