TargetTalk

I have tried to get a rough estimate as to how much the right clothes help in 10 m air rifle. I can never get a straight answer. But I think it is simple. If some normally shoots a 540 with clothes what would they shoot without. Can anyone give me their experience? How many points is it worth?

Hi

One of my air rifle team switched from a Valiant in Sporter, bought a coat, pants, and those funky shoes from Jochim (spelling) and bought a Steyr. His scores went from 530's and 540's to 577 in practice last week. That's not a personal best as far as I know either.

Mike
Wichita KS

With enough training and mentality the world bests can shoot without clothing about 580-585. Shooting without clothes is not because of the points but imagine how much force will be pressing on your spine and back. That causes injuries. Do we like that in sports, I think not!

I haven't tried shooting without clothes but suspect I'd be looking over my shoulder too much to see if anyone was looking and would shoot very poorly. Seriously, I shoot standing postition only and notice a big difference when I'm wearing stiff, supportive shoes instead of tenny runners or soft loafers. I don't sway as much, my hold area shrinks and so do my 10M groups. I believe the jacket and pants would make a difference, too, by tightening up on body movements. Same principle as a tight sling.

The jacket, and pants help with support and also prevent injury as someone pointed out above.

Also, to give a fixed point number on how much is lost by shooting without them is impossible. It is different for each person because each person knows his "inner position" differently.

Several months ago for a training exersice I wore no gear for Offhand. It took some geting used to, but on average I dropped 5-7 points per target for that session.

I have a 12 year old daughter shooting 3P Precision air and smallbore.

We're adding gear little by little. She's always used a club Jacket when shooting. She hasn't started wearing a good pair of pants yet. So I can't tell you how many points a jacket adds. So I can't tell you how many points a jacket or pants add.

But we did recently buy her a pair of proper shooting boots. Her standing scores imeadiately climbed about 10 points per target in Air Rifle.

Was it because the boots really help her shoot?

or was it because she thought the boots would help her shoot?

Would your kid see the same increase?

I don't know.

All I do know is that the top shooters wear the gear, so far whenever we add better gear to my daughters collection he scores go up.

My advice is to buy the best you can afford. If you can't afford to buy everything now decide what your club has available that is suitable and make a list of your priorities. Add the gear on your list as you can afford or find it.