Basic Techniques in Air Rifle

By: Elham Hashemi Masoumi (IRAN)

Introduction
Kottke, Halpern, Easton, Ozel and Burrill (1978) estimated that during 15 years professional playing, a
soccer defender has passed a ball for 1.4 million times and a basketball player has shot a ball for one
million times. An athlete, who desires to reach at high level performance, has to be prepared to fulfil
maximum amount of training. There isn’t any another way! But the quality of training is important. A
person may practice a lot without any outcome at the end of a day, if the practice is low quality or
efficiency. Everything must be focused on high quality training process.
In this article, some points about Air Rifle shooting has been mentioned. The subjects about positioning
are for a “Right hand shooter”, for Left hand shooters everything is opposite surely.
The main topics are:

• Positioning
• Aiming
• Triggering
• Breathing
• Shot routine
• Proceeding with different skills
• Developing Hold ability
Positioning in Air Rifle
Among different shooting positions, standing is the most unstable position, because it has a small
support area and the centre of gravity is high. In order to make a stable position, we need to have an
exceptional sense of balance and muscles control. Muscles need to be relatively relaxed, but at the same
time, they need to give us the required stability.
To take a standing position, the shooter should stand with an almost 90 degrees angle to the right of the
target. The distance between feet should be about shoulder width. This distance depends on height of
the shooter, his/her body shape, strength of the muscles, etc.
Feet should be parallel; however, toes may point out slightly to achieve better balance and control.

Has been said that weight of the body-rifle system should be equally distributed on both legs. But
practically, left leg supports the most weight. This leg should be straight.
The right leg supports and adjusts direction of the position.
When placing the feet and adjusting their direction, the shooter needs to concentrate on their optimal
angle, ensuring a good hip alignment, which needs to be as straight as possible towards the target.

Two different types of feet position, Hips alignment is straight towards the target in both positions

The upper body leans back to get weight of the rifle over the support area and the pelvis tilts to provide
a solid platform for the supporting elbow. Hips must remain aligned with the line of the target.
Left arm rests against the rib cage and left elbow sits on the iliac crest or a little in or out, according
length of the arm, fore-arm and upper body, but it must be positioned at the same place for all shots.

Weight of the rifle needs to be transferred through the bones, via left hand, forearm, elbow, pelvis,
thigh, leg and foot to the ground.
Butt-plate must be firmly placed at the upper part of the right arm, right shoulder is completely relaxed.
The left shoulder needs to be relaxed too.

The left forearm should almost be vertical. Hand-rest which brings the rifle up, is placed on the heel of
the left hand or on the fisted hand or any other position of the left hand.
Since the new rules let you having depth of the fore-end up to 12 centimetres, putting the rifle on the
palm is recommended, in order to reduce the number of joints at left hand position! Muscles of the left
arm, forearm and hand must be relaxed and they mustn’t push the barrel to the target. For this purpose,
you need to find your zero point accurately.
The right arm should be relaxed, and the right hand grasps the pistol grip comfortably, in the position
that the index finger places with the best position on the trigger blade and produces the straight trigger
pull without disturbing the rifle and the holding. Right wrist should be as straight as possible.

Head is upright and the cheek-bone is placed on the cheek-piece of the butt. This piece must be adjusted
in the manner that the dominant eye can look the target through the sights straight, without any tension
in neck muscles.
Centre of gravity of the rifle needs to be as close to the body centre line as possible, to achieve a good
balance and hold. The muscles in front and behind of lower part of the body are equally little tensed
and the agonist and antagonist muscles have an optimal relationship. If the balance is ok, heels and toes
will be both equally loaded, be aware of the pressure receptors at your feet.

Front and back view of standing position

Setting up the rifle depends on: length of arm and fore-arm, shoulder width, neck length, hip shape,
length of upper body compares to the legs, etc.
The parts of the rifle which need to be adjusted precisely are: height of the sight raisers, length of the
butt, height and direction of the butt-plate and cheek piece, trigger distance, depth of the hand-rest,
orientation and place of the grip, etc.
You need to adjust all of them properly to take a comfortable and balanced position. To check your zero
point, you may close your eyes or look down and relax your muscles (omit the extra tensions) and be
on your skeletal position for about 30 seconds and then open your eyes and check where you are. When
you are looking through the sights, you usually push the barrel to the centre with some muscles effort
and you feel your zero point is ok, however it’s not and you push the rifle to the centre by your muscles!
After checking the zero point, if the barrel is higher or lower than the centre, you may adjust it with the
butt-plate. If the barrel is up, push the butt-plate down and vice versa. If your barrel is left or right of
the centre of the target, you can adjust your position by your feet. But if the distance to the centre is
small, you can adjust it with your right foot position.

