The Fascinating Nitty Gritty of Paralympic Air Rifle Shooting

Shooting is a lesser-known Olympic and Paralympic sport, but one of the Game's oldest, having roots back to the 1896 Summer Olympics, and becoming a Paralympic sport in 1976.

Comparison size of a 10m air rifle paper target. Using electronic targets, athletes only see the black inner rings as a solid black, blurred dot downrange. (Image: Creative Commons)

So what's so hard about air rifle itself, my personal quest, that it rises to the level of Olympic and Paralympic medals? Glad you asked! As I often tell people, this isn't your kid's air gun.

Mastering this sport takes dedication, practice, and a commitment to precision shooting every day. To score in 10 meter air rifle, athletes are precisely hitting a 0.5 mm bullseye 10 m away (approximately 33 feet), putting a 0.177 in. lead pellet into a 0.180 in. hole 60 times within 50 minutes in prone, where my focus is currently. The kicker is that that actual bullseye is the size of a 12-point font's period at the end of a sentence at that 10 meter distance with no scope or other optics that are allowed to enhance what you are seeing.

One of my own paper targets held by a friend, showing how the .177 pellet just barely fits into the 9-ring.

To understand just how impressive this skill level is, most modern matches use electronic targets that measure our scores in tenths. So a perfect bullseye "10" can now be up to a 10.9, and each tenth below that is only a 0.25 mm difference at that 10 meter distance, just over the thickness of a human hair!

The prone position in Paralympic air rifle in my classification division (called SH1/R3) has the athlete seated with a table for their elbows, while our Olympic counterparts are in the same basic position but lying on a mat and using the floor to support their elbows. While within Paralympic classification, to make it an even playing field among all athletes in an event, there are divisions and subdivisions that will be covered in a future "Must Reads" blog entry.

While athletes in this sport have to maintain strength to support their rifle and the stamina to endure long matches, they also must keep their muscles completely relaxed while shooting. A tiny bit of tension could alter their position and may change over the course of a match. With set-up and sighters, athletes are usually on the firing line about 90 minutes to complete a prone match, most of which is spent shooting. To a casual observer it will look as if the athlete isn't moving other than to load each shot. These very high-end air rifles require each pellet to be individually loaded, making it even more challenging.

Breathing, which most of us take for granted and do automatically, becomes key in shooting sports. Breath work is crucial to great scores, using that and other techniques to naturally slow your heart rate. An extra heartbeat at the wrong time could literally be the difference between a winning or losing score. Great breathing techniques timed with each shot, plus proper trigger control and shot follow-through go a very long way toward 10.9s.

One of my paper targets for sighters before a match at the Olympic Center in 2005. That's three shots, but the tiny bit they landed low/left could be what loses a match!

Overall mental focus and concentration play a significant role in Paralympic and Olympic air rifle shooting. Developing a pre-shot routine to make sure the athlete is fully prepared, and to get into what I call my "Zen Zone," helps to block out distractions and visualize each shot scoring as a bullseye. A fraction of a millimeter off in our sights will no longer be a perfect score.

If you are one of the top eight athletes in a match and move onto the finals, an even more competitive shoot-off of sorts, there will be plenty of distraction to block out. Instead of a quiet range with music playing in the background, you will hear people cheering, clapping, cow bells, drums and other distractions-- all to push athletes to be the absolute best in a very competitive sport.

So when people say to me, "I don't get it, what's so hard about shooting an air rifle?" I challenge them to try not only hitting all bullseyes but scoring in the mid- to high-10s 60 times in a row. No pressure!