“Don’t forget we’re off to the Club tonight”, is a phrase I often hear myself saying every Saturday morning to my boyfriend. The Club mentioned being Scarborough District Rifle Club (SDRC), a 25-yard indoor range for .22 rifle, air rifle and air pistol, where members can shoot a range of targets or cards for both internal and external competitions. It’s our Saturday night out, often involving a pizza takeaway on the way there, and I love it.
I’ve been shooting air rifles at Scarborough Club now for just under seven years. Air rifle shooting in general has been something my boyfriend introduced me to when we first met, having previously not being something I had ever ventured into. My boyfriend, Rob, is the owner of Pickering Guns, and he frankly lives and breathes air rifles. He’s been shooting for way longer than I have, but when we both went to the club all those years ago and he introduced me to the range and other members, I gave it a go. My first time pulling the trigger was with a BSA Lincoln Jefferies Patent with open sights (an old gun, made around 1930 and is still used to shoot bell target competitions), at a ‘fun shoot’ with knock-down metal targets placed at various distances down the range. I happily shot all of them down, much to my and everyone’s astonishment, and realised how fun it really was. I haven’t looked back since.
TYPES OF TARGET SHOOTING
Target shooting is represented at various levels among many disciplines across the UK. They vary from internal club competitions hosted by NSRA (National Small-Bore Rifle Association) affiliated shooting ranges or clubs, like mine at Scarborough, to external competitions, or informally postals, (see below), to hunter field target (HFT), to bell target and the Olympics. How you shoot depends on what you’re most comfortable with, what you’re best at, or both. There’s standing, which is what I do: you stand and shoot, simply! There’s also benchrest, which is incredibly popular, there’s around 20 divisions in a number of competitions hosted at my club. In essence, this involves ‘resting’ your gun on an approved bench or flat surface to shoot. There’s also prone: this largely includes rifle shooters laying on the floor. We can’t forget the pistols either, something which I’ve tried, and I find it quite difficult! This involves standing to shoot, with one hand holding the pistol, shooting at targets usually, although not always, at shorter distances.
PELLETS, POWERS AND CALIBRES
Airguns typically fire lead pellets. A pellet is like a tiny lead shuttlecock. These pellets come in various forms, styles, weights and calibres. Personally, I only shoot air rifles with .177 calibre as I only shoot targets. This is the most favoured calibre in air rifle target shooting. .177 being an imperial calibre measurement referring to the internal diameter of the gun’s barrel, effectively 0.177th of an inch, or 4.5mm in metric. In the UK, we have a maximum power limit, under which an air rifle may be possessed without a licence. This limit is sub 12fpe (foot pounds energy). The most common calibres in sub 12fpe airguns are .177. This is the smallest calibre and lightest pellet which means it achieves high velocities while still being under 12fpe. This makes them ideal for target shooters. The other common calibre in a sub 12fpe airgun is .22, or 5.5mm in metric. .22 can be used in target shooting but is most commonly used for pest control. The larger diameter pellet and greater mass results in more impact on the target which ideal for shooting small game.
TYPES OF AIR RIFLE
I have two air rifles. I have an Air Arms S300 which I’ve been using now for many years, and a gorgeous orange and black Steyr LG100. They are both PCPs (pre-charged pneumatic). In basic terms, a PCP air rifle includes an air cylinder within the action, which you simply fill full of compressed air from a diving bottle or hand pump. You fill most PCP air rifles somewhere around a whopping 207 bar, or 3000 psi. To put this into perspective, a car tyre takes somewhere around 30 psi. Upon firing, a small piece of this pressure is released, propelling the pellet down and out the barrel. PCPs are very popular due to their accuracy, efficiency and have zero recoil. Unlike spring air rifles, many PCPs have a magazine that holds multiple pellets. My air rifles are not magazine loaded, so although I have to cock the gun via a small lever and re-load one pellet at a time to shoot, this gives me a bit of resting time and helps me to maintain my stance, stability, and keep my breathing under control throughout the entire time I’m shooting a round of cards.
It’s not just PCP air rifles though. My other half shoots using a spring air rifle. These involve a coiled spring and a piston to generate the power required to shoot the pellet. When the air rifle is cocked, typically by pulling down a lever within the action, this spring is compressed and upon pulling the trigger, the spring pushes the piston, compressing air, thus propelling the pellet down and out the barrel. Although these types of air rifles are generally more affordable and very reliable, the user needs to cock the gun manually each time a shot wants to be fired, which for me and my standing shooting isn’t very desirable!
I love my Air Arms S300; it’s won me a lot of medals over the years. If you’re lucky enough to find an S300 like mine, which are now over 20 years old and can be purchased used for under £400, that’s brilliant. Otherwise, a spring air rifle is a great choice, as a good one like a Weihrauch, can be purchased new from between £300 – £500.
COMPETITIONS
Within my Club, I shoot two standing competitions. The first is the internal SDRC 20-yard standing air rifle. As the name suggests, this competition runs only within the Club and its members who sign up each season to shoot it. There are currently six competitors, with the aim being you shoot as accurately as possible to win the highest aggregate (aggregate = total combined scores) and the overall competition at the end of the season. There are four rounds, with each round consisting of six cards. Only ten shots are permitted per card, with the highest score per shot being 10 (the centre of the target). Each card is worth 100 points. Each card’s total once shot is added up to the overall round’s total.
