Target Shooting

Target Sports

Target shooting in the U.K falls into three main groups:

The traditional type of target shooting at mainly round targets with cartridge rifles at ranges from 15 yards up to 1200 yards, and shooting with air rifles and pistols at ranges of 6 yards and 10 meters. Britsh shooters won several Gold medals at the last Commonwealth Games in both pistol and rifle events.

Field target shooting with air rifles at knockdown targets at multiple ranges up to 50 meters

Shooting with a shotgun at clay discs which are thrown into the air. Great Britain won Gold medals at the 2000 Sidney Olympics in shotgun events.

The Art of Shooting

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Traditional Target Shooting

Shooting with cartridge rifles in the UK is generally divided between air rifles and smallbore rifles using the .22 rimfire cartridge and rifles using larger mainly former military size cartridges these are known as full bore.

Full bore shooting in this country is organised by the National Rifle Association. Competitions for full bore rifle are shot at distances between 100 yards and 1200 yards. Full bore Target rifle events are held as part of the Commonwealth Games where competitors shoot at the "short" ranges of 300, 500, and 600 yards and the "long" ranges 900 and 1000 yards, with british shooters claiming medals in the last games. In order to comply with the very strict Firearms regulations in this country membership of an approved club is necessary.

Smallbore and air rifle shooting in the UK is organised by the National Smallbore Rifle Association. Air rifle events are held at ranges of 6 yards and 10 meters indoors. The air rifles used in these events are relatively low powered but very accurate the size of the bullseye at 10 meters being only 0.5mm. Smallbore rifle competitions are shot either at short range which can be 15, 20 or 25 yards indoors with the targets scaled so that the difficulty is the same at each range. Long range competitions are shot outside at ranges of 50 and 100 yards and at 50 meters. Olympic and World championships for smallbore rifle events are shot at 50 meters and for air rifle 10 meters. These international events are organised by the International Shooting Sports Federation for which the NSRA is the organizing body in the UK.

Field Target Shooting

Field Target airgun shooting is a relatively new shooting discipline starting in England in 1981. The targets used are life-sized silhouettes of the main British airgun quarry species. These targets have a smaller area which when hit by a pellet causes the target to fall over. Due to the ranges and the energy needed to topple the targets the rifles must produce close to the legal power limit of 12 Ft lbs energy. This means that lower powered target air rifles are unsuitable for this sport. For more information on Field Target please contact the British Field Target Shooting Association the details of which are on our Contacts page.