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August 5th, 2010
 Government officials in the UK have banned blank-firing starter pistols, claiming they can be converted to fire live rounds. As of June 4, 2010, possession of an Italian-made, bright orange Olympic .380 BBM starter pistol is now a criminal offense (whether or not the pistol has been converted), with a mandatory 5-year jail term. Approximately 1500 of the Olympic starter pistols have been imported into the UK since 2006, and they are widely used in other countries.
UK officials announced an amnesty during which the starter pistols could be surrendered to police in Britain and Wales. But the amnesty has expired. Now, if prosecuted, those who did not give up their starter pistols will be locked up for five years. According to BBC Online: “After 4 June the weapon will be prohibited under the 1968 Firearms Act and anyone caught possessing it faces a mandatory prison sentence of five years.” Note that possession of the starter pistols is now illegal whether or not the pistols have been converted to fire live ammo. Imagine being jailed for FIVE YEARS for having a noise-making device, which is all an unmodified starter pistol really is.
The purported reason for the starter pistol ban is that a few of the pistols have been converted to fire live ammunition. Law enforcement officials in London claim that black-painted, converted starter pistols have been “linked” to a handful of serious crimes.
Yorkshire Post Story on Olympic Starter Pistol Ban | BBC Online Story on Starter Pistol Confiscation
Sporting groups in Great Britain have protested the draconian ban on starter pistols. David Brown of UK Athletics equated the banning of starter pistols with taking whistles away from football [soccer] referees. As quoted in the Yorkshire Post, Brown said:
“The implications for our major Olympic sport in the lead-up to 2012 should not be underestimated. The guns are the only thing that give a dual signal, a flash and smoke, to the athletes in front of you and the timekeepers. There is nothing else [to use], except at the Olympic Games level where they have electronic guns.”
August 5th, 2010
 The U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit’s Service Rifle team dominated the 49th Interservice Rifle Championships. USAMU shooters won the coveted 10-man Interservice Rifle team championship and swept every major award at the Interservice tournament, held last week at Quantico, Virginia. USAMU teams also won the the 1,000-yard team match in both the service rifle and match rifle categories, setting a new match record in the service rifle category. With its performance at Quantico, the USAMU completed a sweep of all interservice marksmanship championships in 2010 — soldiers and teams from the USAMU previously won the shotgun and pistol interservice competitions, as a team and individually.
Individually, Staff Sgt. Brandon Green was the big winner during the week. He won six championships, including the overall individual championship — his second time winning the prestigious title. He also won the Coast Guard match, the Marine Corps match, the 600-yard match rifle, the 1,000-yard match rifle, and the match rifle individual long-range championship.
Members of the winning 10-man Interservice Rifle team were: Sgt. 1st Class Lance Dement, Sgt. 1st Class Grant Singley, Staff Sgt. Tyrell Cooper, Staff Sgt. Brandon Green, Staff Sgt. Joel Micholick, Staff Sgt. Scott Grant, Sgt. Sherri Jo Gallagher, Spc. Kevin Trickett, Spc. Augustus Dunfey, and Pfc. Amanda Elsenboss. Coaches were Sgt. 1st Class Emil Praslick and Staff Sgt. Walter Craig. Cooper was the high individual shooter during the match with a score of 497-21x.
August 4th, 2010
 by Steve Cooper, CMP Online
The CMP Rimfire Sporter Match is now one of the most popular events at Camp Perry, drawing hundreds of entries. The Rimfire Sporter Match, first held in 2002, was designed to accommodate a novice shooter with nothing more than a store-bought .22 caliber rifle (and no fancy competition gear). The Rimfire Sporter Match is a recreation-oriented, 3-position competition using off-the-shelf .22 caliber sporter rifles. Rifles may be manually operated or semi-automatic and competitors are broken into three classes: open sights, telescopic sights, and tactical rifle. Read AccurateShooter.com’s detailed Guide to Rimfire Sporter Matches
Blustery Conditions Challenge Rimfire Sporter Shooters
While some shooters dealt with a driving rain, wildly-fluctuating crosswinds and the accompanying delays, others enjoyed bright sun and calm conditions during the 9th annual Rimfire Sporter Match on Sunday, July 25th. Chalk it all up to “The Camp Perry Experience”. Veteran shooters know that weather is almost always a factor here and newcomers received received a classic introduction to it Sunday. Nonetheless, the shooters battled through the conditions to post some fine scores.
