TargetTalk

I've noticed a lot of interest in Competitive Shooting by AA YurYev. Because this book has been out of print for some time, it's a bit pricy. I've reached out to the NRA (the original publisher) to see if they had any thoughts on a second edition. While they did not, they are now tracking interest to see if they should reprint it. If you would like them to reprint this publication, send an email to products@nrahq.org . Hopefully we can get them to dust it off and republish it.

They come up on ebay every now and again, so keep looking at that. You'll find it far cheaper there than in the specialist book dealers.

Rob.

email sent to NRA. Would be a good book to own and to give copies to promising youngsters.

I think that the book should be re-published by the NRA. Frankly the current used market is great for one with an old copy. As for giving this book to anyone with less than a college education, and some knowledge of kinesiology et al---would be better off with a coloring book and crayons. First of all the year when this book was originally written, the studies and instrumentation available was the dark ages in comparison to the studies that are being done today. Yes the book has some useful information to be gleaned and is worth the reading, with the idea that this is o-o-o-o-o-ld stuff. What's going on in China et al as far as training is concerned is much like the old Soviet Bloc. Get a child at 10 and by the time they are thirteen they begin to exceed the total skills in the rest of the world as well as the number of young dedicated shooters. The Russian literature of the 40's---60's was most sought after by coaches all over the world, but we did not have the dedicated shooters that the Soviet Bloc Nations then and China today. Here in the USA we are fixated with Bullseye competition (our traditional competition)---and International is looked at as an odd preoccupation with funny looking guns. Numbers of new International shooters probably has risen in the USA, I see it in my Pistol Club where we now have more Free & Air Pistol shooters than we did five years ago. From three to 24 in a short period of time, to teams which have placed in the top ten in the 2009 Intersectionals. Non USA shooters do not have Bullseye, the only events they have are FP, AP, RF, SP & CF---so that's what they shoot. The US sent Keith Sanderson to Munich and he garnered the Bronze medal in RF---one entry---how many were sent by other countries in just this event? It's numbers and dedication not a book that will bring success to any shooting program. I am 78 and I think the old should be thrown away and the new ideas hit the floor with training new shooters---all is not lost. "Doc"

I'm all for new ideas too, but where I live there are no coaches available nor could I ever afford one. There was a point in time when I was agonizing from ever diminishing scores until I bought a second-hand copy of the Yur' Yev book—that took me some reckoning as what I paid for this book wasn’t pocked money for me. This book has been such an improvement in my technique that I recently ended up buying a second used copy just in case something bad happened to my first Competitive Shooting book.

The third edition of Competitive Shooting by Yur' Yev sure could use some re-writing, get a few updates here and there, etc but it's one great book for someone who has no other references available. Moreover, I have not yet seen any other source of information be it a book, a website, etc that could replace it. A few shooters may be lucky enough to have a coach or shooting courses available but most of the world does not.

Therefore, I'm all for a reprint of the third edition of Competitive Shooting by Yur' Yev until there's a newer book that can replace it. If there's some newer information coming from China or anywhere else then I'd be all for a translation in English as well.

Anonymous wrote:until there's a newer book that can replace it.

There is the crux of it. The old book might be old and obsolete, but what's out there? We have to work with what we have.

Do we look at it as a sport that needs a host of youth to feed it some small number of champions, or do we look at youth that we would like to teach a sport for their benefit and enjoyment as best we can and if champions emerge, great.

In asking the NRA to reprint the Yur'Yev book, you assume that the NRA really has much interest in competitive shooting these days, other than paying lip service to it.

The following is a very small sampling of the types of articles which used to appear in the American Rifleman and American Marksman:

Daniels, Frank; "Do The Eyes Have It?," American Rifleman, March 1981.

Etzel, Edward; "Physical Fitness, The Key to Improved Performance on the Firing Line," American Marksman, August 1979.

Etzel, Edward and Riesterer, Uve; "Air Rifle Shooting," American Rifleman, May 1982.

Kalinichenko, N.; "How Soviets View Aiming Problems," American Rifleman, September 1970.

Keyes, Michael J.; "Weight Lifting for the Pistol Shooter," American Marksman, January 1981.

Keyes, Michael J.; "Shooter's Elbow," American Marksman, May 1980.

