In this issue: E-mail for high school varsity question Smallbore shooting near West Chester, PA??? Re: Cooked rounds Re: UIT rule updates Re: offhand problems Re: offhand, HS Varsity, mental Re: kneeling problems Re: HS varsity Re: HS varsity Used equipment sources Re: offhand problems ******************************************************************* Mike, You might want to post my e-mail address for folks to reply to my help request regarding high school shooting sports varsity status. Best regards, Phillip Williams PX174@aol.com ******************************************************************** A friend is interested in smallbore target shooting and is looking for a place near to West Chester, PA, USA, to get instruction and use equipment 'til she can acquire her own. Any suggestions? TIA -- Brian McNeill McNeill Photography 1511 Hatfield Valley Road bmcn@jtan.com Voice 215.368.3326 Hatfield, PA 19440 Fax 215.368.6807 ******************************************************************* I'm primarily a pistol shooter too, and not a terribly technically knowledgable one, but I would never let such a minor obstacle restrict comment. Failure to feed from a magazine is typically a magazine problem which can sometimes be solved (patched over) with higher velocity ammo. If the magazine is dropped on the outside edge), they get "too tight", making extraction of rounds more difficult. This increased resistance . can be overcome with more force from the recoil, which can, in turn, be generated by the technique you describe. (It is routinely used in cold climates to overcome the converse effect.) Since it is impossible to raise the temperature of the ammo above body temperature by the technique you describe and ammo is definitely designed to operate safely at 37 C, you cannot generate excess pressure by this technique. Reasonable explanation? More details are an option, if desirable. Your bottom line is that you have a magazine problem that can be solved by gunsmithing or switching to a slightly more powerful brand/lot of ammo. Your current combination is right on the ragged edge. Are you shooting in the Bill Perreau Memorial Postal match this year? Matt DeLong Utah Precision Marksmanship Society ******************************************************************* Dear Mike I have noticed frequent references to UIT Rules in the mailing list but I can not recall you referring the correspondent to USA Shooting. They are the NGB and the only direct link to the UIT. (The horses mouth, so to speak) Anyone shooting UIT type events should be members of USA Shooting to receive "Quickshots" and stay up to date. Good shooting, Neal [Ed. note - If anyone would like USA Shooting contact info, see my page under "links".] ******************************************************************** > I'm having an extremely difficult time getting my shooters to not kick > their hips out in offhand. Does anyone have and tricks to use here? I get > tired of repeatedly correcting them to no avail.... > > On a related note, I have noted my younger students (14-15 yr olds) have > an extremely difficult time reducing movement in offhand and especially > kneeling. I've been wondering if this a developmental anomoly since my > older shooters (even those introduced to rifle for the first time at 17) > do not manifest this. Could their development and age be contributing to > their balance problems? Has anyone seen tests on this subject? Does anyone > know of older shooters having balance problems of a similar nature? Or, > has anyone seen any cases of shooters suffering trauma to the cochlia > having difficult returning to shooting? > > thanks, > Peter Vasilion, > Head Coach, Clarence Central High School Varsity Rifle Team > A number of Aussie shooters returned from Europe late '95 - early '96 with this position (i.e. the hip pushed well forward). Our Junior shooters adapted to the same and the results were almost immediate. However, the main problem with two of them - both in the midst of a spurt in growth - is balance. We have assumed that the sudden growth/balance problems are related, but if anyone has a solution, we would be only too willing to give it a try. > > I hope that someone can advise me on a new Air Rifle position I'm trying at > the moment. I am a mid 560's Air Rifle shooter and have always shot in the > classic position ie. both legs straight, hip forward, but my right leg > always feels as if it wants to bend, holding it straight causes small muscle > twitches late in a match. Several years ago I saw Vessela Lechteva > (spelling??)shoot standing in Seoul, Korea and took photos of her position > which has all her weight on her front leg and her right leg bent and her hip > a long way forward. I am playing around with this position at the moment. It > feels comfortable but my hold is not all that good yet. Is this position > worth pursuing or should I stay with the tried and tested method. Any > comments on advantages or disadvantages