York Jubilee Air Rifle & Pistol Club
Disciplines
First of all, forget any impressions you may have formed about air rifle and air pistol shooting after reading newspapers or watching the news. Yes, airguns are misused, but this is more of a reflection on the current state of our society than anything else. A whole range of other inanimate objects are misused, from knives to motor cars, but this doesn’t mean we should allow criminals and disaffected youths to deny us the pleasure of a sport which is enjoyed by millions of people in over 150 countries all over the world. As one our top Olympic .22 rifle shooters observed recently : “Should we stop formula 1 racing because joy riders cause havoc on public highways?”
It is a sport which can be enjoyed by the able-bodied and by people with disabilities. Both rifle and pistol can be shot from a wheelchair very successfully. Neither is poor eyesight necessarily a bar to taking part. As long as your sight can be corrected by prescription lenses, you are in business. In the UK there is even shooting for blind people, where the shooter is guided to the centre of the target by sound. It is also a sport for all ages and shooters in their seventies or even older can still take part successfully.
Airgun target shooting at 10 metres is a national, international and Olympic sport. In fact, the women’s 10 metre air rifle event is the first medal to be competed for in the Olympic games. Although it gets little publicity here, it has a huge following in Europe, with the Scandinavians, Germans and Eastern Bloc countries being particularly successful.
The targets that are used in national and international 10 metre airgun shooting are shown below (well, will be later! To follow.). To hit a ten on the air rifle target, one edge of the .177 pellet must hit a spot half a millimetre across. For air pistol, the shooter must hit a ten ring which is about the size of an aspirin tablet. It is not easy!
It is a technical sport. Modern airguns are highly sophisticated pieces of equipment capable of pin point accuracy. Most target airguns are now powered by pre-compressed air and have reservoirs which are filled up from a high pressure air source such as a diving bottle.
If you want to try this demanding sport, contact the Secretary, details can be found on the contacts page. The first three visits are free!