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Need info to become rifle competitor

Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 4:14 am
by lenjdorr
Hello everyone, I would appreciate any help or advice on entering in the field of air and small bore rifle competition. Specifically I would like to find a coach/advisor. Also advice on any organizations, publications, websites, books, DVDs or manuals that I should join or purchase. What equipment would you reccomend that I purchase and the best sources for that equipment.
Any advice would help - THANKS!
Note: I'm an adult from Connecticut

Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 5:06 am
by Guest
Lenjdorr,

Since you don't say where you are, start by contacting your National Governing Body (i.e. NSRA in Britain). They may be able to help you find a club in your area. This way you can get some experience of what is done, what facilities are available, and what equipment is used. In Britain, and possibly elsewhere, clubs have equipment for novices to use.

Shooting equipment can be expensive, and many shooters will acquire theirs bit by bit. But for 10m air-rifle and smallbore, the basic equipment would be an air-rifle (0.177"/4.5mm calibre), a smallbore target rifle (such as an Anschutz), a shooting jacket (made of canvas and leather), a glove (worn to cushion your supporting hand), a sling ( a plastic or leather strap used to support a smallbore rifle in the prone and kneeling positions). Serious air-rifle shooters also wear special trousers (canvas and leather like the jacket) and boots.

Good luck

Tim S

Exeter, UK

Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 10:32 am
by Bill Poole
where are you?

if you are in Arizona Contact me immediately, if not, post your location and ask for locals (maybe on the rifle shooting forum instead of shooters lounge)

are you an adult or a junior? there are a lot of NRA-based junior .22 programs in nearly every community, adults are more on their own.

Join USA Shooting and look on their website for PTO (Preliminary Try Out it means registered match) in your area and join that local club meet those folks etc

there is good coaching info on the http://www.pilkguns.com/ and http://www.targetshooting.ca/ websites but it a lot of it is pistol oriented.
http://www.pilkguns.com/menu_coaching.shtml

NRA smallbore rifle is similar enough to olympic rifle that it will give you a good start if your club does that shooting.

get on http://www.nbcolympics.com/ and see if you can find the videos from the rifle finals, watch the techniques.

buy the books "the way of the rifle" and "air rifle shooting"
http://www.pilkguns.com/books.shtml

as to equipment, get eye and ear protection the books above AND NOTHING ELSE until you meet with shooters and see the equipment and shoot a few different guns

if your local has a strong olympic shooting program, they'll get you pointed in the right direction, if you live in a place where winter time shooting is indoors or if there is a good air rifle program that might be the way to go, if you live in a place with a stronger NRA smallbore program 50m (.22) rifle might be the way to start.

There are 5 olympic rifle events, Are you male or female (the events are slightly different), Air rifle is 10m indoor (40 shots women, 60 shots men), 50m rifle is .22, 3 position (60 shots women 120 shots men) and a separate mens-only prone-only 60 shot event. Some folks specialize in just air or just .22 for equipment or training reasons. Others shoot both.

a shooting coat is VERY important, but you must get one that fits you and meets ISSF (Olympic) rules (NRA coats do not, but you can use an ISSF coat in NRA)

if you can borrow a rifle, start with that, decide how serious you are, if you really want to get into this sport, buy the best, often you can find used gear, but it takes digging you will find NOTHING for this sport in a local gun shop (unless you live in about 3 specific small towns in the US, where our suppliers are located)

ISSF shooting gear is very specialized, and its almost all made by people paid in Euros hence it is EXPENSIVE.

But this type of shooting is incredibly demanding and even if you never get to the point of qualifying for a team or winning medals, you can compete against and next to olympic medallists (unlike any other sport) and derive a huge amount of personal satisfaction.

welcome to the sport

Poole

Need Info

Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 9:04 am
by Mac141
Hello,

Instead of starting a new thread along the same line as this, I thought I would add to it.
I am new to small-bore, coming over from 20+ years in center-fire.
Does anyone know where I could find any information on the rifle make, model, stock, sight combinations etc used by medal and or record holders?
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Mac

Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 9:23 am
by plinker
Mac141,

I'm sure you will get a lot of people responding telling you their own personal preferences, but my observation is that most of the US smallbore team are using Anschutz rifles. It's my personal favorite as well. Practically every picture I saw of the international shooters showed them holding Anschutz rifles as well.

Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 10:00 am
by Guest
Record holders:

Men's prone: World and Olympic record is 704.8 (600 qualyifing + 14.8 final) Christian Klees using a Diana 820F. Equaled by Warren Potent (2008 Bejing World cup with 599 + 105.8, shooting a Bleiker Challenger in a Grunig RS2 stock, centra rearsight. A dozen or more shooters have shot 600 in matches using Anschutz, Walther, FWB rifles. Sergei Martynov has shot 600 five times, using a 1913 with a 7002 rearsight.

Men's 3-P: World and Olympic record holder is Rajmond Debevec. His World record has stood since 1992. I believe he may have used a 2013. His Olympic record, set in 2000, was set using French made Unique X-Concept.

Womens 3-P: World record is 698.0 (594 + 104.0) shot by Sonja Pheilschifter using a FWB 2602 barrel. The Olympic record was recently set by Du Li in Beijing using an Anschutz 2313 (13 or 07 barrel?).

Tim S

Exeter UK