Some different Air Rifle positioning among Iranian champions

Aiming process
Aiming process includes: aiming sharpness, aiming time and target approach. For aiming you should
put your head on the cheekpiece in the manner that eye positions against the rear sight and be able to
see the target through the sights symmetric, whilst head and neck are relaxed.
If the eye cannot see the same picture every time, it will not be able to perform accurately. If any
muscular effort is required to see through the sights, something is wrong and we should try to solve the
problem: cheekpiece may need millimeter adjustment vertically, horizontally, or it may need an angle
in different directions, etc.
“Aiming time” is also one of the important factors in aiming process. If aiming takes long time, the
possibility of seeing a wrong picture increase. In the other words, when we look at the target through
sight elements for a long time, we don’t see the actual picture at the moment of triggering! If aiming
takes long time, we should blink, breathe, and start aiming again. It’s been said that the picture can be
reliable for 8 seconds after blinking only!
Exact alignment of sight elements is necessary to have a “well-aimed shot”.
There are also different sizes of front sight insert, which need to be selected precisely. Most shooters
use 3.8 mm. However bigger sizes are recommended for beginners, to recognise the symmetry of the
sight elements easier and faster; and smaller sizes for master shooters in order to increase the accuracy;
However, when the distance between the front sight insert and the bulls-eye is very little, you will notice
the smallest movement and it may effect on your aiming time, especially during the matches, when the
movements are bigger.

Symmetry of the sight elements with 2 different sizes of the front sight inserts

Aiming skills must be learned and practiced. During aiming exercises, eye muscles are developing to
perform a specific task for a period of time with a same high accuracy.
Beginners may learn and practice symmetry of the sight elements and target on the bench rest.
Few points about aiming process:

• It’s important to know you just need a satisfactory sight picture, not a perfect one.
• You should trust your automatic centring reflexes and don’t go for 11.
• You need to control aiming time; with using SCATT or by coach supervising, etc.
• One of the mistakes in aiming is: Sometimes shooters don’t really aim the centre of the target!
• And finally, one of the most important factors in aiming is “Target Approach”. You need to
approach to the target from up (approximately 12:00 o’clock) in standing position, which needs
a good zeroing of your position.

A sample of relatively good Target Approach in air rifle

Trigger Control
Triggering is the critical moment of shooting performance. What is important about triggering is: trigger
timing and trigger cleanness. When we pull the trigger, the only part of the body which moves is the
trigger finger, without disturbing the rifle and holding.
When we discuss about triggering, we are actually talking about the trigger releasing and “Follow
through”. Follow through is about one second after the trigger releasing, when the shooter must maintain
the same stability and proper aiming picture and pause in breathing. With this short extra time after
shot releasing, we let the pellet leaves the barrel within the same circumstances.

In order to have a nice triggering, shooters need a well-adjusted trigger: Trigger weight; length and
weight of the first stage; place of the trigger blade, etc.
The most important thing during trigger operation is use of the index finger independently. In the other
words, the motion of the trigger finger must not affect on anything, neither the rifle nor the body. During
the time that trigger is being released and follow through, the body muscles mustn’t have any reaction
to trigger pulling.
There should be an identical contact between the fingertip and the trigger. Both placement and pressure
of the fingertip on the trigger blade are important. We also have to take care about the direction of the
trigger finger movement during trigger squeezing, which needs to be backward and almost parallel to
the barrel axis.
Some trigger exercises:

• Dry firing with full concentration on triggering and follow through.

• Dry firing with closed eyes, attention on the inner feeling of triggering and follow through.
• Shooting on a white target, just focus on triggering and follow through, aiming is not important.
• SCATT training, to get feed-back about your trace at the last second before shot releasing, the
critical moment of triggering and follow through; and try to improve and modify your
techniques, if required.

