[April 22] NTSA National Air Pistol Championships 2007

Sparks

From the NTSA website:

National Air Pistol Championships 2007
Written by Mark Dennehy
Wednesday, 21 March 2007

National Target Shooting Association of Ireland



National Air Pistol Championships 2007

We are delighted to announce this year’s National Air Pistol Championships, which are to be held in University College Dublin’s range on Sunday the 22nd of April 2007.

The formats for this year’s competitions are as follows:

National Air Pistol Championships

This will be an Air Pistol 60 shot qualifying event, open to both male and female shooters, leading into a 10 shot final. The three highest placed Irish persons, after the final, will be the Irish National Champions and Championship medals will be awarded accordingly. Non Irish persons are invited to take part also and will be eligible to win other prizes.

Re-entry is not permitted.

The fees for this match are as follows:

Adult entry = €15.00

Student and / or Junior entry = €10.00.

Event Timetable

Sunday 22nd of April 07
Start Time

• Detail 1 10.00am
• Detail 2 12.15am
• Final 2.30pm
• Medal Ceremony 3.00pm

Pre booking is necessary.
No entries will be accepted after 5.00pm on Thursday the 19th of April 2007.

Please contact me through the NTSA website or at acooney@iol.ie and or at 046 9054167

We wish to thank the UCD club for their continued support and use of their facilities.

Anthony G Cooney.
Airgun Coordinator

Sparks

This has just kicked off. Photos in a minute or two...

Sparks

Sean shooting



Equipment Control



Raj shooting



Sean shooting



The firing line

Sparks

And it goes home to the Kingdom!
Details later!

Sparks

After the qualifying round:



Preparing for the ten-shot finals:



The firing line for the finals:

Sparks

Electronic scoring in full flight:



And the gap between first and second place is just a little bit tight after the eighth shot of ten:




In fact, on the ninth shot, Raj and Tim drew level and then it all came down to the tenth shot...


...




and that was it, Tim took it!

Sparks

Joe from Fermoy shooting



Stats office hard at work

Sparks

Stats office suddenly realising they had to check the rules for what to do in the event of a tie in the finals...



Everyone else waiting for the tie to be broken...



The shoot-off to break the tie...

Sparks

And the final result:



Finalists with Geoff, the NTSA Airgun Coordinator



Gold and Silver medallists Tim and Joe with Geoff



Tim, the new Irish National Air Pistol Champion



The Modern Pentathlon ladies who showed up to shoot in their first NTSA nationals (hopefully not their last!)

N.O.I.P.

That looks like some serious accuracy, if you don't mind me asking what kind of distance was that shot over?

Sparks

Ten metres NOIP. The aiming mark is 6cm across and the bullseye is 11.5mm across:

N.O.I.P.

6cm you say *gulp* *runs of to practice with his Airsoft again*

Is there any problems with members of the public coming to view these competitions?

Sparks

N.O.I.P. wrote:

6cm you say *gulp* *runs of to practice with his Airsoft again*

Is there any problems with members of the public coming to view these competitions?

Nope, c'mon down to the next one. Except that the next AP match isn't until May 26/27 (Nationals kinda marks the end of the season domestically)

N.O.I.P.

No problem that should give me sufficient time to pry myself off the sofa

Sparks

Don't worry NOIP, UCD provide couches for tired shooters to use.





Mike's going to kill me for that one...

N.O.I.P.

Well why didn't you mention this before, you are selling your sport on all the wrong points Sparks.

Nevermind the "Target shooting encourages sportsmanship, friendships, ships in bottles and healthy competition" line. Try the "Yes come on in here poor tired student your exams must be really stressing you out, why don't you sit down on this nice comfy sofa and relax, oh you might also want to try this target shooting thing" line.

phantom_lord

looks like he's just been hit

bullets

How come you dont need one of those fancy jackets and shoes with the Pistol and
yet you do with Rifle ? (I'm not being smart I just dont know)

Also whats the Idea of the hand in the pocket, does it have to be one handed,
can you use both hands.