Command Sergeant Major (CSM) Steven Slee, 46, U.S. Army Reserve, won the Open Sights class with an aggregate score of 578-23X out of 600 possible. Charles Opalewski II, 20, was second in open sights with an aggregate score of 574-14X. Opalewski was also the high ranking overall junior and 4-H junior shooter. Nick Takacs, 61, was the high senior competitor in open sights class with an aggregate score of 569-17X. In Telescopic Sights class (T-class), Lucas Boord, 20, finished first, using a Kimber Hunter to score 593-27X. Placing second in T-class was CSM Steven Slee with a 592-31X. Natalie Harper was the High Woman, High Junior and High 4-H Junior shooter in the Telescopic Sights Class with an overall score of 588-14X. The top senior shooter in T-class was Steve Gossage, 63, with an aggregate of 586-32X. READ More …
August 3rd, 2010
 While much of the American shooting community is focused on the National Championships in Camp Perry, Ohio, nearly 2500 of the world’s top shooters are competing in Munich, Germany in the 50th ISSF World Shooting Championships which concludes August 11, 2010.
 The 50th World Shooting Championship opened in Munich, Germany on the 30th of July with a festive Opening Ceremony on Munich’s iconic Marien-platz. This is the largest World Shooting Championship ever — with 2,460 shooters from 103 countries competing for medals in 54 events. Competitors will also vie for 69 Olympic Quotas allowing their respective nations’ teams to compete at the 2012 Games in London.
At the ISSF World Championships, disciplines include Air Rifle, Air Pistol, Smallbore Rifle, Smallbore Pistol, Running Target, 300m Rifle, and Trap, with classes for Men, Women, and Juniors. So far Americans have done well, with high individual placings and a team win in the mens’ 50m rimfire prone event (see photo). The 50m mens’ prone team, consisting of Matt Emmons, SGT Michael McPhail, and SFC Eric Uptagrafft, won its second consecutive World Championship.
The ISSF-Sports.org website provides extensive coverage of the ISSF World Championships, including video webcasts of the finals in many disciplines. There are numerous photo galleries where you can see the shooters and high-tech air rifles and rimfire rifles used by the top shooters from many countries.
Running Target Competition is Fun to Watch
At the ISSF Worlds, one of the most challenging events is the Running Target Competition. Since this is not an Olympic shooting discipline, you may have never seen it before. But we guarantee this is worth checking out. Shooting in a man vs. man format, pairs of shooters engage a quickly moving target at 10 meters with air rifles. But the scoring is like tennis. For each pair of shots (one by each shooter), the competitor who puts his shot closest to dead center gets one point, while his opponent gets nothing. This is all done offhand from the standing position, requiring superb holding skills. It’s hard enough to shoot “10s” when the target is fixed. Imagine trying to put a pellet in a tiny 10-Ring, when the target is moving! To watch the Running Target Finals, CLICK this LINK then select the “Medal Match 10m Running Target Men” video from the list at the right. Forward to the 28-minute mark for the final Gold Medal shoot-out between Russia and China.
Team USA photo by Wolfgang Schreiber, ©2010 ISSF
August 2nd, 2010
 The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) has joined the Calguns Foundation, the NRA, the Folsom Shooting Club and two individual truckers to challenge AB 962, California’s soon-to-be-implemented ban on the interstate shipment of handgun ammunition to California.
The law will criminalize the delivery and transfer of handgun ammunition not done in face-to-face transactions. OOIDA’s attorneys have filed a new lawsuit, OOIDA et al v. Lindley, U.S. District Court (E.D. Calif.), alleging that the provisions of AB 962 violate the Federal Aviation Admin. Authorization Act, which prohibits states and local municipalities from interfering with carriers’ rates, routes or services. Previously, two ammo-makers and the Shooting Sports Director for the Paralyzed Veterans Assn. of America filed another lawsuit challenging AB 962 on the grounds that it violates the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
 Last year, Governor Schwarzenegger signed Assembly Bill 962 into law, which goes into effect February, 2011. The law will criminalize the delivery and transfer of handgun ammunition not done in face-to-face transactions. It also requires shipping companies to implement procedures to determine whether the recipient of a package containing handgun ammunition is covered by one of the exceptions in the law before delivering handgun ammunition in California. According to the OOIDA, this places a big burden on the shippers, and will make shipping ammunition to California much more difficult and likely more expensive.
