Phoenix, Arizona...Cowtown Range March 18-19, 2017

[Chimich]

Getting HOT again in Phoenix and we all felt it today at our newest venue in Arizona......Cowtown, up in the Northwest valley not too far from Lake Pleasant.

Azmule and Chimich were the shot boss and instructor, respectively.  Started the day with 5 shooters willing to endure the heat (high of 95F)...but wait...about 3 minutes into the morning introductions we added a walk-on, goes by the name of Daniel.  Daniel had just finished a night shift at Sky Harbor Airport (way down in the south valley) and drove straight from work making for a total of 6 shooters today.

Things ran smoothly through the morning starting with gathering stats for the red coat baseline, sighter squares, slings, various positions and steady hold factors, etc. Bay 2 (along with the other bays) doesn't have a lot of shelter from our giant fusion reactor in the sky (that would be the Sun for the scientifically challenged...

Fortunately two of our shooters had 2 large, 10x10feet, canopies on stakes that provided at least some shade for the firing line. 

No major issues to report except the mystery of the disappearing rounds down range.  Stage three of one of the AQTs for one of our shooters resulted in rounds on the first target inside the silhouette  and rounds on the third target inside the silhouette, but no rounds to be found anywhere else for the middle target.....also not to be found on the neighboring targets.   Anyone notice any unexplained rounds in the middle target of Stage III on the AQT at other venues/states?   

Able to get in a couple of full AQTs by days end..had a couple of decent scores but no cigar yet.  We're holding out hope for tomorrow on Sunday; supposed to be 95F again; hope the guys with the canopies show up again....stay tuned for more.....

[Texas T]

Hope everyone holds up under the heat. I was checking out a range today, walking through snow and ice. Quite the contrast. Well, as they say, if you have one foot in hot water and one in cold, on average you're probably "just right".   

[Chimich]

We had one shooter attain Rifleman...congratulations Dave....see the attached pics with Dave and Scot, the shoot boss / AZ state coordinator.

On day 2 we were able to squeeze in enough AQTs that we actually used up all of the AQT targets.  Folks seemed to like the rapid AQT so that may have had some affect.

The Cowtown range also has a number of 1000yd ranges.  Although all of the shooters were using rimfire, during one of the breaks we did walk up (literally up the winding stairs) to one of the 1000yd ranges.  This range is used for unknown distance / known target size shooting. Targets consisted of metal plates, all the same size, spread out on the range and at various elevations.....topography is typical AZ desert hills country with river beds running between small hills of various sizes.  The shooting line is also elevated above the range floor (remember those winding stairs we had to climb) and therefore elevation would also have to be factored in to get the correct ballistic solution......so when we got back to our 25yd range we did spend a few minutes on basic trig, gravity, and the cosine function.

All in all of very good shoot this weekend.  My personal thanks to all of the shooters that came out: Dave, Chad, Johah, Michael, Daniel, and Matthew

[ConcowMower]

Just wanted to check-in and thank our very capable instructors at the Cowtown Range this last weekend.  I was not able to locate or pull up the image referred to.  Was going to send it to all my friends.  You know, old guy bragging rights, etc.
 

[ConcowMower]

OK, Please see below for my contribution to the Cowtown Range Appleseed event held on 18 & 19 March.