would be appreciated. > > Richard Jeffries > richard.jeffries@b130.aone.net.au see above re position. one important feature of the position used by our juniors is that the right leg is straight. If the right leg is bent, we found that often a very small movement of the knee will result, causing the inevitable movement of the rifle. By turning the right foot out a bit (some experimentation needed for each shooter) and keeping the foot flat to the floor with the leg straight has produced very significant improvements. To the USA Pistol team en-route to Adelaide for the Oceania Games see you when you get here - please say hello - I am the Chief Recorder, so look me up Graham Pascoe Manager, Information Tech Auditor-General's Department ******************************************************************* Hi, Michael! For Peter Vasilion: In my experience with Junior shooters, the hip-kicking and movement problems one sees is not a function of age so much as a problem with the size of the shooter. Some of these kids are positively tiny, and unless the rifle is sized appropriately for them, they just can't handle the weight. This is particularly true if they are using weapons that are not stocked for position shooting (i.e., the Winchester 52s often supplied by DCM.) Unfortunately, neither of these problems has a simple solution. Money does not grow on trees to buy new rifles, and you can't fertilize the kids! Good luck. For Phillip Williams: In Wisconsin there are two high school athletic governing organizations, one for public schools (WIAA) and one for private/parochial schools (WISAA). Neither sanctions a statewide program in any shooting sport. On the public school side, varsity designation ("letter" sports) is granted by the individual school districts. There are several hundred districts in the state. They all seem to run, not walk, away from any connection with the shooting sports. Junior competition is maintained by adult clubs, YMCAs and similar youth clubs, and is sanctioned by the Wisconsin Rifle & Pistol Association. (This may not be authoritative information, but it may be the best you get from my state.) For the list, RE: Position Building: I'm enjoying the discussion of evaluating unorthodox positions, and I, too, take the philosophy that so long as a shooter's position is legal and allows the shooter to fire 10s there is no need to "fix" it. The concept of a "non-dominant mental entity" validating the perfection of a postion is troubling, however. Meaning no disrespect to anyone, this has the feel of psycho-babble. I tell new shooters to evaluate their positions, make changes to correct specific problems, change one thing at a time, and keep or reject the change based on data. Is it possible to reconcile the "mental entity" model with the "physical data" method? I would appreciate your thoughts. Good shooting! Tom [Ed. note - I don't have much time to answer now, but would refer you to my coach on that last part. You can get Chet at meecin@tnproweb.com] ******************************************************************** I also had the problem with the 3-9 pulse movement in the kneeling position. After trying to change many things to correct this problem I discovered that the pulse was coming from my wrist where the sling crosses it. The excessive sling tension I thought was needed to prevent the rifle from moving was causing the problem. All I had to do was reduce the sling tension and ensure that the sling was correctly positioned over the glove and coat. This reduced the 3-9 sight movement to the point that a consistent on center hold is quite easily obtained. Of course this is what corrected the problem for me and I can't say it is a panacea for everyone. Hope this will help. Dixon R. Boyles ********************************************************************* In response to Phillip Williams request, yes, here in Sitka, Ak our rifle team is a varsity sport and the kids do receive letters for it. We shoot against 4 other high school teams. Right now we are doing postal and fax matches as we do not have the funding to beable to travel. Robert Kluting Asst. Coach Sitka High School Rifle Team ********************************************************************* This was a predicament for Union High School (Union High South Carolina) when I was shooting there 2 years ago. The problem was not getting recongized as a varsity sport from our school, but rather finding other schools in the state that we could compete aginst to be reconized as a varsity sport. Since Varsity means shooting against other schools, there was only 3, now 2 in the state that have a high school rifle team; Union and Lower Richland. I remember shooting against your school Mr. Williams, or it might have been North Augusta. One was a military school or what not, and a girl shot there named Sara Huges who isI think at Georgia Junior Military institue. But its up to the coaches here to look for other schools to shoot against in