Jim Johnston, OOIDA President, explained why his organization filed its lawsuit: “This isn’t about firearms or ammunition. Congress made an important decision to keep motor carriers free from a patchwork of burdensome regulation as we move America’s goods to market. We cannot allow California to subject our members to criminal liability where the state has no right to meddle.”
CLICK HERE for Complaint in OOIDA lawsuit, OOIDA et al v. Lindley.
CLICK HERE for Complaint in ammo-makers’ lawsuit, State Ammunition et al v. Lindley.
August 2nd, 2010
by Danielle Sturgis, The NRA Blog
 A collegiate All-American in the 1940s, Mr. Fred Cole is now 88 years old and still a Camp Perry competitor. At Thursday night’s NRA Awards Ceremony, where smallbore prone champions were awarded their medals, Match Director H.Q. Moody was excited to introduce him to the audience before the official ceremony began. “He’s been our senior perennial champion forever,” Moody said, “and he’s one of our sport’s fine gentleman.”
 As Cole stood and waved at the audience, the entire auditorium joined him in a thundering standing ovation. Cole competed in both the 2010 smallbore 3-position competition and the smallbore prone competition. He ended the week with a comprehensive score of 4714-216x. Cole’s pictured above (left) shooting in the prone position from 100 yards.
“I started shooting in 1937 at Xavier High School Rifle Team,” Cole told NRAblog. “That’s 73 years of shooting. I shoot mostly smallbore position. That’s my first love.”
The Stonybrook, New York, resident reports winning a total of 6 intermediate senior championships throughout his Camp Perry career.
Why has he devoted so much of his time to competitive shooting? “It’s the greatest sport in the world,” Cole proclaimed. “It’s a character builder. It demands personal discipline. It’s a challenging sport, and one can participate individually or as a team member.”
July 30th, 2010
 The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) recently completed a six-month effort to expand and update the www.wheretoshoot.org web database of shooting venues. Hundreds of new places to shoot have been added and thousands of listing updates have been made. WhereToShoot.org is a free online resource that lists range locations, along with descriptions of facilities and types of shooting offered. The site is particularly helpful to new participants to the shooting sports as well as active participants who have moved to a new location. Visitors simply enter their state, area code or zip code and a list of places to shoot is created. Searches can be further narrowed by selecting which shooting discipline you are interested in. If you own or operate a shooting range that is not listed yet, NSSF encourages you update your range information free of charge.
July 29th, 2010
 Kelly Bachand, the youngest competitor on the Top Shot TV series, is a regular contributor to AccurateShooter.com. Currently an electrical engineering major at the Univ. of Washington, Kelly is a talented Palma rifle shooter who has managed to hold his own in other shooting disciplines. Kelly is the real deal — a genuine marksman, and we know many readers have been pulling for him through the grueling Top Shot elimination process.
There’s a fascinating full-page interview with Kelly in the Cheaper Than Dirt Blog. The first half of the interview covers Kelly’s background and marksmanship training. In the second half, Kelly discusses his Top Shot experience, revealing secrets about the show and the inter-personal rivalries which have become such a staple of the series. Kelly also explains how he managed to survive three elimination rounds.
| Q: During the first elimination challenge you shot rifles and sent Mike Seeklander home. That was a pretty stunning defeat and seemed to surprise everybody. It does seem like your mental attitude has really helped you through all of the elimination challenges you’ve been through.
Kelly: I do have a certain mental ability that I’ve kind of picked up and practiced and begun to get better at over the last year, year and a half, to kind of shut other things out while I’m actually shooting. I’ll be extremely nervous up until the point I’m actually shooting, extremely nervous.
