How to start shooting 10 m air pistol

Start with a club, not a shop. In Sweden the pistol clubs belong to Svenska Pistolskytteförbundet (SPSF) or Svenska Skyttesportförbundet (SvSF), which has a club search and counts about 100 000 members in a little over 1 000 clubs; the SPSF welcomes you, it says, whether your goal is a Swedish championship or shooting pistol once a week with friends at the club. In Britain the NSRA lists its affiliated clubs in a club finder; in Germany the DSB’s own club search lists only part of its clubs, so ask your Landesverband; in France the FFTir counts 1 663 affiliated clubs in 28 regional leagues, and its magazine says the first thing to do is to join one, affiliated to the federation, since that is how you get a licence.

What you are looking for is a try-out: one evening on the club’s pistols, with someone to show you. The NSRA runs Try a Shoot days at its Bisley and Aldersley venues and says many of its clubs do the same, and that most clubs let you use their equipment so you can see whether you like it before investing; its air pistol page asks for no experience, just curiosity and the courage to begin. A Swedish club, Fryksdalens PK, puts it the same way: you need not have taken the pistol course to join its air pistol evenings, and that can be a good way to find out whether pistol shooting is for you.

Generally your first shoot is with a low-powered .177 air rifle or air pistol, the NSRA says, and there will be a safety briefing and help to get you familiar with what is involved. The French federation’s magazine makes the first training a step you cannot skip: before you even touch a gun, you learn to respect it, and the initiation is with compressed air, which for pistol the federation shoots at 10 m. Range rules come next; the ones the NSRA gives beginners, treat every gun as loaded and never point one at anyone among them, are in How to start shooting 10 m air rifle, and they are the same on a pistol range.

Then you shoot. The club lends the pistol: Fryksdalens PK has air pistols to borrow and says there is always an experienced shooter in the hall to instruct, and Swedish beginners’ courses include the loan of a pistol and its pellets in the fee. Expect to start with support. The CMP’s guide to junior pistol shooting notes that very few young shooters begin with the arm and shoulder strength to hold a pistol steady with one hand, so its progressive programme starts seated, with the butt of the grip on a support on a table, then standing with the pistol in a counterbalanced stand, then one-handed and unsupported. A club will shorten this for an adult, but the order is the same.

How to stand and hold the pistol once you are on your own is in One-handed pistol stance; the hand on the grip is in Fitting an air pistol grip. Wear flat shoes and clothes you can move in, and ask the club about glasses. Pellets are made of lead, the NSRA warns: wash your hands afterwards.

The CMP’s guide lays out the order. In the first live-fire drills a new shooter shoots groups of five or ten shots and begins to adjust the sights to put the next groups in the centre; after a few months of dedicated practice they can advance to 20, 30, 40 or even 60-shot courses of fire, and after several months of learning they are ready to try a competition. Dry firing, the guide adds, is one of the most convenient and efficient ways to improve, because it can be done almost anywhere, especially at home; most air pistols now have a dry-fire mechanism for it.

In Sweden the first months are usually a course. Clubs teach pistolskyttekortet, the federation’s card, in five to a dozen evenings of theory and practice and a test at the end; Ronneby PSK’s course, with the air pistol as the pistol you learn on, covers the rules, safety on the range, the guns, basic technique with the air pistol and a written and practical test. The card is registered with the SPSF and comes to you through the club, and you need it to shoot in competitions outside your own club. Then the training begins: the shooting test for the card is one most people pass without much trouble, Tierps PSK writes, and the challenge for many comes afterwards, when regular training is needed to reach the results that an own licence takes.

Shoot the club’s pistol all season. Ask for the same one each time, so that its trigger and its sights become yours, and leave buying until you know what suits you: Västerås Pistolskyttar is plain that you do not buy a pistol straight away, and the match pistols you will choose between then are a post of their own. Sighting in the club pistol so that your groups sit in the middle is in How to sight in an air pistol; in Sweden, the SPSF notes, the air pistol range is also where the firearm shooters go in winter to keep their hand in.

The money goes out in this order:

• The try-out, priced by the club; a German club, Sportschützen Beckum, offers three months of free trial training with the air pistol and the clothing lent.
• The beginners’ course, in Sweden the pistolskyttekort course, which includes the loan of a pistol, pellets, the course material and often the card fee and the first year’s membership.
• Membership of the club, and the federation’s fee through it. At an FFTir club you need the club and the federation’s licence; what a licence means in law is in the licence guides.
• Pellets. The CMP notes that air pistol pellets cost about a fifth of smallbore practice ammunition, and the clubs supply them during a course.
• Your own pistol, once you have decided to commit, after a season on the club’s.