I have noticed on some vids that I looked at on the web that the shooters seem to
hold the pistol at an angle above the target and slowly drop their arm
until the aim is on target and then they seem to fire. Rather than try and
hold the pistol on target and fire or raise the pistol and fire.

~B

Dr Strange

bullets wrote:

How come you dont need one of those fancy jackets and shoes with the Pistol and
yet you do with Rifle ? (I'm not being smart I just dont know)

Also whats the Idea of the hand in the pocket, does it have to be one handed,
can you use both hands.

I have noticed on some vids that I looked at on the web that the shooters seem to
hold the pistol at an angle above the target and slowly drop their arm
until the aim is on target and then they seem to fire. Rather than try and
hold the pistol on target and fire or raise the pistol and fire.

~B

Hi Bullets,

I am sure Sparks can answer this in more detail. Just a quick note: the jackets are used for rifle shooting as they restrict movement, breathing having an effect on your aim, as well as the heartbeat/pulse (that's why some use gloves). Also it uses less energy to "fall down" onto your target then to rise your rifle/gun up to it and hold that point. You can actually train and see the way that you drop down onto the target with your rifle, Geoff showed me a very good training method for that, it also allows you to see if you come down in a straight line or rather from top left or top right.

That's how I understood it, anyway. As for the shooting shoes I can only think that the weight of a rifle has something to do with it. You need a steady stand with bothe feet/soles firmly on the ground to find the right balance. The pistol however does not weight that much and the weight is not distributed down the body axis but down the end of your arm, wheres the rifle weight goes through your axis.

Best,
Preusse

Sparks

Preusse wrote:

I am sure Sparks can answer this in more detail. Just a quick note: the jackets are used for rifle shooting as they restrict movement, breathing having an effect on your aim, as well as the heartbeat/pulse (that's why some use gloves).

Nope! In fact, there are specific rules against making rifle jackets so they restrict movement, hence the equipment control and testing of jackets at the rifle nationals last week!
The jackets are there to stabilise the lower spine. The rifles are heavy buggers - 5.5 kg for air rifle, 8kg for smallbore, and it's what the doctors call an offset asymmetric loading on your spine. You could get chronic back problems if you tried holding that weight up without a jacket or trousers regularly.

Basicly, it's the shooter's equivalent of a weightlifter's belt.

Now pistol, it's much lighter - 1.5kg at most. So you can hold that without special gear.

As for the shooting shoes I can only think that the weight of a rifle has something to do with it.

Nope, it's just that walking shoes curl up at heel and toe to let you rock forward and backward on your feet as you walk. Shooting shoes are flat-soled to avoid that. It's not an unfair advantage to have them in the sport because there's no rule against shooting in bare feet (heck, I did that for years), so you might as well let shooters have warm feet.

You can have flat-soled shoes in ISSF pistol shooting too, but they can't go up past your ankle (no boots) and the soles can't project forward past the outline of the shoe. In other words, you can't have these:


But these are fine:

Sparks

bullets wrote:

Also whats the Idea of the hand in the pocket, does it have to be one handed, can you use both hands.

The hand in the pocket (or in the belt) is so the muscles in that arm stay loose.
And yes, it's all one-handed in ISSF, regardless of whether it's air pistol at 10 metres, smallbore pistol at 25 or 50 metres, or fullbore pistol at 25 metres.

I have noticed on some vids that I looked at on the web that the shooters seem to hold the pistol at an angle above the target and slowly drop their arm
until the aim is on target and then they seem to fire. Rather than try and hold the pistol on target and fire or raise the pistol and fire.

Yup, more accurate that way. Raising it up and holding it on target means your muscles are holding it there by contracting, like you were lifting weights. Raising it up and dropping onto target means your muscles are stretching and it's more accurate as an end result.

bigred

Nice to see the air pistols get an airing. One thing stands out here - I see a lot of fancy pneumatics - Steyr's and Mornini's the guts of 2 grand each, but the winner was shooting with a few hundred euros worth of a break-barrell. Have to admit, I've had ideas to get an LP10 for a while but might reconsider if you can pull it off with a much smaller purchase (and obviously the hours and hours of training too..).
Do any of these shooters solely focus on AP or is it just a bit of a nixer for them?

