Canadian Airgun Forum

Just wanted to check in as a random person trying their best to go from "newb" to "decent shot". There is no competition aspiration, ego or theater in my body. Just another person that figured out that shooting is a full mind, body and spirit workout. Late to the party, that's all.

My story is about 10m pistol, but would love to hear your experiences, drawing comparisons even if not related to 10m pistols. Who cares. It's all just for fun. Rifle, pistol .. back aches .. anything.

So how long is this pain going to last? A few more weeks? lol. Then I'll be an Olympic shot? hehe. Any pain stories? Stories of recovery from injury? Anybody using shooting as a way to stay fit?

For me, taking your 60 best freestanding, not-rested shots in a row is a heck of a workout. Seriously. Full system workout. I'm not saying anything against rested pos, because I wouldn't take a life without it.

For the pistol shooting, I'm using an entry-level PCP match pistol suitable for 10m event, the Snowpeak PP20. It's not exactly light. I try to emulate a 10m pistol match twice per day in rapid succession, and only in dry-fire for now. Live-fire is reserved for plinking style pistol and rifle for now, until the rifle technique gets better and moves up to 10m targets. (It's a diopter sighted rifle for short range targets .. 10m for me.)

Some of you will laugh .. but after 60 shots, I'm cooked. Done. My mind needs a break, just like driving in stressful traffic for a few hours, back, legs, elbow, shoulder sore. Hands, well, they are fine. I'm a guitarist. So I do it again, pretending to be competing seriously with my fiercest competitor. Me. It takes 24 minutes on average to shoot 60 best attempt shots. I'll sometimes not pull the trigger and reset. Since my technique hasn't been figured out, there's no need to stretch things out as an experienced competition shooter during a match should.

Anybody have any anecdotes to share?

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Province: Ontario
May all who are afraid of discourse find their rights trampled further.
Cowardice is never rewarded.

Semi auto powder burner pistols, I could blow thru a thousand rounds in an afternoon. LOL

This is why I luv airguns now, I'm left with a lot more cash in my pocket.

Concentration and stamina comes with time. It takes a long time to go thru a full tin of pellets. Turn it into a "job" and the fun will leave.

60 shot sessions are challenging. 60 shots in 24 mins is very fast. Too fast. Would help a lot to break up the session into 6 sets of 10 with a few mins break inbetween. Nothing wrong with practice sessions of less than 60 shots. I'm a big fan of dryfire practice. You'll learn a lot that you won't when you are focusing on scoring rather than focusing purely on the shot cycle.

Keep it up. Gets easier over time.

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I have some airguns.

Agreed on all accounts .. except no powder burner experience. Looks like fun, can't wait.

Over winter, will be getting the drills down and breaking-in the body a bit. Learning my lessons. Aching a bit every night. Indoors, the wobble-meter with training app makes it fun, because you always try to beat your own "score". The score here is how wobbly you were during your hold, trigger and follow-through. It ignores the little kick after the trigger pull. Not an accuracy meter by any stretch. Being so new to airguns as an adult, means I get that nice honeymoon period with guns like I was a teenager discovering a passion.

Cheers.

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Province: Ontario
May all who are afraid of discourse find their rights trampled further.
Cowardice is never rewarded.

Since your advice, two approaches are part of my "training". Did at least 10 match length sessions using your advice. Splitting it up into sets of 10 shots gives you 5 breaks. instantly gives you more control over the entire match. It keeps you more consistent on average and you can still claim some great scores at the end of the match, which would be crucial.

Also doing "furious 60" where I don't let myself rest for 60 shots, and rarely take more than 30 seconds in between.

Being new, there's no damage in my body yet, so just trying to "drill it into my head and nervous system" as fast and hard as possible.

.. but yeah, splitting it up works wonders, and it's also a fulfilling pace.

Hoping to add laser training to the routine for the winter. Need to come out strong in spring because i'll have a proper 10m setup for both pistols and rifle. Got a little Daisy 753s rifle. Super quiet and fun. Trigger is a bit stiff, but low entry price.

Thanks for the advice. It worked.

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Province: Ontario
May all who are afraid of discourse find their rights trampled further.
Cowardice is never rewarded.

For what it's worth, current ISSF rules call for the 60-shot qualifying round in an air pistol match to be 75 minutes if electronically scored, and 90 minutes otherwise. Per the notes above, something closer to that might be a useful pace for practice as well.