TargetTalk

No, not me (I wish). Ragnar Skanaker back in '86 at Melboure, Oz. Just a great image of a great shooter after a series of great performances. Thought it was a good one to share.

Ain't that enough to make you sick????? He and Don Nygord had the magic trigger fingers. "Doc"

Is there anything else to say but WOW

And he was born in 1934, so he was 52 when he shot that beautiful target and 58 when he took his fourth Olympic medal, bronze, in '92 in Barcelona.

So take THAT, you young pups!

Roger

I found this photograph (http://www.flickr.com/photos/jfantenb/7739183238/) in our (Melbourne International Shooting Club, misc.org.au) club room and couldn't resist snapping it with my phone.

Ragnar Skanåker visited and shot this in 1986. The story I heard was that he shot it with a borrowed pistol.

Being Swedish myself, now living in Melbourne, it was great to find this one...:-)

I only wish I could produce series like that....

PS. I'm not sure but I believe the photo could have been taken by Tibor Gonczol.

tjelvar wrote:I found this photograph (http://www.flickr.com/photos/jfantenb/7739183238/) in our (Melbourne International Shooting Club, misc.org.au) club room and couldn't resist snapping it with my phone.

Ragnar Skanåker visited and shot this in 1986. The story I heard was that he shot it with a borrowed pistol.

Being Swedish myself, now living in Melbourne, it was great to find this one...:-)

I only wish I could produce series like that....

PS. I'm not sure but I believe the photo could have been taken by Tibor Gonczol.

Not sure it was a borrowed pistol. That looks like what he was shooting with. He was over to shoot at our nationals

..

I think it was 2 years ago he won the sweedish nationals with and air pistol score into the 580s. after his shoot he was asked if he was going to make a return to competitive shooting and he said, no because he didnt want to start training again

tjelvar wrote:I found this photograph ... in our ... club room and couldn't resist snapping it with my phone.

Thanks so much for doing that!

Great photo!

Muffo wrote:I think it was 2 years ago he won the sweedish nationals with and air pistol score into the 580s. after his shoot he was asked if he was going to make a return to competitive shooting and he said, no because he didnt want to start training again

That was in 2008, his pre-final lead was 9 points, and no Swede has been close to 580 in the nationals since.

Incidentally, Skanåker's Swedish record in free pistol is 583, two points above the world record, shot on April 18, 1988, in Prado, California. (His national air pistol record is "only" 591.)

I had a chat with Skanåker last week. He intend to quit shooting some 7-8 years from now. No thinking of retire yet!
I remember asking once if he had done a100 with free pistol in competition and he sad that he had done that only once. In Seul, South Korea of all places.

The FP he shot was a model 150 converted to an electric trigger. The grips/forearm were painted blue and the pistol was very heavy. His grip was made so the shooting hand was in a rather open position. I don't think he ever cleaned it because it was dirty and ugly, but no one dared challenge him on this other than in a fun manner. The trigger was very light, 10 grams or a little less. I never shot his pistol, but have dry fired it. There is no way I could support the weight and at the same time control the trigger. He was truly a precision shooting marvel, and no one else compares, not even close. He was extremely competitive and enjoyed a fun challenge when practice sessions took on a little lighter note. Otherwise, he was a shooting machine and could/would spent hours on the range, continuing to practice long after everyone else had gotten tired and had either gone home or were watching him.

The fact that he was still a champion at the age of 59 (WCF FP 1993) and a world class shooter at the age of 68 (World Championship 2002, 13th in FP) makes me, being a late starter who has never fired a firearms until my early 40s, feels better and has hope to continue to work hard and improve.

Reinhamre wrote:I had a chat with Skanåker last week. He intend to quit shooting some 7-8 years from now. No thinking of retire yet!
I remember asking once if he had done a100 with free pistol in competition and he sad that he had done that only once. In Seul, South Korea of all places.

That is very interesting. I thought he would have shot quiet a few 100s I shot a 99 the very first free pistol match I ever shot. Haven't got that close again. I wouldn't expect it to be common but I would have thought the best guys would do it every now and then

Muffo wrote:I wouldn't expect it to be common but I would have thought the best guys would do it every now and then

Damir Mikec ended on a 100 in the eliminations of the Munich WC this summer. Unless I've missed something, that's the only time during the 2009–2012 cycle that it's happened on that level. As for "minor" competitions, interestingly in Plzeň's GP of Liberation 2011, two Polish shooters made 100 on the same day. I've checked the Olympic results from 1972–2012 and no 100s. Melentiev's series were 95 96 98 98 98 96.

Reinhamre wrote:I had a chat with Skanåker last week. He intend to quit shooting some 7-8 years from now. No thinking of retire yet!
I remember asking once if he had done a100 with free pistol in competition and he sad that he had done that only once. In Seul, South Korea of all places.

I also asked him the same question once, and he said "only once, it was a demonstration series in Australia"....So I guess this is what i he meant.

Went to the range today with the PGP-75 that I picked up here from LesJ recently (many thanks again) ... and I can tell you that my 10 shot strings were in no WAY resembling Master Skanaker's! But, by the end of the session I had a couple of 10 shot strings with all the shots in the black. Which is good enough for me at the time being.

Darn, that 20cm bull looks absolutely TINY at 50 meters!

What did you do to get it working right?

The sear spring was not in its retainer ... actually, it was completely SIDEWAYS in the trigger housing between the side plates. I took it apart and finagled it into position with a dental pick and a feeler gauge. Once it was back in position and the various parts were aligned (no small task there) the cocking lever being raised resulted in a MOST satisfying "click."

All it required was some serious perusal of the diagram from the manual, a little mechanical logic and a perfect Negroni (in honor of its Italian heritage, of course).

Just for the record. I spoke to Tibor Gonczol tonight and it was indeed he who took the photo. There is also an interesting story around the shoot but I'll leave it to Tibor or other people who were present to tell it...:-)

tjelvar wrote:I found this photograph (http://www.flickr.com/photos/jfantenb/7739183238/) in our (Melbourne International Shooting Club, misc.org.au) club room and couldn't resist snapping it with my phone.

Ragnar Skanåker visited and shot this in 1986. The story I heard was that he shot it with a borrowed pistol.

Being Swedish myself, now living in Melbourne, it was great to find this one...:-)

I only wish I could produce series like that....

PS. I'm not sure but I believe the photo could have been taken by Tibor Gonczol.