Supported Air Rifle Shooting - early days

[zooma]

Rossendale Model Target Club is in the process of starting to shoot Supported Air Rifle (once a week) and we would be happy to share any information that may be able to help or encourage any other club or individuals who may also be either contemplating, or actually making a start, in this latest branch of our target sport.

The thinking is that this discipline is "new" to us all, and if we all share our success's and failures it will help to get this sport moving more easily than if we all work in "independent seclusion" trying to solve problems alone when they have already been resolved by others.

So far we have had some regulation sized hard 50mm diameter bars cut that are 100mm long ( the minimum length), and have designed and made some simple "easy to make" plywood bar holders that can be easily mounted on any sort of stand. Ours include a flat shelf on either side below the bar that can be used for holding a pellet tin or pellet tray etc.

We have also made a simple box top to clip securely over the bar and holder than can in turn have a pad glued onto the top of it for use as a rifle rest when the stand is not being used for Suported Shooting!

We have used some heavy duty speaker stands to fit our bar holders onto - the sort you see holding really big speakers in clubs and pubs etc. These are not too expensive to buy and really are "as solid as a rock" and are considerably more stable than required in use.

Some of the 50mm bars that we had cut are from chrome plated steel and look really "cool" but we have noticed just how much more slippery they are than those that do not have a plated surface. It is not possible to add any sort of non-slip surface treatment to the hard bar surface but it is possible to choose what you make it from so our advice would be not to use chrome plate as it is very slippery!

We have also made some simple "resting plates" to fit our rifle stocks at the front where they will rest on the 50mm bars for use with "Supported Air Rifle Shooting". We started by just balancing the rifle on the bar, but the flat extension "resting plate" protects the under-surface of the rifle stock and gives slightly more (within the 60mm rules) width to balance on.

We were fortunate enough to be given a short length of oak to make a "resting plate" for each of our rifles and this not only works really well but it also proved to be a lot easier to make than we had feared.

I oiled my rifle's "resting plate" as I thought it would look good, but when combined with the polished chrome bar I had a really slippery combination that I would not recommend as being the most stable combination possible

With this basic "home made" kit we are now enjoying taking part in "Supported Air Rifle Shooting" and we are all presently surprised to find that this is a highly enjoyable discipline !