Please e-mail address changes, unsubscribe requests, or submissions to me. In this issue: Re: ISSF rules / postals Standard rifle rules??? Re: training ideas Target Rifle Australia Re: Colored covers for rear iris? Re: canting debate Results of canting experiment Effects of caffeine on vision? ******************************************************************** Mike: Here's some info for the person wanting ISSF rules. They are on the ISSF web site - I just looked at them. But, they can be ordered from USA Shooting. If a person orders rule books from the ISSF, they will just forward the order on to USA Shooting in CO. Also, a free rifle can not be used in standard rifle events, as he also asked about. [Editor - thanks for pointing that out. I totally missed his point on that as I was taking standard as meaning "normal". In a hurry as always! What do you think about the next item?] For Mark Shuman in PA: I have an air gun postal that will begin in Dec. Let me know if you want details and a flyer. I will need a fax number or mailing address, though. Don Williams, Oregon. Keep up the good work, Mike. Don W. [Editor - Don's and other postals are listed on my page (see Matches). If anyone knows of others, please contact me.] ******************************************************************** I have a question about the rules for standard rifle. If you look att the new Anschütz 2002 ALU airrifle stock and compare it with the 2313 ALU freerifle stock. Would it be allowed to use this stock with a standard rifle butt and a slooping forend for standard rifle competitions? [Editor - my guess would be yes if it met all the standard rifle dimensions and weight. You would also need to change the buttplate and possibly the pistol grip. I would ask your national governing body or the ISSF for a more specific interpretation.] ******************************************************************** << I'm a central fire pistol shooter. I use a Hammerli 280 .32 wc and i want to know how i should practice: days a week, physical training,etc. >> There are some pretty well researched guidelines for physical training that seem to hold true, no matter what the sport. Shooting is generally "lumped" in with those sports which emphasize fine motor skills. It is pretty well accepted that an "imtermediate level" athlete must practice at least 3 days a week in order to maintain their current skill level. Four days is better and five days a week seems to be best and produces the most improvement. Six days is less optimal than five and seven days a week has numerous drawbacks. (Elite level athletes are a completely different "ball of wax".) (All this assumes an 11 month per year training schedule.) The length of time per practice session should be determined not only by the athletes stamina, but by their goals for the training session. Training sessions as short as 30 minutes can be productive and sessions of several hours can be detrimental. The bottom line seems to be that the total number of hours is much less important than the number of days involved. Ie. you can't make up for skipping practice on Tuesday and Wed. by shooting all day on Saturday. As a general rule, most of the heavy physical training should be done in the first quarter of the competition year and should be tapered off to the point where only moderate jogging, etc. is being done during actual competitions. For pistol shooters, it has been found that leg power is directly related to position stability and that upper body strength is directly related to arm stability over time. On another point, I am a firm believer in stopping a practice session if things are not going well and you can't seem to correct them. You can get pretty good at being pretty bad if you continue to practice bad technique. You are far better off to just quit for the time being and try again later. Some days just don't work out well. There are a number of fine texts on physical training and on teaching fine motor skills. I recommend that any serious shooter read at least one of them. While every athlete doesn't need to be a coach, I have always felt that the athlete was better able to progress if they understand why they are being asked to do these things. Best regards, Phillip Williams ******************************************************************** After much waiting....IT IS ON...the website that is. To find out what I have been doing with my idle hours, check out http://www.vianet.net.au/~tra and all will be revealed. Comments welcome (especially if there are any errors), although comments of all sorts will be hoped for. Have fun....it is a bit slowish, cos of the pictures, but not too bad. I think it is worth the wait. Have fun Trish ******************************************************************** Dear LIst: The info I have is second hand from George Brenzovich who sells them. The many colors [of covers for the rear iris] are for opening the pupil. Some people's eyes react to colors differently. Some colors will open the pupil some will close it. It is a natural reaction. Similar