A rifle is a long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting and higher stopping power, with a barrel that has a helical or spiralling pattern of grooves (rifling) cut into the bore wall. In keeping with their focus on accuracy, rifles are typically designed to be held with both hands and braced firmly against the shooter's shoulder via a buttstock for stability during shooting. Rifles have been used in warfare, law enforcement, hunting and target shooting sports.
In firearm designs, the term single-shot refers to guns that can hold only a single round of ammunition inside and thus must be reloaded manually after every shot. Compared to multi-shot repeating firearms ("repeaters"), single-shot designs have no moving parts other than the trigger, hammer/firing pin or frizzen, and therefore do not need a sizable receiver behind the barrel to accommodate a moving action, making them far less complex and more robust than revolvers or magazine/belt-fed firearms, but also with much slower rates of fire.
Shooting sports is a group of competitive and recreational sporting activities involving proficiency tests of accuracy, precision and speed in shooting — the art of using ranged weapons, mainly small arms and bows/crossbows.
In firearms terminology, an action is the functional mechanism of a breechloading firearm that handles the ammunition cartridges, or the method by which that mechanism works. Actions are technically not present on muzzleloaders, as all those are single-shot firearms with a closed off breech with the powder and projectile manually loaded from the muzzle. Instead, the muzzleloader ignition mechanism is referred to as the lock.
The International Shooting Sport Federation recognizes several shooting events, some of which have Olympic status. They are divided into four disciplines: rifle, pistol, shotgun and running target.
A sniper rifle is a high-precision, long-range rifle. Requirements include high accuracy, reliability, and mobility, concealment, and optics, for anti-personnel, anti-materiel and surveillance uses by military snipers. The modern sniper rifle is a portable shoulder-fired rifle with either a bolt action or semi-automatic action, fitted with a telescopic sight for extreme accuracy and chambered for a high-ballistic performance centerfire cartridge.
The Accuracy International Arctic Warfare rifle is a bolt-action sniper rifle designed and manufactured by the British company Accuracy International. It has proved popular as a civilian, police, and military rifle since its introduction in the 1980s. The rifles have features that improve performance in extremely cold conditions without impairing operation in less extreme conditions.
J. G. Anschütz GmbH & Co. KG is a sporting firearms manufacturer based in Ulm, Germany, that makes rimfire and centerfire rifles as well as air rifles and air pistols for target and competition shooting, as well as hunting. Anschütz rifles are used by many competitive shooters participating in the Summer Olympics 50 meter rifle events and is the maker of the standard biathlon rifle used at the Winter Olympics.
The Winchester Model 70 is a bolt-action sporting rifle. It has an iconic place in American sporting culture and has been held in high regard by shooters since it was introduced in 1936, earning the moniker "The Rifleman's Rifle". The action has some design similarities to Mauser designs and it is a development of the earlier Winchester Model 54, itself being based on a Mauser 98–type action.
Metallic silhouette shooting is a group of target shooting disciplines that involves shooting at steel targets representing game animals at varying distances, seeking to knock the metal target over. Metallic silhouette is shot with large bore rifles fired freehand without support out to 500 meters, and with large bore handguns from the prone position with only body support out to 200 meters. Competitions are also held with airguns and black-powder firearms. A related genre is shot with bow and arrow, the metal targets being replaced with cardboard or foam. The targets used are rams, turkeys, pigs, and chickens, which are cut to different scales and set at certain distances from the shooter depending on the specific discipline.
10 meter air rifle is an International Shooting Sports Federation (ISSF) shooting event, shot at a bullseye target over a distance of 10 meters using a 4.5 mm (0.177 in) calibre air rifle with a maximum weight of 5.5 kg (12.13 lb). It is one of the ISSF-governed shooting sports included in the Summer Olympics since the 1984 Los Angeles Games.
The Karabiner Modell 1931 is a magazine-fed, straight-pull bolt-action rifle. It was the standard-issue rifle of the Swiss armed forces from 1933 until 1958 though examples remained in service into the 1970s. It has a 6-round removable magazine, and is chambered for the 7.5×55mm Swiss Gewehrpatrone 1911 or GP 11, a cartridge with ballistic qualities similar to the 7.62×51mm NATO/.308 Winchester cartridge. Each rifle included a 6-round detachable box magazine with matching stamped serial number. A stripper clip can be used to load the magazine from the top of the receiver.
Paralympic shooting, also known as shooting Para sport, is an adaptation of shooting sports for competitors with disabilities. Shooting is a test of accuracy and control, in which competitors use pistols or rifles to fire a series of shots at a stationary target. Each shot is worth a maximum score of 10.9 points. Athletes use .22 caliber rifles, pistols and .177 caliber air guns. Paralympic shooting first appeared in the Summer Paralympics at the 1976 Toronto Games.
50 meter rifle prone is an International Shooting Sport Federation event consisting of 60 shots from the prone position with a .22 Long Rifle (5.6 mm) caliber rifle.
The Walther LGR air rifle was developed by the German arms manufacturer Carl Walther GmbH Sportwaffen as a high end match rifle for 10 metre air rifle competition shooting. The LGR was the first match air rifle that employed the then futuristic single-stroke pneumatic method as power source. This use of pre compressed air introduced the advantages of recoilless and vibration free shooting in combination with a well-made air rifle into the sport. It took other manufacturers a decade before they also introduced single-stroke pneumatic match air rifles.
The SIG Sauer 200 STR, also known as the SIG Sauer 200 STR Match, is a bolt-action rifle mostly used as a target/competition rifle for national competitions by Norwegian, Swedish and Danish sport shooters. It is a variant of the Sauer 200 TR or SIG Sauer 200 TR Match rifle that features thicker 19 mm (0.75 in) diameter barrels. The 200 STR is produced by J. P. Sauer & Sohn GmbH in Germany.
Smallbore rifle shooting, sometimes known as miniature rifle shooting, is a set of disciplines of shooting sports. Smallbore shooting uses smaller-calibre rifles, typically chambered in .22 Long Rifle, at ranges generally of 100 yards (91 m) or shorter. Depending on the range, it can either be conducted indoors or outdoors.
Bullseye shooting is a category of shooting sport disciplines where the objective is to score points with carefully placed precision fire by hitting a target as close to its center as possible. The name refers to the target center's nickname, the "bull's eye". In Scandinavia, this type of shooting competition is referred to as Range-Shooting, as it usually takes place at dedicated shooting range.
A biathlon rifle is a specialized rifle designed for use in a biathlon event. Specialist biathlon rifles are ultra lightweight, and usually equipped with straight-pull actions, integrated magazine carriers, and ergonomic stock designs suitable for both prone and standing positions.
Grünig + Elmiger AG (G&E) is a Swiss firearms manufacturer that produces bolt-action rifles with a main focus on CISM and ISSF shooting, which are designed to be competitive at the World Cup and Olympic level. G&E firearms can be delivered with or without a stock. Their Racer series of .22 Long Rifle-calibre rifles became noted by 2018 when they were used to win a number of medals at the ISSF World Championships. Seonaid McIntosh won the Women's 50metre prone rifle event with a Racer3 in an XRS stock.