At the Beretta Xtrema [shotgun] challenge I got up to the line, and I’m way outside of my comfort zone holding this Beretta. I’ve fired it all of about 20 times now, and I got up there, I focused on what I need to do, and I make the shot. It all kind of goes away. What I do is I just repeat a mantra in my head. I just ask myself, “OK, what do I need to do to make this a perfect shot?”. Then I tell myself over and over what I need to do. If I continually force feed myself good thoughts — positive thoughts about what I need to do to make it perfect — I typically make very good shots. That’s right out of Lanny R. Bassham’s book With Winning in Mind. |
Whether you love the Top Shot show (for the shooting) or hate it (for the Hollywood reality-show nonsense), we recommend reading Kelly Bachand’s interview. Kelly has managed to adapt and learn quickly and that’s why he’s still “in the running” while other, more experienced competitors have been eliminated. Kelly offers many insights that can help any competitive shooter.
July 29th, 2010
 Huge Price Cut for Popular Gadget
If you’ve been waiting to purchase an e-Reader, now may be the time to open your wallet. Today, Amazon.com unveiled a new Kindle reader for just $139.00 — less than a third what the original Kindle cost. The introduction of Apple’s new iPad has forced Amazon to slash the price of its popular electronic book reader, which has been Amazon’s #1-selling product for the past two years. You may ask: “Why buy a Kindle when the iPad has web-browsing capability and a color screen?” Well consider these factors:
- Kindle has a HUGE run-time advantage. An iPad can run about 10 hours before it needs recharging. Kindle can run for a MONTH between charges.
- Books and newspaper articles are easier to read on the Kindle’s low-glare, black-on-white “virtual paper” screen.
- The Kindle does NOT require an expensive data plan or web access contract. The Kindle has no connection fees, although you do pay a charge to download most recent book titles.
- The Kindle is lighter and more rugged than an iPad. The new Kindle weighs just 8.7 ounces — less than a paperback book.
- The Kindle has physical keys, and it is easier to flip pages on the Kindle without moving your supporting hands.
Two new Kindles, priced at $139.00 and $189.00 respectively, go on sale today, with delivery starting August 27, 2010. These new units are 15% lighter and 21% smaller than the current basic model, yet the screens offer higher resolution with easier-to-read text. The $139.00 Kindle is WiFi only, while the same-sized $189.00 version offers both WiFi and 3G cellular connectivity. Both the new compact Kindles offer a 6″ viewing screen. That is significantly smaller than the iPad screen, but the iPad starts at about $500, and you could easily pay $700 with memory upgrades. If you prefer a bigger screen, Amazon also offers a large-screen model, the Kindle DX, which costs $379.00.
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Editor’s Note: Some readers may wonder what eReaders have to do with shooting. Well, there are thousands of outdoor, hunting, and shooting-related titles offered for Kindles. You can download an eBook for a fraction of the cost of buying the physical version. And the Kindle can hold up to 3,500 titles in a compact device that weighs less than a single paperback book.
July 26th, 2010
The Versus cable network’s new 3-Gun Nation TV show debuts on the Versus cable network, today, July 26, 2010. The show airs Mondays at 7:30 a.m. EST and Thursdays at 3:00 p.m. EST. The video below previews the kind of 3-Gun tournaments Versus will cover. The inaugural season features some of America’s best multi-gun events: Superstition Mountain 3-Gun, Blue Ridge Mountain 3-Gun, Midwest 3-Gun Championship, MGM Ironman 3-Gun Tournament, and the Rocky Mountain 3-Gun. Each event ends in a head-to-head, single elimination shoot-off with the winner earning $5,000.
The 3-Gun Nation Tour is a season-long series of matches at multiple venues. Competitors accumulate points throughout the season, and the top 50 are eligible to compete in the year-end championship following the USPSA Multi-Gun Nationals held September 13 outside Las Vegas, NV. In addition, the top finishers in each division at the USPSA Multi-Gun Nationals, who have not already earned a spot in the 3-Gun Championship, will earn a wild card berth, giving 10 additional competitors a shot at $5,000.
The winner of the 2010 3-Gun Nation Championship will receive $25,000, courtesy of Leupold, and will earn the title of the world’s top 3-Gun shooter. The match-by-match money awards, combined with the $25K 3-Gun Nation championship prize, collectively represent the most richest set of prizes in the history of practical shooting. The final two competitions on the 3-Gun Nation tour are: Rocky Mountain 3-Gun in Raton, NM, August 5-7; 3-Gun Championship at the USPSA Nationals in Boulder City, NV, September 13.
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