Use Of Air Rifles in NSRA Prone & 3P Leagues

[Rutty]

The NSRA is running a trial to assess the potential take-up for allowing the use of air rifles in leagues normally restricted to .22 cartridge rifle. Details may be found here.

Rutty

[RobF]

do you have anything on the kit that can be used?

[Alegazmoz]

Very interesting . ditto to the above.

Gary.

[Rutty]

do you have anything on the kit that can be used?

Any equipment will have to comply with NSRA rules. The only change is to substitute air rifle for cartridge rifle. So you'll be able to use your FT rig Rob, but without the 'scope.

Rutty

[RobF]

cool... ta

I could use my 10m rig as well

[Rich]

At Shebbear we already compete in the LSR comps both team and individual using air only, as our indoor range is actually the village hall and is unlikely to get HO approval for live ammo.....!

One of our team shoots 177, a Daystate Harrier, the other two shoot 22, a BSA Ultra and a S410.

We just have to follow the general rules for LSR which are basically any rifle and sight combination not exceeding 4500 g with glove if worn, no special clothing, and a trigger weight of 500 grams or more. That's the hardest bit to achieve without ruining the feel of the rifle.

Our cards aren't identified as having been shot with air so I'm not sure what the NSRA expects to achieve by differentiating air from live ammo in the prone comps.

However this is a good change in my view and our members would certainly take part in more comps if we could shoot them with air.



Edit: all we'd have to do is to build an extension to the village hall.......! as it's a tight fit getting 20 yards in let alone 25.

[Hemmers]

Edit: all we'd have to do is to build an extension to the village hall.......! as it's a tight fit getting 20 yards in let alone 25.

The "25yd" prone competitions can usually be shot at 15 and 20yds with scaled targets, as some clubs use pre-existing buildings so even if it's their own building, struggle to get the distance without a rebuild.
It's arguably harder as the targets are scaled but the size of your bullet or pellet remains constant, so you have to be spot on to avoid breaking the lines. It can be done however.

[tufty]

just entered for the winter nationals for 25yd LWSR at my club, and shot some averages cards yesterday using my HFT set up, with pretty good results

[bullbarrel]

One of the top surrey LSR shooters uses an air rifle. One of the reasons I like LSR is you can use your normal hunting rig, no special bondage equipment needed

One of the problems can be the trigger weight which I think is now 500g and several of the rifles with electronic triggers are well below that.

For prone/3P I guess the problem is you won't be able to use standard hft rig as you'll need peep sights and someway of attaching the sling to the bottom of the rifle.

The scouts have been doing a cut down version of the 3P with S200s and a special BSA scorpion (only available to the scouts) so its definately doable.

I say good on the NSRA for realising that air rifles are viable alternative. One of the prone chaps at my club refused to shoot at the same time someone was using an air rifle off the bipod. What a nob.

[tufty]

One of the top surrey LSR shooters uses an air rifle. One of the reasons I like LSR is you can use your normal hunting rig, no special bondage equipment needed

One of the problems can be the trigger weight which I think is now 500g and several of the rifles with electronic triggers are well below that.

For prone/3P I guess the problem is you won't be able to use standard hft rig as you'll need peep sights and someway of attaching the sling to the bottom of the rifle.

The scouts have been doing a cut down version of the 3P with S200s and a special BSA scorpion (only available to the scouts) so its definately doable.

I say good on the NSRA for realising that air rifles are viable alternative. One of the prone chaps at my club refused to shoot at the same time someone was using an air rifle off the bipod. What a nob.

good points Bullbarrel, I think there will be some interesting results over the winter comps. I dont shoot rimfire and dont have a FAC so would need to use a club gun, and being left handed, the choice is limited
I reckon my LG100 is a lot more accurate than any club .22 rifle I could use though, and as you only have to shoot at 25 yards, which is what I normally zero to, I found it fairly easy, it also helps that the targets seem quite big compared with HFT targets,the hold seems easier even though all shots are taken standing. Looking forward to the national comps, a few of our HFT shooters are doing it, I reckon we should do ok, good on the NSRA for a bit of forward thinking

[BigAl]

The "25yd" prone competitions can usually be shot at 15 and 20yds with scaled targets, as some clubs use pre-existing buildings so even if it's their own building, struggle to get the distance without a rebuild.
It's arguably harder as the targets are scaled but the size of your bullet or pellet remains constant, so you have to be spot on to avoid breaking the lines. It can be done however.

The short range NSRA targets are scaled taking in to account the fact that the bullet size is constant. The short range targets (15, 20, and 25 yards) are outwards gauging due to the fact that the 15 yard would otherwise need a negativly sized bull. This of course only works if all shooters are using the same caliber. .177 on the short range target would be problematic, as it would give you a big advantage with a bullet that is 20% smaller. The obvious answer is to score all shots with a .22 caliber gauge, the problem is that then you would need special gauges to use with .177 and .20, as they will need to have .22 flanges with smaller plugs, it will also mean that a lot more targets will need plugging as you won't be able to gauge them by eye. I'm not sure how scorers are going to feel about that, plus they will need to buy new gauges. This is the system used by the UKBR22 for air rifle competetions, and it is taking the scorer about 30% longer to score the cards since this has been introduced (all air rifle scored to .22)

The one thing that I do know is that the scores shot with air rifle at 25 yards will be lower than those shot with a rimfire. I state this as fact from looking at the recent UKBR22 results, where although they are different classes for air and rim, the specs for each are comparable, none of the air rifle results are as good as the comparable rimfire scores. I know that there are many air rifle shooters who would challeng this but I ask you to look at the published results.

Finally I just checked there is indeed a 500g trigger weight limit for LSR, although I could not find the rules for scoring, Just checked the latest issue of the NSRA rules.

Alan

[Rich]

Inward gauging, and 177 holes adjusted to 22 cal.