Nygord, Don; "Winning is in the Mind," American Marksman, December 1979.

Pullum, William C.; "Mental Training," American Marksman, November 1979.

U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit; "Match Pressure," American Marksman, February 1979.

Vande Zande, Ernest J.; "How to Plan to Win," American Rifleman, April 1982.

Vande Zande, Ernest J.; "Prone to Win," American Rifleman, April 1981.

They were thoughtful articles prepared by people who had more than some small clue of what they were talking about. The decision not to include such articles in the Rifleman is a management business decision. If they didn't want to include articles about competitive shooting in the Rifleman, then they could have made Shooting Sports USA the NRA's bible of competitive shooting in size and context similar to the Rifleman, American Hunter, America's First Freedom, or Shooting Illustrated. That they did not, again speaks to management decisions regarding the use of resources for competitive shooting vice other NRA programs. Instead, USA Shooting News (USA Shooting) and On the Mark (CMP) are much better technical journals, and On the Mark is intended for kids. Shooting Sports USA was generally useless for anything other than an untimely list of up-coming matches, and now they are doing away with the magazine and posting on-line. Given the history of the NRA as the U.S. shooting organization, that is a very sorry statement of fact.

The following is a list of some of the very best shooting guides to American style shooting ever published, less Yur'Yev's. The NRA once published them, but they are now long out of print. I would be somewhat surprised if anyone who has come into the sport in the last 10 years has ever seen most of them:

Anderson, Gary L. (Editor); Highpower Match Rifle Shooting, (Clinic Transcript), Volume I, Washington, D.C.: National Rifle Association, 1980.

Anderson, Gary L. (Editor); Highpower Match Rifle Shooting, (Clinic Transcript), Volume II, Washington, D.C.: National Rifle Association, 1981

Landers, Daniel M., and Hunt, Karen J., Shooting Sports Research, Washington, DC, National Rifle Association, 1988. This was supposed to be a continuing project, but only the one volume was ever published. There is a lot more research out there since 1988.

Ross, Ellen (Editor); Highpower Match Rifle Shooting, (Clinic Transcript), Volume III Washington, D.C.: National Rifle Association, 1985

Ross, Ellen (Editor); Smallbore Prone Rifle Shooting, (Clinic Transcript), Volume 1, Washington, D.C.: National Rifle Association, 1982.

Ross, Ellen (Editor); Smallbore Prone Rifle Shooting, (Clinic Transcript), Volume 2, Washington, D.C.: National Rifle Association, 1983.

Ross, Ellen (Editor) Three Gun Bullseye Pistol Shooting. (Clinic Transcript), Volume 7; Washington, DC, National Rifle Association, 1987.

Yur'Yev, A. A.; Competitive Shooting. Washington, D.C.: National Rifle Association, 1985. (English translation edited by Gary Anderson).

There needs to be a U.S. organization out there publishing serious work on competitive shooting. Just don't expect the NRA to be it.

Regards,
Don

Don:

Great work as always! In your opinion, do you think a "peer reviewed" (or at least "editorially reviewed") journal of shooting training and physiology might be useful?

A mix of more rigorous & practitioner focused articles . . . a blend of science and practice?

Readership primarily coaches/trainers and high-end competitors . . . "The American Journal of Marksmanship" or some such . . .

<without the ridiculous level of "product placement" and puff pieces the American Rifleman is now rife with>

Steve

In checking out amazon.de, there appear to be a number of books in German addressing olympic style pistol for which the reviews are very good. I am planning to order a couple different titles once I can figure out how to get them bundled into one shipment to the US...

I suspect the good books may be out there, just not in English.

I contacted the NRA as per the original post, and they were unaware of any plans to distribute the book again. I recommended they try distributing it as a PDF file. I'm sure it would be hard to justify the physical printing of this book considering the specialized material. PDF would remove that hurdle. My Russian is far, far too rusty to read the versions that currently floating around the Internet. Given the age of the material, it seems like the author or his heirs might be willing to negotiate the rights to online distribution. Perhaps a lump sum, and the NRA makes it available free online? I can dream, I guess...

johnRW wrote:Given the age of the material, it seems like the author or his heirs might be willing to negotiate the rights to online distribution. Perhaps a lump sum, and the NRA makes it available free online? I can dream, I guess...

