Home 10M Target range

Air Pistol is a practical sport for people who have only a limited amount of time during the week for training, as long as you have a useable space at home to shoot. Practical home shooting areas are backyards (with no children) and garages.

For target air pistol you shoot at a distance of 10M. This is measured from the face of the target to the standing line. No part of your feet may cross the standing line. Personally, I have a garage setup which allows me to shoot a little over 9M. My opinion is that anything from 8-10M will serve as a good practice range, but when shooting away from 10M you will need to adjust the elevation of the rear sight when moving to 10M to get the same shot positioning. The target rests 140cm from the ground (this is measured from the ground to the centre of the 10 ring (bullseye.) An Air pistol target has a bulls eye of 11mm in diameter. The total size of the target is approx 15cm diameter. Scoring is measured to the highest value. This means that if your shot breaks the ring seperating the 9 and the 10, then you will score a 10. It's a good idea to score down when practising if it is hard to tell if the line was broken, so that you will hopefully be happier with competition scores, but not disappointed.



This is a competition target. The card is measured 17cm square, and made of a fine short fibre paper-card that minimized tear when the pellet goes through. It is important to get a fine clear cut from the pellet to measure the score. As you can see from the picture below, the punched holes are quite clean.

There are actually 4 shots on this target. 2 overlapping in the 10 ring. In competition only one shot is fired on each target. I normally shoot 5 per target when practising. Air pistol is also quite economical after your initial spend on a good gun. You can expect to pay around NZ10 cents per target, and good quality ammo is around NZ$10-NZ$15 for 500 rounds.

Setting up a range.
It is a good idea to make sure that you set up the target backed against a solid wall or fence. If you miss the target, you want to make sure that the pellet is not going to keep travelling and hit something. You'll need a pellet trap to stop/catch the pellets and hold the target firmly in position.



This is the Gamo Cone Pellet Trap, which I have used for a while. I will be replacing it with a custom designed one that works a lot better. The idea of the cone is that pellets bounce into the resevoir at the back. I find 1 of every 2 at best stays in and the rest mess up the floor. It does do the main job of a backstop to absorb all the power. Its second fault is that its not designed for competition sized targets. If you are prone to missing the target all together you may want to surround this with a bigger catch area. This trap holds the target by sliding it into the frame. It's not very good design. I am using magnets to attach the target firmly onto my pellet trap.

Lighting is very important. If you have too much, or not enough, then you cannot focus properly on the pistol sights. In daytime outside a bright overcast day is best, or sunny days without the sun in your eyes. Indoors a white light fluroesent tubes for the garage roof are better than yellow lights. And you will need to spotlight the target with a brighter light so that your sights get good contrast when aiming.

Tidy up the pellets after shooting. especially if you have children or pets, because lead is poisonous if swallowed. Its a good idea to wash your hands after shooting too.