Breathing
During shooting, slow stomach breathing is required to reduce movement of shoulders and chest, and
make heart beat slower. It’s been recommended to have few deep and slow breaths during self-
preparation period, before putting your cheek on the cheek-piece; and then two or three shallower
breaths during aiming process.
The barrel goes up during in-hale and moves down within ex-hale, in standing position. So, during the
last ex-hale the barrel is supposed to come down to the centre, you’ve already taken the first stage of
the trigger if it has two stages, and then stop breathing for few seconds and release the trigger when you
see the symmetry of the rear-sight, front-sight and the bulls eye, keep pause in your breathing for at-
least one second after shot releasing, and then breath normally. The time when you stop breathing until
end of follow through shouldn’t be more than 10 seconds, otherwise your brain and muscles cannot
receive enough Oxygen. If so, your vision sharpness will be reduced, your muscles tension and heart
beat will be increased, and some more physiological symptoms. Besides that, your concentration will
be dropped, your coordination will be affected, etc.

Shot Routine
Routine is the usual order in which we do the things. When we are in a shooting competition or a training
session, we do somethings in the usual order which is our “Shot Routine”. Every shooter’s routine
should be well constructed and on conscious basis. If shooters practice without taking care about their
routine, they just waste the time because they don’t know what they are doing exactly, and during a
competition, when pressure level is higher than normal, they will get confused.
In daily training, shooters should try to build and develop a single shot routine. A strong advice for
shooters is: writing their routine, such as: Take a proper and steady position; pick up the rifle; check the
inner and outer position with few stomach breathing; put the cheek on the cheekpiece and start aiming;
be aware of the number of breathing during aiming process; take care of your target approach; you’ve
already taken the first stage of the trigger before your last exhale, if aiming picture is satisfactory and
coordination of holding-aiming is good, stop breathing for few seconds and start to increase the pressure
on the trigger whilst looking the target through the sight elements; trigger is released; follow through;
breath; call your shot; put the rifle on the stand; watch the monitor (or target) to see the result.
The above explanation was an example of a shot routine, the usual things that a shooter fulfils for every
single shot and needs to have a sharp picture of these tasks in her/his mind before the next shot, in order
to shoot every shot as same as the previous one.
You should know how many breaths you need during the self-preparation time, how many breaths
during aiming process, how long is your breathing pause during triggering and follow through and do
it almost same for every shot. And whenever you cannot perform according your rhythm, cancel that
shot.

Self-preparation period before aiming, to check inner and outer position

Proceeding with different skills

Holding, aiming and triggering are the basis of shooting performance. So, they need to be practiced at
every training session.
Good holding ability needs fulfilling some kinds of Hold exercises at each training session, some
balance exercises should also be done occasionally.
And finally triggering operation, is one of the most important skills which needs a lot of training with
full concentration. You need to consider some dry and live shots with focus on triggering every session.
Trigger cleanness and timing, and also follow through have to be practiced regularly.
Coordination between these fundamental techniques has to be considered as well. Shooters have to do
some training for this purpose too. And finally, some exercises to improve shot routine.
Each training session should be started with warm-up exercises including muscles stretching, short
visualization about shooting performance with perfect techniques, practicing the basic techniques at the
beginning or at the end of every training session, some Willing exercises, that shooters are required to
reach to a certain goal, and cooling-down at the end of each session.
Besides all different shooting training, regular Physical and Mental exercises are necessary to reach to
high level shooting performance.

Developing Hold ability

Hold is the ability of control the muscles to keep them still, which mostly depends on mental awareness.
In order to improve this ability, shooters can do some special endurance training. These kinds of
exercises create some adaptation and changes in human body, which produce some capacities, and
improve the resistance to fatigue.
If we study the shooters’ SCATT files, we will notice a very high correlation between stability and
performance. Hold exercises seem to be the best and quickest way to improve the ability to reach high
performance. Developing Hold is one of the most important parts of shooting training even among
champions. In fact, during Hold exercises emphasise falls upon: improving rifle coordination with the
body, improving shooting position and ability of holding the position, and finally strengthen the body
for that special position. As shooters improve the Hold ability, they should increase their holding time
gradually until they can do that for several minutes without fatigue. The main goal in improving the
Hold is: decreasing the total Hold area.

Some kinds of Hold exercises:

• Taking shooting position without shooting jacket in standing position. The shooters generate a
higher tension than the normal shooting position in their lower limbs and hold this tension for
a certain time, then make them relax deliberately. And repeat the tension – relaxation for several
times. During this exercise, concentration should be on muscles feeling. Aiming is not
important.
• Holding the position with and without equipment for one minute, both sides. Aiming is not
important.
• Normal shooting with full concentration on the inner position, sometimes with closed eyes.
• SCATT training, to get feed-back about your Hold and steadiness.