That's a very good idea. It could actually generate some revenue if it featured ads the way almost all websites do. Our host has a good selection of materials and I wonder what it would take to get the rights to post more. In the alternative, the NRA or maybe more appropriately USAS would consider posting stuff it already has the rights to with plenty of ads for membership and solicitations for contributions -- might be a sufficient sweetner?

As another idea, profitable companies with a vested interest in the sports such as Eley might consider sponsoring or commissioning an update or rewrite of this classic work? There has to be a successful coach out there who can write and might be convinced to put together a book manuscript? In english even? ;)

(and PS, I am an NRA member and ask anyone who will listen to join the NRA -- can't engage in shooting sports without guns and ammo :)

And it occurs to me that Brian Zins is living proof that the NRA does still support and encourage shooting sports. If anyone can make something happen, he can.

I actually did request that they give me permission to convert it to a digital format for free distribution (with proper credit to them of course). They haven't responded to that one yet but it's only been a couple of days since I made the request.

Who knows, stranger things have happened.

I found mine on amazon two months ago for $35. A pretty fair price concerning the wealth of info in contains. Looking on amazon today I see the least expensive is $80.
For once I did good.
But personally...even at 80 bucks it's a steal.

johnRW wrote:I contacted the NRA as per the original post, and they were unaware of any plans to distribute the book again.

I got the same answer from them.

johnRW wrote:Given the age of the material, it seems like the author or his heirs might be willing to negotiate the rights to online distribution. Perhaps a lump sum, and the NRA makes it available free online? I can dream, I guess...

Didn't Yur' Yev keep up with his work after the 3rd edition of his book as we know it?

Hi.

First off, I have my copy of Yur' Yev and I've referred to it many times in the past. When I wrote my homework assignment for my ISSF Pistol Coach C License, I referenced and re-interpreted Yur'Yev. The comments from the instructors: "Yur' Yev is a good source, but that material is over 50 years old. You should also look elsewhere." (I had several sources, but thought that they wanted me to emphasize Yur' Yev. Live and learn.)

Yur' Yev does have a lot of information, but it isn't a shooter's guide. It is a coach's book. The athlete doesn't need to know the overwhelming majority of the information that is found within it. Time reading Yur' Yev can be spent better elsewhere.

An aspiring athlete could take the NRA/USA Shooting pistol coaching courses. The materials are concise, up-to-date and will have an immediate impact on your shooting/training/coaching. Talk to Marcus Raab and the NRA and get set up.

You could also read something more modern and readable. (I know the translator, and mean no offence to Gary: it is difficult to read. More precisely, I imagine anything technical translated from Russian isn't pleasant to read.) Here are a few titles:

Pistol Shooting as a Sport by Hans Standl
An Introduction to Pistol Shooting in Australia (various authors for the Amateur Pistol Shooting Union of Australia)
Pistol Shooting by Laslo Antal and Ragnar Skanaker
Target Pistol Shooting by K.B. Hinchliffe
Competitive Pistol Shooting by Dr. Laslo Antal
Mental Training in Shooting by Anne Grethe Jeppesen and Anne Marte Pensgaard

Overall, I'd recommend Competitive Shooting as the most indepth AND readable book. I have around 20-30 shooting books (hmmmmmmmm, maybe I should count them tonight), but those are the one's that I suggest people get and read.

The ISSF Journals have many good articles, so I'd suggest getting a subscription. They are very specific in their articles, but if you get enough of them, you can build a sound knowledge base.

As well, I'd look at the Australian Pistol Shooters Bulletin from within http://pistol.org.au. They have up to date material being written by their coaching staff. Again, it is credible and modern. It is even being re-printed by the ISSF.

Why this post? Yur' Yev is good, but I wouldn't recommend giving it to new shooters or someone training at the highest levels. It is difficult to read and out of date. It doesn't really address the needs of either group. Simply stated, there is better material available if you look hard enough.

Regards.
Patrick Haynes
Pistol Coach
Canadian CISM Shooting Team

That’s about it for the list of publications, short list to say the least!

I suggest that the ISSF journals be given a serious look and many are available online.

For completeness, I would add -
Leatherdale, Frank and Paul, Successful Pistol Shooting, The Crowood Press Ltd, Marlborough, England, 1995.