All About Shooting

This is where modern-day firearms enthusiasts meet their inner Old West. Not only does Cowboy Action Shooting—sanctioned by the Single Action Shooting Societ, or SASS—celebrate the single-action revolver, lever-action rifles and short-barreled coach shotguns of Billy the Kid and Buffalo Bill’s era, you can actually be Billy the Kid or Buffalo Bill. Each SASS competitor picks a character name reminiscent of the times of shoot-’em-up saloons, rye whiskey, and train robbers, then pick an outfit to match your new Old West personality while you shoot a variety of challenging stages. Did we mention you can also do this on horseback? The Cowboy Mounted Shooting Association doubles the fun when you take along your four-legged steed.

This sport takes the best of USPSA/IPSC and NRA Action Pistol and High Power, then adds a pound of crazy creativity and a truckload of Wow! to offer shooting excitement unlike any other sport. You’ll need a pistol, a rifle and a shotgun, custom or stock—oh, and lots of ammunition.

FITASC stands for the very French Federation Internationale de Tir Aux Sportives de Chasse, but it certainly has a strong American following. What is it? Think of it as sporting clays on steroids. You have a course divided into four “parcours.” Each parcour will take 25 shots to complete. Like sporting clays, there are multiple shooting stations within each parcour, but now these stations also have multiple traps, sometimes four or five at each, and not only will you be shooting more than the two or three pairs at each station you would in sporting clays, each pair will be totally different from any other. That eliminates some of the pair “memorizing” you can do with sporting clays—and that means an intense challenge to which you’re sure to become addicted.

Developed by a couple of Massachusetts grouse hunters to improve their skills in the woods, the game of skeet today has thousands of followers. Picture a half a pie, with a high house on the left side of the center line and a low house on the right side. You’ll start by standing right under the high house, taking a high bird, a low bird and then a pair. Once your squadmates have had their turns, you’ll each shoot seven more stations around the half-pie, with No. 7 right next to the low house door. Your final two shots—coming at you fast and hard—are taken from the middle of the center line. Skeet is about mastering the angles and making perfect scorecards of 25 Xs, and if you’re very, very good, you might just find yourself heading to the Olympics.

If you appreciate a new challenge every time you go shooting, then sporting clays is for you. This game takes place over a course—just like golf—with multiple shooting stations along the way and targets launched at all conceivable angles, heights and distances.

One of the oldest shotgun games around, trap today is a fiercely competitive sport, with the very best going to the Olympics. Squads of five shooters take turns rotating across a slightly dished line of five shooting pads, calling for birds launched from a trap with an oscillating arm in front of them and out of sight. Call “Pull!” and you’ll get a hard left, hard right, straight-away flier or something in between rising up and going away. Once you’ve mastered the 25-straight hits on the front line, the challenge increases as you take shooting positions farther back from the trap—and 27-yard handicap line is a challenge indeed!

Taking a cue from the old tin target gallery shoots at the county fairs, this is where people get serious about ringing an audible plink or gong on steel chicken, turkey, pig and goat silhouettes. If you have a firearm, even an air pistol or air rifle, there’s a steel silhouette match out there for you. The NRA sanctions the majority of events, while the International Handgun Metallic Silhouette Association holds matches for all types of handguns. There are categories for out-of-the-box production guns, smallbore guns, big-bore guns, customized guns, and just about everything in between, so head to the range, take aim, and wait for that satisfying sound of a bullet connecting with far-away steel to make your day.

Long-range rifle shooting has been on a hot trajectory (pardon the pun) for several years now, and its popularity shows no sign of slowing down. Enter the F-Class competition. These matches are fired entirely from the prone position (you’ll need a comfortable shooting mat, for sure), with targets set at 1,000 yards.

The point of the rifle is to hit a target “out there,” and NRA High Power is the place for those you who like to “out there” with accuracy. You’ll shoot standing, prone and kneeling or sitting, taking aim at targets set from 200 to 600 yards. Your rifle can be anything: a bolt-action Winchester Model 70o handed down to you from a family member, one of today’s many Modern Sporting Rifles plain to fancy, something tried and true like a Springfield MA or a completely customized rifle you built yourself. You’ll learn about “doping the wind,” refine your trigger control, and meet a great group of people along the way, many of whom head to Camp Perry, Ohio, each year for the National Matches.

Similar to other action-shooting sports, NRA’s Action Pistol matches have competitors drawing from holsters to address various formalized stages of fire. What sets this sport apart from the others is that competitors work against a “part time,” meaning you have only X-amount of time to finish a stage. Take a shot after the buzzer, and you’ll incur a penalty. It’s a game of both speed and precision, with a strong emphasis on accuracy. Revolvers and semi-automatic are both welcome, and the 9mm and .38 Special are kings here, which make this a sport easy on the budget for many exploring competition for the first time.

The U.S. Practical Shooting Assn. is the national governing body for the sport of practical shooting in the U.S. and a member of the International Practical Shooting Confederation and the Steel Challenge. USPSA has more than 34,000 members and over 700 affiliated USPSA and Steel Challenge clubs. Each week USPSA members around the country compete in local and regional shooting competitions that test and refine their shooting skills in a safe, competitive environment.

IDPA matches are all about self-defense skills, with challengers using factory-stock firearms and gear. This format allows each person to work at perfecting skills with the firearms, holsters and gear they use in everyday life. It is an especially welcoming sport for new firearms owners and those trying competition for the first time.