Target design

[christopherjohn]

I'm trying to trace development of current air pistol target design and would appreciate advice from anyone familiar with changes in 1989 to the ISSF 10m target (as referred to on the Wikipedia pages for air pistol target shooting). Does anyone know or is Wiki wrong? I have details of the NARPA inspired 6 yard change from Air 6 to Air 8, but what came before the curent Air 4?

[RobinC]

Hi Christopher
I'm not a particular target enthusiast or collector, I just happen to be old enough to have shot competitively since 1972 and had put away some old targets which I found a year or so ago. In the 70's as a club we used to do things at game fairs, fetes, etc, and I'd made up a board of all the targets in use and I'd put these away in an envelope when finished so I have examples of the old targets, these would have been from approximately the mid 70's. I have rifle and pistol targets but I'll refer to the pistol ones which you have asked about.
There is an NSRA 6 yd pistol target (air 2) which is simply huge, the ten is 20 mm dia. and the other rings go out in 20 mm dia increases so the outside is still a 4 ring and is 14 cm dia! The aiming mark was the nine ring at 40 mm dia. I know in the early days many shot with spring recoiling pistols so I suspect the thinking was to compensate for that with easy cards, and the Nsra then had little interest in air so probably considered them more as kids toys.
The next 6 yard pistol card is an example of the NARPA card with three diagrams, a sighter and two scoring, this is approximately proportional to the then ten metre card, a litle easier than the international 10 mt card with a big ten at just over 8 mm dia (I think its actually an imperial size!) and the other rings increasing in 8 mm (ish) increments.
Now to answer your question, Wiki is correct the international targets were revised in 1989 to the now ISSF size. Prior to then the International body was initialy the ISU (International Shooting Union) which then evolved into the UIT (Union Internatial de Tir) and finally the ISSF (International Sport Shooting Federation), the targets stayed the stayed the same from the ISU through to the end of the UIT, only the beaurocracy changed, the ISU rule book was a small pocket book with 50 odd pages, the ISSF is 500+ pages with guidance books!
The Nsra adopted first the ISU/UIT 10 mt pistol target right up to the ISSF change in 1989 and then they adopted the new revised ISSF target which is used to this day, both ol and new were refered as Air 4, originaly the new ones were marked Air 4 (1989), some may still be.
The old (original) 10 mt pistol target I have several examples of, all NSRA ones, one is an ISU Nsra target the others are UIT Nsra cards. The dimensions are the same, the qualty of printing is vastly superior on the UIT cards. The original sizes? The ten is 12 mm dia, there was no X ring (inner ten)and the other rings increase in 16 mm dia increases, the aiming mark is 60 mm (7 ring).
The current target size since 1989, the ten is now 11.5 mm with an X ring 5 mm, the other rings go our in 16 mm dia increases and the aiming mark is still 60 mm (the 7 ring). The Nsra adopted the new size also in 1989.
Did it make a difference? What do you think? It made virtualy no difference, its 0.5 mm (thats 20 thou of an inch in old money!) the scores did not change, even though the pistol technology has. It was a typical example of the ISSF changing things because they can, an ethos they have continued to this day and will continue until they create enough new rules to kill off the sport.
The best comparison is with Ladies, the match is still the same at 40 shots, the mens has changed to 60, I saw Nina Stolyarova shoot 392 ex 400 in 1975 with a FWB 65 in the European championships in London, the current Ladies world record? 393 shot with a Steyr PCP LP10E, its made a lot of difference then!
So there you are Christopher, thats what it was and what it is.
Good shooting
Robin