TargetTalk

How similar is shooting an air rifle from shooting a regular rifle? I want to join the army after I have finished college. I want to try and join the paras and if I don't get in then The Duke of Lancasters regiment. I have a booklet on the duke of lancs regiment and it says that people who score high on their first time on the shooting range will be selected to become snipers. I really want to do this. How similar is air rifle shooting from shooting a real rifle like the SA-8A? Are the skills transferable?
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I am totally not qualified to answer this, but I like to point out that ISSF/Olympic air rifle event is always at 10m and shoot standing.

PS. The closest ISSF discipline is standard rifle, which is used to be called military rifle. It is however not an Olympic event.

There are some transferrable skills; you can learn aiming, trigger, and breathing technique with an air rifle. However the weight, balance, and fit of the air rifle will be very different to an SA80. Operation is of course very different. Even if you can shoot an air rifle, you would still have to learn to shoot the SA80.

Have you thought of joining the army cadets? This might provide more relevant experience.

Executive Summary: Get a good heavy match air rifle and practice shooting offhand (standing) a LOT.

My dad got one of the first match air rifles imported to the US back in the early 1960's. It was a Feinwerkbau 150, and he got it because he wanted a full sized stock & something that weighed about as much as a hunting rifle.

I shot it for years in the basement any time I got bored, and got pretty good with it. I only shot standing, so things were nice & wobbly. I found pistol shooting more of a challenge, and was on the pistol team in college. They would have .22 rifle matches between living groups, which I always won.

After many years of not shooting rifle, a friend in my Club convinced me to try a 200 yard centerfire offhand league. I started out with a club Springfield in 30-06, practicing occasionally for a month or so every Spring. That was 21 years ago, and I have 21 High-On-Team trophies, and a lot of League trophies. I've never taken the overall top aggregate, but I've come close on many occasions. This is against dedicated rifle shooters who practice year round, including plenty of ex & current military shooters.

If you can get used to shooting standing, firing from a supported position like prone or kneeling the way the military does is easy. Pistol shooting is also good training. You get used to the wobble.

Here is another perspective... It takes much more time to UNLEAARN bad habits than it does to establish new ones. Rifle training in the military is very structured and if you do things their way you succeed by their measures. They have a training curriculum that has their desired outcome and it turns people into marksmen. IMHO you would be much advised to focus on the other stuff, a good solid education and good level of fitness are in my mind far more important than trigger time....

One of the interesting things I came across in the last year was an air rifle upper for an AR-15. The guys using it were doing it to practice indoors during the winter, so it had the heavy weight and two stage heavy trigger pull, just adapted to shoot air rifle. I think it came from crosman.

Yup. Co-developed by our host:

http://www.pilkguns.com/menu_mar177.shtml

Very nice, but the lower receiver is considered a "firearm", independent of what you park on top. That may get one into legal issues that a purpose built match air rifle won't. I think the OP was in England, and I imagine buying such a setup would be nearly impossible.

Air rifle shooting and good coaching will help a ton. It will teach you sight alignment, trigger control and follow through. Air rifles are real sticklers for follow through. The pellet's barrel time is long, and what you do after the breaking of the trigger will effect shot placement enormously. In high power rifle there is less barrel time, but more recoil, so you have to consistently manage the recoil. It is a little different but really the same.
Can't stress enough the importance of good coaching. You need to find one and listen to what he says. Shoot in competitions. Read books. Practice at home. Trigger time is invaluable and the ammo is cheap. All this time you spend working on better shooting is time the army can't afford to give you. It takes years to be a good shot. Put the time in now.
Chris

As many have said, the skills are transferable.
I once shot a 4 inch group with iron sights at 200m with a single shot SA-80 (the cadet version known as the L98)

If you're short, like I am, when you're prone with the SA-80 you can rest the last inch of the magazine on the floor and it balances perfectly. It's like using a bench rest from there! With the SA-80A2, it doesn't jam when you do this like it did with the original SA-80.

The trigger is heavy in the SA-80 and because of it's bullpup design it lacks the feel and crispness of a proper match trigger, but if you concentrate on your trigger squeeze, breathing, position and sight picture you'll do fine.