Your first air rifle competition

The ladder starts at the club. Svenska Skyttesportförbundet (SvSF) says its competitions reach from the local club match to the World Championships and the Olympics. In Germany, the DSB’s rules leave the club championship to the club; above it come, typically, district, regional and state championships, the state result deciding who goes to the nationals. Target Rifle Australia (TRA) tells shooters to enter as many competitions as they can: they are graded, so nothing stops a beginner.

Gentler still is a postal match, shot at your own club and sent in for scoring:

• The NSRA’s winter and summer postal competitions include air rifle standing. Each round is shot on your home range within a set period, witnessed by an authorised person, and the scorecards go to your scorer.
• The CMP’s Aces Postal, for junior and adult air rifle shooters, is shot each quarter on paper targets the CMP mails out and scores, or on electronic targets.

A round on your own firing point, clubmates beside you, is as gentle as a match gets. Ask which leagues your club enters.

Who may enter, and how, is each federation’s business:

• Britain: NSRA competitions may require NSRA membership. Each competition’s page has its entry forms, and affiliated clubs share theirs in the NSRA’s club area.
• Sweden: SvSF asks for membership of an SvSF club, the Skyttekort for the discipline and a valid competition licence, a fee needed from an age SvSF sets at matches between two or more clubs (with exceptions), but not for training. Entries go through SkytteTA, which flags a missing licence; the organiser may then refuse the start.
• Germany: from district championships up, you may start only if your club entered you in time, the organiser admitted you and the fee is paid (DSB Sportordnung 0.7.4.1). Tell your club early.
• United States: the CMP takes Aces entries through its online Competition Tracker.

The invitation (programme, inbjudan, Ausschreibung) gives the classes, the course of fire, the deadline and the fee. Read it twice, and ask the organiser about the rest.

A club match may have no check at all: the CMP’s junior rulebook says equipment control is not mandatory, though it encourages clubs that hold matches to own trigger weights (CMP 3PAR Rules 6.4). An ISSF championship always has one:

Before

An equipment control service is open to every athlete before the competitions, and the organiser says where and when.ISSF 6.7.6.1; 6.7.6.2 a

Seals

Rifle jackets, trousers and shoes carry a seal with a serial number registered to the athlete.ISSF 6.7.6.2 e

Cylinder

Your air or CO2 cylinder must be within the maker’s validity date, ten years at most; Equipment Control may check it.ISSF 6.7.6.2 h

Your kit

An equipment control officer, range officer or jury member may pick up your kit, the rifle included, without asking, but in your presence.ISSF 6.2.1.7

Under the CMP’s rules, where there is a check you report in your shooting clothing with all your kit, and a fault found before the match may be fixed and retested (CMP 3PAR Rules 7.4.1–7.4.2). The DSB makes you answer for your own equipment and forbids refusing the check (DSB Sportordnung 0.10). Both disqualify for a fault found in a check after the match (CMP 3PAR Rules 7.4.4; DSB Sportordnung 0.10).

So use a check before the match whenever there is one: a fault found then can still be fixed. What the clothing rules allow is in Air rifle equipment beyond the rifle.

The range officer runs the match by command. The ISSF’s core commands are LOAD, START, STOP and UNLOAD (ISSF 6.2.3.1); a club may use its own words, and electronic targets can show them on your monitor (CMP 3PAR Rules 7.5.2). The ISSF rules:

Load

Load only on the firing point, and only after the command LOAD, START or READY.ISSF 6.2.3.2

Stop

On STOP, shooting stops at once. On UNLOAD, ask the range officer before you unload an air gun.ISSF 6.2.3.6

Safety flag

A rifle out of its case carries a safety flag before you are called to the line, when you leave the firing point, after firing and whenever anyone must go forward.ISSF 6.2.2.2 a

Hands off

While anyone is forward of the firing line, nobody handles a gun.ISSF 6.2.2.7; CMP 3PAR Rules 2.10

Leaving

Before you leave the firing point, unload the rifle, open its action, insert a safety flag and confirm it is empty; the range officer then checks.ISSF 6.2.2.4

Two moments catch beginners. Still loaded after STOP-UNLOAD? Stay in position, muzzle downrange, and raise your hand for the range officer (CMP 3PAR Rules 2.9). Disturbed as you fire? Keep the rifle pointing downrange and tell the range officer at once (ISSF 6.11.7). And never turn round on the firing point with a loaded rifle: the DSB disqualifies for it (DSB Sportordnung 0.9.8.2).