your state in order to be reconized as a varsity team. Many schools choose not to have a rifle team simply because of lead contamination. Fortunatly, Union has an out door range. Paul Davis at Union can answere this question better than me since he is the coach, and I have not shot a Union for quite a while. David Fowler University of Kentucky Rifle Team ********************************************************************* I enjoy your pages and the UIT mail very much, thank you for the excellent job that you do! I am primarily an air pistol competitor, but my roots are in smallbore rifle shooting. Recently, through a snafu by the Pine Tree State Rifle & Pistol Assoc. (here in Maine), I was accidentally signed up for the smallbore international 3 position postals! Quite a surprise to me needless to say! I hadn't shot rifle in almost 12 years, and they gave me the option of cancelling, but then I thought " this might be interesting...hmmm" So I borrowed a 1413 from a friend and shot my first targets that day. Debacle is a good word to describe my performance, with no shooting jacket, bad ammo etc. But it lit a MAJOR spark to get back into the competition. I had forgotten how much I loved rifle shooting. I have since purchased a used jacket, sling, and dug my shooting mat out of the mothballs. I use X-country ski boots, just like I did a dozen years ago that work very well and were about $120.00 cheaper than the AHGs. But now I really need a rifle of my own again. I hate to borrow anything really, especially someone else's prize shooting iron! My question, to put an end to this babble, is this: Do you know of a source for buying a used 1413 Anschutz for a reasonable sum? I feel that a 20 year old, used rifle shouldn't cost more than $700.00. Neal Johnson disagrees with me, but oh well ... that's how he makes his living. If you have any ideas, or suggestions I would be most appreciative. Until then I will keep working on my goal for this year which is getting back to were I was shooting in high school. Not Easy! 10.9s to you, Patrick Rowling junebug@midcoast.com [Try Champion Shooter's at 1-800-821-4867 or Champion's Choice at 1-800-345-7179. They sometimes have used guns. Also put out a feeler on rec.guns - I've seen some for sale there before.] ******************************************************************* > I hope that someone can advise me on a new Air Rifle position I'm trying at > the moment. I am a mid 560's Air Rifle shooter and have always shot in the > classic position ie. both legs straight, hip forward, but my right leg > always feels as if it wants to bend, holding it straight causes small muscle > twitches late in a match. Several years ago I saw Vessela Lechteva > (spelling??)shoot standing in Seoul, Korea and took photos of her position > which has all her weight on her front leg and her right leg bent and her hip > a long way forward. I am playing around with this position at the moment. It > feels comfortable but my hold is not all that good yet. Is this position > worth pursuing or should I stay with the tried and tested method. Any > comments on advantages or disadvantages would be appreciated. > > Richard Jeffries > richard.jeffries@b130.aone.net.au I have some comments to Richard's experiments above. There are NOT two people who have the same proportion of several parts of their body. And there are not two (thinking) shooting masters that have absolutely the same shooting position. Each one should be carefuly individualized. For shooting standing position (and others) the most important factor is stable position. It does not mean that the shooter is standing absolutely without any movements. If you observe best shooters from behind, or even better if you have recorderd Atlanta finalists screened from front, you will see that even Olympic champions are mowing while aiming with amplitude of few centimeters. Though fixing feets is not most important. The most important is training of such position to keep the center of the aim as a center of movements. I have observed Vessela Letcheva several times. She is the top world shooter and world record holder. She is standing on her left leg. For me it was fine discovery because I used almost the same position 30 years ago when I applied shooting with not bad results. I experimented even with shooting without shoes and with lowering pressure of my right foot almost to null. The results were impressive. Follow your position successfuly! Wiktor --------- PS. My server is under reconstruction and my sites are not visible. Sometimes my be seen when "xxx" is appled instead "www" Wiktor Kobylinski ----------------- http://www.ternet.pl/~wiko/10.9/ps.htm http://www.ternet.pl/~wiko/10.9/index.html ********************************************************************* End of UIT Mailing List #18 Michael Ray - Systems Engineer Rose-Hulman Inst. of Tech. Rifle Coach The Olympic Shooting Page - http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/1190/