This is my first post. I just sent in my initial IHMSA membership form. I shoot airgun field target and sometime air rifle silhouette. When I saw that the IHMSA Championships are going to be in California, I wanted to try it. I plan on shooting UAS. Question on the scoring. I looked at the 2014 Championship results. I see the top shooters don't miss any of the 80 match shots. What does the (5+4) and (4+5) involve? I assume that it is some kind of shoot off. What targets and distances are used for the shoot off rounds?

UAS

INT
80+9 (5+4)
80+9 (4+5)
80+6
80+2
79
72

AAA
80+8
79
79
39

AA
75

More than likey chicks at ram line (54')
But at a lot of matchs match directer
Makes that call

For air pistol UAS shoot offs you need very small targets. We use 1/2 scale and 1/4 scale air pistol chickens @ 54 ft. If clubs don't have those small of chickens they will often move the turkeys out to the ram line and shoot at the heads. Any pellet hit below the level of the back is scored a miss.
It will be great to see you in LA, you'll have a great time there and meet a bunch of top shooters. You will pick a lot of tips from them. everyone is very helpful to new shooters as we were all a new shooter once.
As you shoot standing air rifle, you should try air pistol standing, there will be many guns there you can try, many with peep sights and others with scopes.

volleyman wrote:For air pistol UAS shoot offs you need very small targets. We use 1/2 scale and 1/4 scale air pistol chickens @ 54 ft. If clubs don't have those small of chickens they will often move the turkeys out to the ram line and shoot at the heads. Any pellet hit below the level of the back is scored a miss.
It will be great to see you in LA, you'll have a great time there and meet a bunch of top shooters. You will pick a lot of tips from them. everyone is very helpful to new shooters as we were all a new shooter once.
As you shoot standing air rifle, you should try air pistol standing, there will be many guns there you can try, many with peep sights and others with scopes.

From the post by ole95, I assumed that the shoot offs would be 1/10 scale chickens (airgun size) at 54'. Are you saying it might be x1/2 and and x1/4 the airgun size?



Pellet size chickens? That could be tough.

Question about shoot off targets and hits. Back in 1982 there was a big stink at the Ints in Indy since they used snuff cans for shoot off targets. After that the rules were changed to ensure that shoot off targets had to be the same shape as regular shaped animals but could be reduced in size or set at different distances for shoot off purposes. Now the rule book states that a hit is scored when the target is knocked off the stand but where does it say that hits must be in certain parts of an animals' body? The reason I question this logic is it leaves it up to a human to decide whether a bullet, or pellet in this discussion, is placed correctly. If a target falls then it is following the existing rules. Me personally, I think using hit placement is wrong since the idea in IHMSA is to knock over targets NOT have to hit the targets in certain areas. I know the reason is to make shoot offs more difficult for the more experienced shooters but you still want your shoot off targets to be "hitable" for the less than experienced shooters who may have to participate in shoot offs. If you then allow the less experienced shooter to use the whole shoot off target then that is not fair to any other shooter who must engage the selective hit shoot off targets. The whole idea of using shoot off targets is to break ties not to make the targets so selective or difficult to hit. Seems like the stated policy is deviating from our rule book.

Scotchmo wrote: From the post by ole95, I assumed that the shoot offs would be 1/10 scale chickens (airgun size) at 54'. Are you saying it might be x1/2 and and x1/4 the airgun size?



Pellet size chickens? That could be tough.

That is correct. We use 1/20th scale chickens at the ram line for Unlimited Any Sight shoot-offs and 1/20 scale pigs at the ram line for iron sighted shoot-offs.

Steve W.

Our standard shootoffs for UAS is 6 ea. 1/2 and 4 ea. 1/4 scale chickens @ 54' . We also shoot a full course of 1/2 scale targets( not an IHMSA category) and the shootoffs for that is 10 ea. 1/4 scale chickens @ Rams also. Most of our shootoffs are decided 10-9 or 9-8.
The clubs that use the turkey head shootoff have to because they don't have smaller targets and they would be shooting until they ran out of pellets and never miss a full size chicken at ram distance. It doesn't meet the letter of the rules but all the competitors have agreed to it before hand and everybody's happy with it.

If a shooter did not agree to shooting turkeys in the head for shoot offs, would he/she be able to file a protest since the rule book does not cover this subject? Maybe they shoot at a club that uses reduced size targets for shoot offs so the locals who regularly shoot at turkey heads would have a distinct advantage having shot at turkey heads in prior matches. Just curious how a local MD does not show favoritism to local shooters. MDs have to be inventive at times but still need to follow the rules in case new shooters show up at their matches.

I shot one air pistol silhouette match a couple of months ago. I shot pistol UAS on the air rifle course (1/10th scale at 20, 30, 36, and 45yards) It was a challenge. I shot a 27/40. A couple days ago I did a practice run on the 1/10th scale targets at 10, 12.5, 15, and 18 yards. I did an 80/80 even with a little wind. If you don't make any mistakes, and don't have any flyers, it seems too easy to get a perfect score in the main match. My opinion now is that Freestyle air pistol might be better at longer distances.  It looks as if the match is almost like a warmup for the almost inevitable shootoff at the 1/20th scale targets.

I'm still looking forward to the big LASC match.

I plan on printing out some paper targets with 1/20th scale chickens for practice.

I got my IHMSA membership number. And then I read the "Official Rules".

As I said before, I want to shoot in the World Championship match in Los Angeles, July 2015. I need to get two air pistol silhouette matches under my belt in order to qualify for an IHMSA championship match. There is only one IHMSA air pistol match in California this year. And that is the championship match. I have shot air pistol at matches, but on the NRA air rifle silhouette course.

I could:
1) go out of state to shoot some IHMSA sanctioned air pistol matches (too far, and won't fit my schedule right now).
2) shoot an NRA air pistol match (looking into that now as they are few and about 200 miles away).
or
3) organize IHMSA air pistol matches at my home range.


Background:
I belong to a local smallbore club and range. We primarily host NRA smallbore rifle silhouette matches. I became a match director when I joined in order to bring airgun competition to my area (California Central Coast). We have been hosting airgun field target matches for the last two years and more recently rifle silhouette matches.

There was an IHMSA club hosting matches adjacent to our club range but that IHMSA club recently folded. As far as I know they did not do air pistol.

Back to IHMSA air pistol matches in California: I'm contemplating running some IHMSA air pistol matches at our range. Besides getting IHMSA sanctioning, we are well equipped to do this. I could run them concurrently with our air rifle silhouette matches. I've got about six weeks until the IHMSA Championship match. I'm hoping there will be time to host one or two IHMSA air pistol matches at our range before then. I've got calls/messages into IHMSA headquarters as of this morning. I'm waiting to hear back. Is the process to get sanctioning fairly quick?