to some people seeing red or blue colors better. I do not have one personally. Wouldn't mind one but I digress. This is second hand fwiw. Brother-in-law said he tried it and it works. Solid smart individual and I belive him. That is my two cents worth. Mark Shuman Shamokin PA ****************************************************************** It always interests me when people start "chatting" about subjects on this forum. Sometimes something twangs a nerve. The cant problem is just one. A lot of people have had a comment - or two - on this subject. THIS IS GOOD! A few people have made some other comments about the lineage of people who contribute. THIS IS BAD! Chet and I have had correspondence in the past about certain things he has said but so what? As I have said in the past; Read, listen and inwardly digest ANY information that you receive. Think about it YOURSELF, analyse it as to how it fits your ideas, test it, then accept or reject it. It may work for you, it may not. Please people, keep the comments non personel. Don't shoot the messenger if you don't like the message! Keep the input coming, keep it reasoned, researched and supported by experience - Yours or others. I like dropping in crazy ideas for others to think about. They usually are supported by a bit of theory / practical experience at least. Come on, a bit of thinking outside the square is good for the soul, mind and life in general. Progress happens because someone notices something out of the ordinary that does not fit the norm, they ask why, test it, accept or reject it, and - voila! -Progress! It is good. (Except for GM food, Toad infected potatoes or Non-Hairy Corn!) Ross Mason [Editor - I had a difficult time deciding what to do with Martin's post, but I didn't have time to figure out how to edit it and keep the meaning so I just kept the whole thing since I really didn't consider it a flame. I found it no more offensive than Chet claiming I am "not yet competitively knowledgeable about their precision rifle and the operating nature of the human body." I found that insulting though it can be taken as an innocent statement. In the same vein, I felt Martin was representing the other side of the coin. While I agree "crazy ideas" are the source of innovation, we also have many younger shooters on this list that shouldn't be experimenting like that yet because they don't know any better. In Chet's defense, I think he was misunderstood on the glasses issue, cooking rounds was mainly for high power shooting, and he has participated in the coaching of several World Cup shooters. However, I still think it's fine to cant your rifle provided you have made the effort to adjust it to your position as best as possible.] ****************************************************************** As I argued myself a couple of issues ago, cant angle variations cause a point of impact displacement following a circular pattern, and the line of sight height does not influence this effect. I just finished a small study carried out to test this 'theory'. I used an air rifle; to enable accurate shooting with large cant angle variations (-90° to +90°), I used a laser instead of the conventional sights. For a low (1.6 cm) and a high (4.7 cm) sight height condition, I looked at the effect of cant angle on the point-of-impact. The results were in line with the expectations: no effect of sight height on point of impact displacement due to cant. A document on this study can be found at http://home-5.worldonline.nl/~jhogema/ballist.htm So that's all in line with the article in the UIT Journal/ ISSF News (referred to by Marcus, in Vol. 3 - #38): the one where they used an air rifle with massive sight riser blocks and showed that it made no difference in the amount of error due to cant angle. All converging evidence... Jeroen Hogema (air rifle, The Netherlands) jhogema@worldonline.nl [Editor - thank you for your effort in this task.] ****************************************************************** I am interested in the effects of caffeine on a shooter's vision. Does it alter the vision capability? How does it do so physiologically? Tear production? Lens accommodation. Blood flow? Iris control? Direct effects on the vision centers of the brain? What are the observed effects, in training and competition? We all know coffee's bad for a precision shooter's 'pulse' or 'heartbeat', but I'm interested in these specifics. Thanks Richard [Editor - interesting question, but why would you ingest caffeine when you know it's bad for the pulse? Are you hypothesizing that an increase in vision acuity would offset the increased pulse? I would suspect blood flow would increase since it enlarges the capillaries, but I don't know what that would do to vision. Any physiologists out there? It should be easy to test.] ****************************************************************** End of UIT Mailing List #39 Michael Ray - Systems Engineer Rose-Hulman Inst. of Tech. Rifle Coach UIT Shooting Page - http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/1190/index.htm