TargetTalk

Anyone know approximately how many active air pistol shooters there are in the United States? In the rest of the world?

Thanks.

WOW first post/question is a tough one. When you say active do you mean local leagues or are you speaking of and/or CMP & USA Shooting or ISSF?

In MN I'd guess far less than 100, but there are many who use an AP for training for other disciplines that don't compete in AP, myself included.

- Dave

Hi, Dave,

I knew the demographics on that subject would be slim to none. Just curious.

Thanks, again.

USA Shooting lists 147 male and 82 female registered shooters.

m1963 wrote:USA Shooting lists 147 male and 82 female registered shooters.

Is that list of people who have scores? I bet the actual number is higher since it's a trip to colorado to get to the winter air pistol events. There's probably a few more garage shooters out there.

USA shooting numbers includes scores from any USA shooting competition, across the US.

That number is the people who actually compete (competed) in USA Shooting matches. There are FAR more actual AP shooters floating around. The NRA has a bunch not affiliated with USA Shooting.

Here in the SE Virginia there's only 1 shooter

Me

m1963 wrote:USA Shooting lists 147 male and 82 female registered shooters.

Here in New Zealand, we had 62 men and 34 women shoot air pistol in our "ranking" competitions for 2016. Which seems low but considering our population of 4.5m a bit better than USA with it's 320m population!

I cant believe those US numbers! We have 48 in our Bedfordshire (UK) 10m league which basically covers two towns. Then there's our 6 yard league and the Herts comps (next county) with as many plus the fun shooters.
I guess when you are all but prohibited from owning real handguns (forget the silly long arms and black powder) the a/p is the main option.
You would think we could put up an Olympic shooter with that many!

jerber wrote:Here in the SE Virginia there's only 1 shooter

Me

You get a match together and some more will show up.


But there are matches that don't show up on USA Shooting. For example 87 shooters competed in the 60 shot Air Pistol match at this year's Pistol Nationals and over 250 shot the 30 shot match (or multiples of the 30 shot match).

The closest AP match to me is 100 miles away at 7 am on Saturdays between Oct and early March. The closest Free Pistol Match is on the same afternoon at the same Range.

Well if you want to go to grassroots.....

Our 4H club is limited to 24 shooters because of space and time, with a waiting list all season;

We sponsor a statewide postal match which had 40 entrants last year;

At the state shoulder match last March there were 72 entrants;

And many clubs have kids that just shoot and don't enter any matches. (Besides which the 4H smallbore pistol program is alive and well here.)

I took over running the winter monthly USAS matches at my club in Massachusetts about 5 years ago. A good month was 13-14 shooters on two relays. Two years ago I was averaging 15-16 shooters. Sometimes needing a third relay. Last year I was hitting the mid twenties with three relays. This season I am booked up with thirty shooters on three relays and turning shooters away unless I add a fourth relay. I ran an NRA State Championship match two weeks ago with 41 total shooters. I will be talking to my clubs BOD Thursday about moving the matches to a larger building at our club where I can set up 12-15 shooting stations.

In central Connecticut, we have 2 AP matches every month. One in Manchester (15 to 20) and one in Meriden (10). For the state championship we get a better draw at around 30 since people travel farther for that, Yale University team shows up for that.