Sporter Rifle Shooting

This year Pc2 advanced from BB rifle shooting to Sporter shooting. I wanted her to write up a post about this but her high school work has been too time consuming, so I will do my best.

Last year she joined a 4H shooting team. Since she was in 8th grade and had never shot a rifle before she wanted to start on the BB rifle team. Turns out she had a natural gift and she ended up doing really well. Her team ended up 6th out of 30+ teams in the State. Pc2 ranked in the top 20 BB rifle shooters.

Well this year since she has started high school she can no longer shoot BB so she has moved up to Sporter.  At this level, Pc2 was required to register with the CMP (Civilian Marksmanship Program) which basically means all her scores will be kept on public record. This form of shooting is a lot more common than the next level known as Precision shooting. Pc2 is hoping to move into this level by next year. Something we have to take slowly because it requires a huge financial commitment.  It is also at the Precision level that these kids can go all the way to the Olympics and or get scholarships into great colleges. Both of which Jill wants to make as her future goals in pursuit of a military career. Two of her current Precision shooting teammates are ranked in the top 20 nationally and one of the girls even attended the Junior Olympics!

A couple weekends ago Pc2 went to her first tournament for this year at the Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville TN. She was the only Sporter shooter for her team. This was a high school invitational only so there were no BB rifle shooters, only Sporter and Precision. I won't go into details on all the difference between Sporter and Precision but you will see many in the pictures below.  This was my first time attending a shooting tournament.... and what an awesome experience.  (Click pixs for larger image).

Since this was a high school invitational she was placed on the Etowah High School team. No homeschool teams. They had a lot of JROTC teams though.

Here she is getting her equipment assembled before entering the gym.

Jill is now setting up her equipment for her first relay. They actually had two gyms open for this competition. This was at an all boys college preparatory school,that had been established in 1867....very beautiful!

Pc2 was in lane #57.

Coach Bobby, Coach Lamar and Dave aka dad (soon to be a coach for BB rifle).

Pc2 was the only Sporter shooter for our team that entered the tournament this year. I was told there were over 200 Sporter shooters and only 80 Precision shooters at the tournament.

First position during the relay was prone.

Here Pc2 is laying next to her team-mate, who is dressed in her Precision shooting outfit.

They had unlimited sighter (aka practice) shots and then 20 record shots per position. After they took their first record shot they could no longer take sighter shots for that particular position

The targets were 10 meters away. We needed binoculars to see how they were doing :)

Check out the Precision rifle... and outfit for that matter :) The rifle has a longer barrel, bigger CO2 cannister, and is a heavier gun.

Next shooting position was standing.

One advantage to the Precision outfit, is that it helps the shooter to maintain each position better.

Final position was kneeling.

Unfortunately during the standing position Pc2's CO2 canister ran out of air, so her rifle did not have enough power to shoot properly. Although she compensated really well, her scores were not very good. Fortunately her coach caught the problem before she started the kneeling position. Oh well we will chalk this one up to a good learning experience for her. We really are so proud of her and we truly look forward to supporting her on this journey in the up and coming years....