My other competition is the external (regional) Yorkshire Small-Bore Rifle Association (YSRA) 20-yard sporting air rifle. This is a postal competition where completed cards have to be stamped, marked, posted (although nowadays results are sent via email) and verified by the competition’s YSRA organiser, where results are updated weekly. There are 10 rounds, with each round consisting of four cards. Each card allows five shots to allow a total score out of 50. Therefore, each round will be out of 200. Like with the internal competition, the aim is to shoot as accurately as possible to accumulate the highest aggregate. For this competition though, you are shooting both as an individual competitor and as a club team. To break this down, as of writing I’m currently leading my individual aggregate as of up to round five is 923. To create the team score, this score is added to my fellow club team mate scores, three other competitors creating a total team aggregate of 2732, which puts us first out of six other Yorkshire clubs. If we continue this trend, then I will be on track to win two medals for this season; one as an individual competitor, and one for being part of the winning team.
SCORING
For both these competitions, shots on the target are scored using a .22 calibre gauge. This is so competitors shooting with .22 rifles can also shoot in this league. The best score per shot is a 10 which is awarded for hitting the centre of the target. Expanding outwards from the centre are nine further rings. Each ring moving outwards drops a point, so nine, eight, seven and so on. Scores are inward gauging, meaning that if the pellet breaks the line of the next inner circle, the higher point is awarded.
SIGHTS AND OPTICS
My competitions permit the use of optical sights. More commonly referred to as a scope, they are an essential piece of equipment used in various forms of shooting. A scope contains a series of internal lenses used to magnify what you are seeing through it. They also contain some form of reticle which is imposed over the image and used to aim. The shooter can adjust the reticle’s position via windage and elevation turrets positioned on the scope tube. These adjust the reticle through tiny movements up, down, left or right. The shooter can also adjust the parallax, which adjusts the focus down range, and the ocular lens, to adjust the focus of the reticle. Scopes come in endless sizes, styles and configurations for different uses but that would involve a whole other article!
Many other target competitions, for instance like those seen in the Olympics and bell target, only permit aperture sights. These are designed for maximum precision without the added benefit of zoom. Put simply, they consist of a rear sight featuring a circular hole, or the aperture. The shooter is required to look through this hole and effectively line up with the front sight at the end of the barrel before pulling the trigger.
WOMEN IN TARGET SHOOTING
In the seven divisions of the YSRA sporting air rifle competition, I am the only woman of the 47 shooters (including me) participating. I also, am the only female member at Scarborough Club. I often get asked why there aren’t more women taking part in this sport, and it could be that for many years, target shooting has traditionally been a male dominated sport, therefore maybe putting off female shooters. Could this further suggest that female shooters simply just don’t view target shooting as an inclusive sport? I’ve met a few fellow female target shooters at various shooting shows and other club competitions. They are always incredibly passionate about shooting, and tend to be very good shots! Despite this, women in target shooting are sadly still a minority.
While researching for this article, I got in touch with the NSRA’s CEO, Dave Froggett to obtain the Association’s view on women in shooting, but also target shooting participation in general. His response is as follows:
“In terms of direct members of the NSRA, here is the breakdown: 3043 total individual members; 2564 males and 479 females. In our affiliated clubs, we estimate there are around 32,000 shooters. I guess, in the absence of more information, from these figures, you say the proportion of individual members is 15.7% female, then there could be over 5000 female shooters in clubs. This is clearly a minority in the sport, and it really shouldn’t be. If you look at the performance end of the sport, the girls and women do very well indeed against the guys. In competitions that are not split by gender e.g., prone, there are quite a number of high-end X Class lady shooters. The fact is, gender is not impactful on performance in most shooting sports.”
I very much agree with Dave, and believe that women who do shoot whether it’s clays with a shotgun or targets with an air rifle or rifle at your local club, love their sport and also wish to see more women in shooting in general. I think perhaps that having more women involved in target shooting would make the sport better as a whole.
WANT TO GET INVOLVED?
If you would like to give target shooting a go, then it is so easy to get involved. The NSRA host ‘Try a Shoot’ taster sessions at both their Bisley and Aldersley grounds, but there are over 800 NSRA affiliated clubs across the country as well. If you don’t have your own air rifle or pistol, then that’s ok, as most clubs have their own guns available for use under supervision, but it’s best to get in touch with their membership secretary and range conducting officers first to check. To find out more, head to nsra.co.uk where you can search for your local NSRA club and find out more about competitions, memberships and qualifications. And don’t forget, The Country Girls UK are an incredible, supportive and like-minded community of ladies where no matter what your worries or experience regarding a new pursuit, I would highly encourage you to reach out to them to give you a helping hand with any shooting journey!
Target shooting is an incredible sport. It promotes self-control and responsibility, hand-eye coordination and balance as well as positive mental well-being. Since that very first day of picking up that old air rifle for a bit of a plink that day, target shooting has since become a huge part of my life and I’m proud of where this shooting journey has taken me. I’ve learnt so much about the incredible discipline and challenge that is standing target shooting. It’s built up my self-confidence and given me many opportunities.
