Texas State Piston Championship at Pecan Plantation

[Cloud 9]

What a great day yesterday out at Pecan Plantation shooting the 2nd Annual Texas State Piston Championship match put on by Craig Martin and the guys at PPAA. There were almost 20 piston rifle shooters that showed up to compete for top honors with 1st - 3rd plaques. That is almost as many piston shooters as the Nats in Phoenix the week before. Craig said he was using more full-size kill zones to make this a piston-friendly course, but with the wind, and the far targets, it was challenging. I think he said it was 29T. The targets placed up on the hill in the woods, and up on the edge of the bowl were the most difficult ones. The wind really seems to swirl in that bowl and blow your pellets around unpredictably.


I was squadded with Leo Duran who drove up from Austin, and we had a close race going for more than half the course. 


In fact, we cleared the first 3 or 4 lanes before each of us missed a shot. That was surprising to me since I hadn’t shot Hunter Piston in almost 2 years and am out of practice using a bipod, holdover and a 12x scope. I decided to shoot my venerable Air Arms ProSport in this match, because the guy I let borrow it for last year’s match mentioned that it is an unruly, and a rough shooting rifle. Needless to say, I didn’t have any trouble with it and it performed beautifully shooting H&N FTT’s. Unfortunately, some folks must have had conflicts, because there are 4-5 other piston shooters that didn’t make it. You guys missed a competitive and fun match.

After the match, we had brats and drinks as is the tradition at PPAA, thanks to Chef Rodney. Wonderful brats as always, Rodney!

It was nice to see Randy Smith who drove down from Oklahoma, and he brought a BUNCH of old targets from the Kermit Airgun Club to sell. These are what he calls generation 1 Field Targets, and I believe they are a piece of history. I bought 4 targets, so expect to see them show up in the rotation at Arlington Sportsman Club matches in the future after I get them cleaned up and working well.


My favorite target:


Overall, a great way to spend part of a Saturday. Thanks for the match, Craig, David, Jim and Rodney.

See you at the next DFTC match at Elm Fork in December.