Shooting sports is a collective group of competitive and recreational sporting activities involving proficiency tests of accuracy, precision and speed in shooting — the art of using various types of ranged weapons, mainly referring to man-portable guns and bows/crossbows.
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.
International Rifle events that occur in three positions are conducted with an equal number of shots fired from the Prone, the Standing and the Kneeling positions, always in that order. Each of the three positions shot during the match has a fixed time limit that the shooter is able to shoot unlimited numbers of sighting shots and 10 or 20 shots for record. In qualification rounds, shots are scored as integers, so each shot scores from 0-10 with no decimal points, while in finals shots are scred as decimal values The center of the bullseye is commonly the 10 and the score drops points as it distances from the center. It is up to the organization's discretion to score using outside ring or inside ring scoring. Outside ring scoring measures what ring the hole breaks and measures accordingly. Inside ring scoring scores by determining whether the hole breaks the inside line of the bullseye.
The Military Pentathlon is a multisport. It resembles the modern pentathlon but updated to skills used by the modern military.
NRA Precision Pistol, formerly known as NRA Conventional Pistol, is a national bullseye shooting discipline organized in the United States by NRA. Emphasis is on accuracy and precision, and participants shoot handguns at paper targets at fixed distances and time limits. Other organizations in the United States and Canada have established rules and keep records of similar disciplines, including the Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) in the United States,.
Prone position is a body position in which the person lies flat with the chest down and the back up. In anatomical terms of location, the dorsal side is up, and the ventral side is down. The supine position is the 180° contrast.
The 50 meter pistol, formerly and unofficially still often called free pistol, is one of the ISSF shooting events. It provides the purest precision shooting among the pistol events, and is one of the oldest shooting disciplines, dating back to the 19th century and only having seen marginal rule changes since 1936. Most of the changes concern distance, caliber, type of pistol, time allowed, and most recently, format of the finals. The target of this event has not changed since 1900, and the 50m distance has remained the standard since 1912. Competitors have been using the small-bore, rim-fire cartridge since 1908. The sport traced back to the beginning of indoor Flobert pistol parlor shooting in Europe during the 1870s, which in turn traced back to 18th century pistol dueling.
10 meter air rifle is an International Shooting Sports Federation (ISSF) shooting event, shot over a distance of 10 metres from a standing position with a 4.5 mm (0.177 in) calibre air rifle with a maximum weight of 5.5 kg (12.13 lb). The use of specialized clothing is allowed to improve the stability of the shooting position and prevent chronic back injury which can be caused by the asymmetric offset load on the spine when the rifle is held in position. It is one of the ISSF-governed shooting events included in the Olympic games.
The 10 meter air pistol is an Olympic shooting event governed by the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF). It is similar to 10 meter air rifle in that it is shot with 4.5 mm caliber air guns at a distance of 10 metres (11 yards), and that the match consists of a qualification round of 60 competition shots within 75 minutes. If an Electronic Scoring System (EST) is not available, 15 minutes are added to the time limit. Competitors are allowed to shoot an unlimited amount of shots during the 15 minutes preparation and sighting time. Along with the 50 meter pistol, it is considered a precision shooting event. Thus, numerous shooters compete in both events.
The International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) is the governing body of the Olympic Shooting events in rifle, pistol and shotgun disciplines, and of several non-Olympic Shooting sport events. ISSF's activities include regulation of the sport, Olympic qualifications and organization of international competitions such as the ISSF World Cup Series, the ISSF World Cup Finals, the ISSF Separate World Championship in Shotgun events and the ISSF World Championship in all events.
The ISSF World Cup was introduced by the International Shooting Sport Federation in 1986 to provide a homogeneous system for qualification to the Olympic shooting competitions. It still is carried out in the Olympic shooting events, with four competitions per year in each event. For the best shooters there is since 1988 a World Cup Final.
The ISSF World Shooting Championships are governed by the International Shooting Sport Federation. World Shooting Championships began in 1897, after the successful 1896 Summer Olympics, and although the ISSF was not founded until 1907, these early competitions are still seen by the organization as the beginning of a continuous row of championships. By this logic, the 2006 competition in Zagreb was called the 49th ISSF World Shooting Championships. These championships, including all ISSF shooting events, are held every four years since 1954. For the shotgun events only, there is an additional World Championship competition in odd-numbered years. These extra competitions are not numbered. In running target, there will be World Championships in Olympic years.
50 metre 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 time limit is 75 minutes for the entire match, including sighting shots, or 90 minutes if there is a need to compensate for slow scoring systems. In the 2013 ISSF rules the 60-shot prone match consists of 15-minute preparation and sighting time, followed by the match - 60 shots in 50 minutes for electronic scoring, and 60 shots in 60 minutes for paper targets.
50 metre rifle three positions is an International Shooting Sport Federation event, a miniature version of 300 metre rifle three positions. It consists of the kneeling, prone, and standing positions, fired in that order, traditionally with 3×40 shots for men and 3×20 shots for women. In January 2018 the number of shots was equalised between genders with the Women's 3x20 being abolished in favour of a 3x40 match identical to the Men's event. The caliber is .22 Long Rifle (5.6 mm).
300 metre rifle three positions is an ISSF shooting event, involving shooting 40 shots each from the prone, the standing and the kneeling positions. Lately a similar event has been designed for women, where only half the course is shot. Originally there had been champions declared in each position based on the results of the 40 shots in the three position match. A special 300 metre rifle prone match was added in 1982 however, after a pattern from the so-called English Match. After 1990, no World Championship medals have been awarded in the standing or kneeling position.
300 metre rifle prone is an ISSF shooting event. It was added to the World Championship program in 1982, and was based on the English Match but shot with the same full-power rifle as in 300 metre rifle three positions. The course of fire, like in the small-bore 50 metre rifle prone, is 60 shots for both men and women.
The European Shooting Confederation (ESC) is an association of the International Shooting Sport Federation's member federations from Europe, including the Caucasus, Cyprus, Israel and Turkey.
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.
Dynamic Sports Shooting Norway (DSSN), NorwegianDynamisk Sportsskyting Norge (DSSN), is the Norwegian association for practical shooting under the International Practical Shooting Confederation. It was constituted in 1979 as Norges Forbund for Praktisk Skyting (NFPS), and changed its name to Dynamisk Sportsskyting Norge in 2013.
Shooting competitions for factory and service firearms refer to a set of shooting disciplines, usually called service rifle, service pistol, production, factory or stock, where the types of permitted firearms are subject to type approval with few aftermarket modifications permitted. The terms often refer to the restrictions on permitted equipment and modifications rather than the type of match format. The names Service Rifle and Service Pistol stem from that the equipment permitted for these types of competitions traditionally were based on standard issue firearms used by one or several armed forces and civilian versions of these, while the terms production, factory and stock often are applied to more modern disciplines with similar restrictions on equipment classes.
