Air Rifling

On my quest to try as many new things as possible, I accepted an invitation from my friend Andre to join him at a Benchrest Air Rifle Competition this past Saturday. I had shot one time in his backyard (air rifles are cool that way) and thought it was very intriguing. It takes a lot of skill to hold the rifle steady as you launch a little lime seed sized lead pellet to a very small (1 inch inch diameter) target 20 yards away using only air as the propellent.
How could I turn down an offer to go to an indoor firing range way out in the middle of the woods about an hour south of seattle and look into this very small but specialized subculture.

There were a couple of small kids, a couple of guys my age, and a lot of 60 year old geeky air rifle enthusiasts. All very nice people.

This sport is all about the gear. I over heard the classic letter and number dominated conversations that went on for ever. "You shooting a 300 with 22 on an R11 at 20?" "Yeah, I like the 75 K100 with the 26 much better" (or something like that). Interesting how all hobbies like this have their lingo. I think of motorcycle lingo with all the brands and models and parts or of climbing lingo with weird words like bomber and jengus and manky that once you are indoctrinated into the culture, it all makes perfect sense. But as an outsider sounds completely like a bunch of techno gibberish.

It was a fun day doing something I had never done. I have to say that air rifling is pretty cool. Something about hitting a bullseye 2mm across at 20 meters away with a pellet smaller than a pea using only air that is satisfying. There are guys at this competition who can do it 98 out of a hundred times in a row. Impressive.
More photos at this flickr site