No federation publishes a typical fee, so the figures are the clubs’ own, read on 16 October 2026. Five Swedish pistol clubs priced their beginners’ course between 1 300 and 4 500 kr: Ronneby PSK at 1 500 kr with the pistol, the pellets and the test included, Tierps PSK’s last course at 1 500 kr with the ammunition, the card fee and the year’s membership too (the course is paused), PK Ena in Enköping at 4 500 kr for ten range evenings with the theory, Västerås Pistolskyttar at 4 500 kr including the entry fee, the membership, ammunition, a borrowed pistol and hearing protection, and Fryksdalens PK at 1 300 kr plus a yearly fee, with an air pistol membership on its own at 250 kr a year. Västerås lists its air pistol section’s yearly fee at 800 kr for seniors and the SPSF’s fee at 330 kr, paid through the club. Ask your own club; the course is where the first money goes, and it buys the first season.

The sport is simple to describe and hard to do well. An ISSF match is 60 shots in 75 minutes on electronic targets, 90 on paper, after 15 minutes of preparation and sighting shots; national classes are shorter, the DSB’s youngest shooting 20 shots and the SPSF’s women, juniors and veterans 40. Every shot is fired standing, one-handed, free. The SvSF’s brochure says it in a sentence: pistol shooting is an exciting sport in which the point is not to tremble. The DSB adds what the trigger asks: a high degree of concentration, a special strength endurance and coordination, to release the shot at exactly the right moment.

A good score is the one above your last. The card you shoot, its rings and how a match is scored are on the ISSF 10 m air pistol target page; the Swedish national card is on the SPSF 10 m air pistol page. For a first goal, the SPSF’s Luftpistolmärket sets its bronze at 66 points for a ten-shot series, standing without a support hand, five times in a year, and its handbook describes the first-year shooter as the one who takes the card and the bronze, the second-year the silver, the third the gold, though the air pistol badges may be won in any order. The bronze and silver can be shot for before you are a member, under a club official. That is the ladder: a series, then a card, then a match.

Keep a score for every evening. Shooter keeps typed scores and shows the trend per gun, free, and scores the 10 m air pistol card from a photo on the phone, the first scans free, so a season’s progress is there to look at when the next series feels worse than the last.

In Sweden the air pistol is the first step on a road the federation has laid out, and its handbook states the steps a club follows before it certifies a member for a licence application. What each step requires in law, the ages, the time as a member, the activity, is in the Sweden guide; the road itself runs like this:

1. Join an SPSF club and take pistolskyttekortet, the course and its test. The card is registered with the federation and comes to you through the club.
2. Shoot. The handbook’s road for a new shooter is the badges: the Luftpistolmärket’s bronze, silver and gold, and in parallel, year by year, the Pistolskyttemärket shot on the 25 m card with the club’s firearm pistols, whose gold is the skill the federation’s certificate rests on.
3. Be an active member: the handbook’s rules for a club’s certificate ask for regular part in the club’s training and competitions, interest in the club’s work, and a hand when asked, as a competition official or with the chores at the range. The guide says how much activity the law counts and over what time: activity in the Sweden guide.
4. The club’s board decides the certificate, a föreningsintyg, at a board meeting and sends it to the police; a club may refuse, and must give its reasons if asked. The handbook names a .22 as the first firearm.
5. Apply for the licence. The skill test, the certificate form, the fee, the waiting time and the storage rules are in the Sweden guide, step by step; the badge that counts as proof of skill is in its skill-test section.

How long the road takes is the one question the clubs answer honestly. PK Ena writes that many pass the card but that doing what it takes to get a pistol of your own is harder, and that the wait for a place on its course is long; Tierps PSK counted three of the eleven shooters it trained in two years holding their own licence today. The road rewards the shooter who keeps coming on Tuesday evenings, and the air pistol is where those evenings are.

• Germany: the club from childhood, with the DSB’s Lichtschießen for children and the air pistol from the age the law sets; a club like Sportschützen Beckum lends the pistol for a free trial period. The ages and the way to a firearm are in the Germany guide.
• The United Kingdom: the club’s air pistol is where you start, with the NSRA’s Try a Shoot days; whether an air pistol needs a certificate, what Scotland asks, and why a cartridge pistol is a different road are in the UK guide.
• France: a club affiliated to the FFTir, its licence, the initiation at 10 m with compressed air, and for children the écoles de tir, taught only at 10 m with pistol, rifle or crossbow, with seven coloured target levels. The road to a cartridge pistol is in the France guide.
• The USA: the CMP’s guide says most junior programmes should start with air pistols, through the Progressive Position Pistol programme, with club matches or postal matches shot at the home range as the first competitions; it also says only a few clubs offer junior pistol at all. What a handgun needs is in the US guide.

Do I need a licence to start shooting air pistol?

That depends on the country and the gun: what a club’s air pistol needs on the club’s range, what owning one needs, and from what age, are in the licence guides, which also tell each country’s road to a cartridge pistol.

Can I start without my own pistol?

Yes, and you should. Clubs lend air pistols to beginners, the Swedish courses include one in the fee, and the federations say to shoot the club’s guns before you decide what to buy.

What is a good score for a beginner at 10 m air pistol?

One above your last. The SPSF’s bronze Luftpistolmärket, a ten-shot series standing, shot five times in a year, is the first-year goal its handbook sets; its level and the ones above it are on the ISSF 10 m air pistol target page.