We will from time to time be providing some basic tips to help you improve your enjoyment of precision pistol target shooting.

This is an enjoyable sport to partake in, which requires the minimum of physical exertion, making it suitable for both male and female shooters of all ages and all physical abilities to be able to compete equally at all levels of competition shooting.

Air pistols, despite their relatively small size, can still be potentially dangerous and for this reason should never be pointed at anyone. The pistol must only be loaded with a pellet when on the range and when ready to commence shooting. Any pistol, when being handled on the firing point, should always be pointing down the range. 

The basic principal of shooting with an air pistol is fairly simple, in that you need to align the sights with the target and then when ready, squeeze the trigger to release the shot. With any reasonable amount of luck, you will hit the target.

The art of successful air pistol shooting relies not on physical strength, but on the combination of hand/eye co-ordination, that is the hand to hold the pistol fairly steady, but never completely still and the eye to align the sights.

However, there is one basic physical bodily position that is most essential to master, that is STANCE.

This describes the method by which you hold the pistol and align your body with the target. The pistol is held in one hand, with the arm outstretched. If this is tried with your feet together, you will find that you tend to overbalance, to overcome this undesirable effect, it is necessary to spread your legs apart, about as wide or a little wider than your shoulders.

You now need to find a comfortable position facing the target and then gradually move the position of your feet to gain a stable position.

Having now attained your STANCE, you can then proceed to sorting out the alignment of the sights with the target.

The sights on an air pistol consist of a blade foresight, at the front end of the pistol and a notch rearsight, located at the rear of the pistol.

To 'sight in', you need to align the blade foresight in the notch rearsight so that the obtained 'sight picture' resembles that of an epsilon or an E on it's back.  

The target that you are aiming at is a black circle on a white card and you aim with the black aiming mark sitting on top of the sight picture so that it resembles a 'Belisha Beacon'. 

Having now described the principals of air pistol shooting, all that remains is to put these words into practice, so have a go and with some practice you will very soon be pleasantly surprised with your progress.

Do not be afraid to ask for help or advice, we are all actively involved in the sport and would be pleased to help.

We intend to try to vary the information and hope to gradually build up a small library of tips from other shooters.

If you have any helpfull tips, we would be pleased top consider them for inclusion.