Competition Formats
Most of us enjoy shooting our airguns in a casual setting -- plinking at tin cans or cardboard boxes on a friend's farm land, out on the back forty. And you may have pleasant childhood memories of your first BB gun.
Airgun shooting can also be a highly competitive sport. While few of us are Olympic athletes, many of us enjoy the competitive yet friendly atmosphere of local matches. Competitions with friends help in skill improvement and knowledge expansion.There are mainly three types of airgun competitions: field target, benchrest and silhouette. The Sacramento Valley Airgun Club concentrates on field target shooting.
If you'd like to try some bench rest or metal silhouette shooting with airguns, we heartily recommend you visit our friends at the Diablo Rod and Gun Club in Concord, CA. The Diablo club also hosts some great field target events.
What is Field Target?
In a nutshell...
Estimate the distance to the target, adjust the scope or hold-over to compensate for the trajectory of the pellet, and shoot at a round kill-zone on the target.
For air pistols, the targets are placed between 10 and 35 yards from the shooter, with kill-zones between 1/2" and 2" in diameter. For air rifles, targets are placed between 10 and 55 yards from the shooter, with kill-zones between 3/8" and 2" in diameter. The targets are reactive silhouettes of typical airgun small-game quarry, that fall when hit in the kill-zone.
Scoring is simple: one point for each hit (target falls) and a zero for each miss.
More details
For the most official document of rules on field target matches, please refer to the AAFTA's handbook. To find a field target club in your area, please visit http://www.aafta.org/member-clubs.html.
The term "Field Target" refers to the shooting of targets in the field that resembles animals to be hunted. Each target has a base, a face plate and a paddle. The face plate of a target has an opening that determines the "kill zone", and it can vary from fractions of an inch to 2 inches. The paddle is placed behind the opening.
When a pellet with sufficient energy hits the paddle by flying through the opening on the face plate, the paddle falls back. This triggers a mechanism to make the entire face plate fall over as well. If the face plate falls over, it can be reset by pulling a string attached to the face plate.
When the face plate of a target falls over, it is considered a "hit". Otherwise, even if a pellet hits the face plate, it is still considered a "miss". A "hit" counts as one point, all the points are added as the score of a match.
In a typical match, there are 10 to 15 lanes. Each lane has two targets. Each shooter has two shots on each target. This means that each lane carries up to four points. Shooters move from one lane to the next until all targets of all lanes are shot twice.
Divisions
Within Field Target, there are three main divisions of shooters:
Open division
Refer to the AAFTA handbook for details of this division. In summary, there is no gun or shooter support other than a "bum bag" up to a certain thickness. A shooter can use harnesses and straps to improve stability. However, there is no limitation of scope magnification, and a shooter can turn turrets (elevation and windage) while aiming at a target.
Unlimited scope magnification means a shooter can make use of a high power (24x or more) scope to differentiate target distances with more precision. Being able to turn turrets also means a shooter does not need to rely on "eyeball" hold over/under and left/right. Once the turrets are dialed in, a shooter can concentrate on placing the cross hair on target.
However, not being to use any support also means a shooter needs to figure out sitting and bracing postures to hold, aim and shoot with stability. This can pose difficulties to certain individuals while prove to be an advantage to others.
Most air rifles of 0.22 or smaller caliber shooting at 20 foot-pound energy (measured at muzzle) can be used.
Hunter division
In contrast to open division, hunter shooters can use a non-attached bipod to support the gun and a backless chair/bucket/stool to support the shooter himself/herself. On the other hand, the scope magnification is limited to up to 16x. Furthermore, turrets cannot be used during a match.
This is a trade-off compared to open division. With shooting sticks and a bucket, many shooters can find a comfortable and yet stable shooting posture. However, the price of this advantage is the limitation of scope magnification. At 16x, even a good scope starts to lose the ability to precisely differentiate distances at 40 yards and more.
The restriction on the rifle is similar to that of open division.
WFTF division
WFTF (World Field Target Federation) division is like open division, except that 12 foot-pound is the maximum energy allowed. Furthermore, straps and harnesses cannot be used.
Compared to open division, WFTF division has the additional difficulty of shooting a gun that has less energy. This translates to more wind sensitivity and more pellet drop to compensate. Also because harnesses and straps cannot be used in WFTF division, a shooter has to find stable shooting positions that only rely on bracing and posture.