Before the shots count, you get time to set up and fire sighters; the invitation says how long, and how the sighters work. Use the time the same way everywhere:

• Set up exactly as at the club: stand, pellets and tools in their usual places.
• Build your position and check your natural point of aim before you load.
• Use your sighters to find a group, not a ten, and move the sights for a group, never for one shot: see Reading your shot groups.
• Once the shots count, change nothing that was working.

Then you are on your own. At ISSF matches, an athlete on the firing line may speak only with jury members and range officials, and coaching must be non-verbal (ISSF 6.12.5.1). A club match may allow more; ask before you count on your coach.

Expect them. SvSF’s course material says you often feel butterflies as your round starts, that everyone does, and that it usually sharpens you a little; competing should be fun, never a compulsion.

Anna Janssen, a German rifle shooter quoted in ISSF news, says small changes in tension, expectations or self-talk can visibly shift the group, and that young shooters can learn simple routines, breathing control and constructive inner dialogue at small competitions. Gary Anderson, writing for coaches of new shooters in the CMP’s newsletter, gives the first steps:

• Take a relaxation pause before you start to aim: two or three breaths, letting your body go as you breathe out.
• Follow a shot plan, the same few steps for every shot.
• Stay cool no matter what: nobody watching should be able to tell whether your last shot was good or bad.
• Set a goal you can reach today, such as following your shot plan for every shot.

A bad shot will come. How you react in the next 30 to 50 seconds is often more important than the mistake itself, Janssen says. Lower the rifle, muzzle downrange, breathe, and run your plan again.

The CMP’s Shooter’s Journal suggests a written equipment checklist, one for ranges with electronic targets and one for paper. A start:

• The rifle in its case, with a safety flag.
• A cylinder that is full and in date. At ISSF matches, filling or changing one means leaving the firing point with the range officer’s permission, and no extra time (ISSF 6.11.2.3).
• The pellets you train with: a match is no day to try new ones.
• Jacket, trousers, boots and glove, or what your class allows; the stand; your tools.
• Your papers. At DSB matches you carry a competition pass (Wettkampfpass) to every start and, from an age the DSB sets, official photo ID (DSB Sportordnung 0.7.3).
• Water, food, a warm layer, a notebook and a pen.

At ISSF championships, phones stay off the field of play (ISSF 6.7.4.4). Arrive early: at ISSF matches, a late athlete may still shoot but gets no extra time, unless the delay is proven to be beyond their control (ISSF 6.11.4). For travelling with the rifle, see the law where you live.

Check your score as soon as it is posted. At ISSF championships, preliminary results go up after each relay (ISSF 6.14.1). Postal results come later: the NSRA has an online results portal, and the CMP posts the Aces results each quarter.

Then write the day down. The CMP’s Shooter’s Journal has you note that it was a competition, which one, at least one thing you did well and one problem to solve; TRA’s diary adds how you felt and what you learned about the competition. Anderson calls it bad advice to throw away a bad target: find out why the score was bad, and what you should have done.

At a club or postal match, photograph your cards before they go to the scorer, and now and then shoot a full practice match at the club, on the clock. Shooter scores your practice-match targets from a photo, on the phone or with AI depending on the target (AI scans past the free ones use credits), shows the group size and where the shots landed, and follows your scores per gun. Typed scores are free; Pro adds unlimited scans, saved targets and shot-pattern analysis.