Why you shouldn't always judge a book by the cover

Wilkinstown Target Shooting Club's range from the outside:


And from the inside (taken during a break in a training session):

That's just the upstairs range section - downstairs there's a prep area, storerooms, changing rooms for men and women and so on.

That five-bull target you can see between lanes 2 and 3 is a falling-plate target that WTSC, UCDRC and DURC are experimenting with this year for their less competitive, more recreational shooters:

They're a good bit of fun, have inserts to make the size of the hole in the target smaller (down to the equivalent of a 10.5), and the sight picture is pretty much ISSF-standard, so you can use them for the first twenty warm-up shots in training easily enough.

Shooting at the UCD Open last November.



New software was being tried out for the ten-shot finals with the electronic target scoring machine. It worked fairly well, I thought:

Ei2JC wrote:

CQ Sparks.....well I think those pics might have killed any fleeting interest I had in target shooting !.........and I used to think my US Postal cycling gear was OTT

*lol*
Relax 2JC, that collection of gear is pretty much for the national squad level really. Your average shooter in DURC would use the club jacket, a glove, the rifle and a tin of pellets. That'd be about it. To be honest, I've seen people shooting tin cans with more gear

Rovi wrote:

Go on then Sparks, tell us (non-target shooters) what all that kit is for.

Right so...

Boots???
What do special boots do for you?

Flat soles. Normal shoes roll up at the toe to let you walk more easily - these don't, to help you stand more steadily.

And that jacket looks pretty restrictive, or is that the whole point?

It's not meant to be restrictive, but it is - it's primary purpose is to support the lower spine in the offhand (standing) position, and to distribute the weight when prone via the sling. (ISSF rifles are heavy - that air rifle is 6kg and the smallbore rifle is 8kg. Given the offhand stance and the weight, doctors call it an offset asymmetric loading, it's not a good idea to lift it without some stabilising of the spine - like weightlifting belts in the gym).

The trousers also give support to the lower spine, though frankly you could get the same effect if you cut them off above the knee. Time was that the jacket was much longer, you see, but when they shortened it, trousers were allowed so you didn't get chronic back problems developing.

I see funny hats with ‘blinkers’ on them, and that’s no ordinary glove either!

Well, the glove looks odd because of the "top grip" on the back of it, but other than that, it's not that specialised. You could shoot just as well with a regular thick pair of gloves if you could prevent the rifle slipping about on them. I don't wear the funny hats myself, though I have one - they're just blinders on the sides of the glasses so that people wandering about don't distract you. I've not had too big a problem with that, though.

And I haven’t seen so many headbands since John McEnroe was at his umpire chewing best!

Well, I just use the one But it holds my shooting glasses firmly in place so they don't slip down my nose, and it keeps my forehead warm on cold days

The rifle stand is to rest the rifle on when reloading between shots (for a match, you're looking at maybe up to a hundred shots depending on how many sighters you take and whether you make the finals), not everyone uses one. Many just put the rifle down on the bench.

The pellet box just holds the pellets in a grid so they're easy to grasp and easy to count in case you shoot one too few or too many shots during the match.

The toolbox is just earplugs, cleaning dodads, an adapter valve for filling the tank on the rifle off a scuba tank, a wrench for removing the adapter valve off the tank afterwards while swearing, and other assorted tools like a leatherman clone, some hex keys and so on.

The earplugs (in that little white plastic container) both to help you concentrate by blocking off the noise from spectators and other competitors, and to protect hearing; the stopwatch to track how much time remains in the competition; water to stay hydrated; and the glasses' frames look so odd so that you can put the lens between your eye and the peep sights and ensure that the lens is at a right angle to your line of sight instead of being twisted. Think of Dennis Taylor's glasses for snooker and you see what I mean.
Anything else you're wondering about?

The new Feinwerkbau P700 air rifle that seems to be the most popular top-of-the-line model at the moment:



And in use with a RIKA trainer by Ryan Lynn, one of the Juniors from Wilkinstown. Note the little cylinder slung under the barrel near the muzzle, that's the sensor that detects where the rifle's pointed at on the target and the point of aim is then shown on the screen behind him. If it was a better photo, you could see the point of aim's path as a line on the screen in two colours - one for before the shot, and one for afterwards. It's a great training tool, shows what your hold looks like and what your follow-through is like.

Speaking of Trap (or Trench, I tend to get confused), here's Derek Burnett in Athens:



(Love the ear defenders )