BTW Sparks - havent forgetten about signing up to WTSC - I'll be in touch in a bit

Sparks

but the winner was shooting with a few hundred euros worth of a break-barrell.

Close enough
Tim's air pistol is an old FWB Model 90, which was like a model 65 but with an electronic trigger. If anyone knows the 300 series of Feinwerkbau air rifles, this is the pistol version.
Still, it was older than some of the other competitors!




It really is the training that matters most.
That said, the other shooters at the international level have pretty much all switched to precompressed air or CO2 canisters. The workout of cranking the mechanism does tend to raise heartrate that little bit, and at their level, that's a penalty.

Mind you, I still say the baikal is all the air pistol you need to get to a World Cup.

Sparks

From the NTSA website:

10m Air Pistol National Championships 2007
Written by Mark Dennehy
Wednesday, 25 April 2007

National Air Pistol Championships 2007
Results


Tim Scannell, Air Pistol National Champion 2007

Sorry this has taken so long to prepare folks, events somewhat overtook us here.

Again, the nationals ran quite smoothly with UCD Rifle Club's recent upgrades to the range improving the logistical side of things immensely. Scores and attendance levels were up on last year, but this is still clearly an event in its fledgling state in Ireland. Hopefully this will improve in the years to come.

The finals were incredibly close, making the AR40 finals last weekend seem relaxed by comparison. The top four finalists were all within seven points of one another, which in air pistol is nothing. However, despite a massive effort from Raj Raval, Tim Scannell held his nerve and his lead by the smallest of margins, winning the Gold medal for the new Kingdom rifle club in Castlemaine, Co.Kerry, by only 0.4 points.

Raj, because he does not hold an Irish passport, was not eligible for the Silver medal in the nationals; however he will be awarded a special prize by the NTSA for his excellent performance in the match and a letter will be sent to the Indian target shooting NGB to verify his placing in the match.

Joe Conroy, of the Fermoy Rifle Club, at his very first public match in air pistol no less, took the Silver medal home to Cork, beating Joe O'Donoghue into Bronze position by four points.

This was the first 10-shot finals to be held in an air pistol match in the state, and also saw the first shoot-off to break a tie between Sean Baldwin and Roisin Eivers of the Modern Pentathlon Association of Ireland who were attending an NTSA air pistol match for the first time; so a day of firsts all round!

Here are the final results from the 2007 Air Pistol Nationals. Names in bold indicate medal winners; names in italics indicate finalists.

Qualifications
1 Scannell Tim Kingdom 88 89 86 86 90 88 527
2 Raval Raj UCDRC 84 84 91 91 88 87 525
3 Conroy Joe Fermoy 92 91 84 82 90 84 523
4 O'Donoghue Joe ATSC 87 82 86 86 92 87 520
5 Skelly Thomas WTSC 77 85 83 88 78 87 498
6 Eivers Roisin MPAI 82 86 84 79 78 86 495
7 Rice Pat Comber 83 84 75 84 82 85 493
8 Baldwin Sean ATSC 79 85 84 75 83 85 491
9 Lawless Shauna MPAI 75 83 86 80 74 81 479
10 Coyle Natalya MPAI 72 59 90 69 88 80 458
11 Murphy Nicola WTSC 75 78 70 78 84 67 452

Finals
Qual Final Total
1 Scannell Tim Kingdom 527 91 618
2 Raval Raj UCDRC 525 92.6 617.6
3 Conroy Joe Fermoy 523 86.2 609.2
4 O'Donoghue Joe ATSC 520 85.2 605.2
5 Skelly Thomas WTSC 498 86.7 584.7
6 Rice Pat Comber 493 79.4 572.4
7 Eivers Roisin MPAI 495 76.6 571.6
8 Baldwin Sean ATSC 491 80.6 571.6

Sparks

Little bit of good press in today's Evening Herald:


Tim and Joe both got some coverage from their local media as well - did anyone catch last thursday's Kerryman or see any other bits? Any chance you could save the clippings? I managed to miss it up here

Sparks

Good press in the Kerry papers, though the text is a bit garbled:

Sparks

And a little bit more good press: