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 firearms, mainly referring to man-portable guns and bows/crossbows.
Practical shooting, also known as dynamic shooting or action shooting, is a set of shooting sports where the competitors try to unite the three principles of precision, power, and speed, by using a firearm of a certain minimum power factor to score as many points as possible during the shortest amount of time. While scoring systems vary between organizations, each measures the time of which the course is completed, with penalties for inaccurate shooting. The courses are called "stages", and are shot individually by the shooters. Usually the shooter must move and shoot from several positions, fire under or over obstacles and in other unfamiliar positions. There are no standard exercises or set arrangement of the targets, and the courses are often designed so that the shooter must be inventive, and therefore the solutions of exercises sometimes varies between shooters.
Jerry Charles Miculek Jr. is an American professional speed and competition shooter. Miculek has emptied a five-shot revolver in 0.57 seconds in a group the size of a playing card, thus being dubbed "The Greatest Shooter of all Time". Miculek holds five officially sanctioned world records in revolver shooting and over 15 unsanctioned records with firearms ranging from rapid firing pistols to the Barrett M107 .50 BMG rifle. Additional accomplishments include six shots in .98 seconds with a Barrett M107 .50 BMG rifle and a 1000-yard shot off hand with his 9mm Smith & Wesson revolver.
The International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC) is the world's largest shooting sport association and the largest and oldest within practical shooting. Founded in 1976, the IPSC nowadays affiliates over 100 regions from Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania. Competitions are held with pistol, revolver, rifle, and shotgun, and the competitors are divided into different divisions based on firearm and equipment features. While everyone in a division competes in the Overall category, there are also own separate awards for the categories Lady, Super Junior, Junior, Senior and Super Senior.
The United States Practical Shooting Association(USPSA) is the national governing body of practical shooting in the United States under the International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC). Its over 35,000 active members and over 500 affiliated clubs make USPSA the largest practical shooting organization in the United States and the second largest region within IPSC after the Russian Federation of Practical Shooting. USPSA publishes a monthly member magazine called Front Sight.
The men's individual competition with revolver and pistol, distance 50 metres was a shooting sports event held as part of the shooting at the 1912 Summer Olympics programme. It was the fourth appearance of the event, which was the only one to have been featured at every edition of the Games to that point. The competition was held on Monday, 1 July 1912. Fifty-four sport shooters from twelve nations competed. Nations were limited to 12 shooters each. The event was won by Alfred Lane of the United States, completing a double for him with the rapid fire pistol event. It was the United States' second victory in the event. Another American, Peter Dolfen, finished second. Charles Stewart of Great Britain took the bronze medal, the nation's first in the free pistol.
The modern technique is a method for using a handgun for self-defense, originated by firearms expert Jeff Cooper. The modern technique uses a two-handed grip on the pistol and brings the weapon to eye level so that the sights may be used to aim at the target. This method was developed by Cooper into a teachable system beginning in the 1950s, based on the techniques of shooters like Jack Weaver, Mike Rousseau and others, after experiments with older techniques such as point shooting. The method was codified in book form in 1991 in The Modern Technique of the Pistol by Gregory B. Morrison and Cooper.
The men's individual competition with revolver and pistol was a shooting sports event held as part of the Shooting at the 1920 Summer Olympics programme. It was the fifth appearance of such an event at different distances. The competition was held on 2 August 1920. 31 shooters from 8 nations competed. The event was won by Karl Frederick of the United States, the nation's second consecutive and third overall victory in the event. Defending champion Alfred Lane took bronze, the first man to win multiple medals in the event. Brazil's Afrânio da Costa finished between the two Americans, taking silver.
The men's ISSF 50 meter pistol event at the 2008 Olympic Games took place on August 12 at the Beijing Shooting Range Hall. There were 45 competitors from 32 nations. The event was won by Jin Jong-oh of South Korea, the first of his three consecutive victories in the free pistol. It was his second medal, after taking silver in 2004; he was the 10th man to win multiple medals in the event.
The Bianchi Cup is the NRA National Action Pistol Championship, a major action pistol tournament usually held over three days in late May, in Columbia, Missouri, at the Green Valley Rifle & Pistol Club. It has the largest purse of any tournament on the action pistol calendar and is the premier action pistol championship tournament in the world. The Bianchi Cup is the only major shooting tournament that has retained its original course of fire since its inception.
Michael Christopher Tilley is a professional shooter and USPSA Grand Master. He is also known for competing in the second season of History Channel's marksmen competition Top Shot.
The men's ISSF 50 meter pistol event at the 2012 Olympic Games took place on 5 August 2012 at the Royal Artillery Barracks. There were 38 competitors from 27 nations. The event was won by Jin Jong-oh of South Korea, the second of his three consecutive victories in the free pistol. He was the first shooter to win two individual free pistol gold medals. It was his third medal in the event, making him the fourth man to earn three free pistol medals. His countryman Choi Young-rae took silver, the first time since 1976 that a nation had finished 1–2 in the event. Chinese shooter Wang Zhiwei received bronze.
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.
Jessie Harrison, formerly known as Jessie Duff, is an American sport shooter from McDonough, Georgia who took silver in the Open division Lady category at the 2017 IPSC Handgun World Shoot in Châteauroux, France and bronze at the 2011 IPSC Handgun World Shoot at Rhodes, Greece. In the IPSC US Handgun Championship she took gold in the Open division Lady category in 2015 and silver in 2013. She also has 16 USPSA Handgun Championship Lady category gold medals.
Hilde Nakling is a Norwegian shooter who during the 2014 IPSC World Shoot claimed the title as World Champion in the Lady Standard Division. She is the daughter of Vidar Nakling, 1980 IPSC European Champion and an active shooter until 1996. Hilde visited the shooting range for the first time already three months old, and gradually got to try various small firearms. During the early years she only attended the range once or twice a year, and it was not until she took a beginners course in 2005 that she became seriously hooked. Since 2006 she has competed actively. To prepare for the 2014 World Shoot she quit her day job as a nurse at the Oslo University Hospital, and continued to work shifts as a nurse on the pediatric ward.
Vidar Nakling is a Norwegian competitive shooter who won the 1980 IPSC European Handgun Championship, and four time Norwegian IPSC Handgun Champion. He is the father and coach of IPSC World Champion Hilde Nakling and has written a book on how to succeed in dynamic pistol shooting.
The 1975 IPSC Handgun World Shoot I held at Zürich in Switzerland was the first IPSC Handgun World Shoot, and was won by Ray Chapman of United States using a 1911 in .45 caliber. Ray had been central in the development the sport of practical shooting in the late 1950s. He was seeded as number one before the championship, and shot an almost perfect match dropping only one point. He continued to compete until 1979 when he retired.
The 1976 IPSC Handgun World Shoot II held in Berndorf, Salzburg, Austria was the second IPSC Handgun World Shoot, and was won by Jan Foss of Norway in front of Ray Chapman of United States by a small margin. Foss had been unknown before the championship and did not participate internationally afterwards.
The 1977 IPSC Handgun World Shoot III was held in Salisbury, Rhodesia at the end of August, and was the third IPSC Handgun World Shoot, and was won by Dave Westerhout in front of his Rhodesian teammate and second-place winner Peter Maunder by 116.403 points and third-place winner Raul Walters of United States with further 41.741 points.
Ray Chapman was an American sport shooter and firearms instructor who was central to the development of practical shooting. He was one of the founders of the International Practical Shooting Confederation at the 1976 Columbia Conference. He won the first IPSC Handgun World Shoot in 1975 and took silver behind Jan Foss from Norway in the second World Shoot in 1976. He continued to compete until 1979 when he retired from competition.
