Our local club is called "Club de Tiro Punto 30" to this day, in honor of the founders who all owned .30 caliber rifles and established it about 65-70 years ago (I keep forgetting the founding year - I wasn't around yet). But it's actually the "12 Bore Shooting Club" as the folks who keep the lights on with their membership dues and range fees are all scatter gun shooters. 'Most everyone, of course, has a variety of shooting irons but most pay near no attention to the airgun end of the spectrum. Me? That's where I'm invested down here as no government paperwork required and things are still relatively "wide open" (compared to the UK and some US states and localities). But the local shooting sports league president knows that we need new blood and that air gun sports are where we're most likely to find such blood. He managed to convince the state to fund the purchase of a Walther LG400 and a couple of Steyr EVO10's. The former being a 10 meter rifle and the latter 10 meter pistols for use in 10 meter Olympic style shooting.

A few months ago he took delivery of the Walther and then brought it over to the Moreland Armory of Air Guns where we await someone with the desire of taking up this particular sport. I've really done not much at all with the rifle as my interest in such is very low. But last week I was judge in charge of 10, 25 and 50 meter equipment checks at the First Junior Championship of Colombia over in Nilo and he (the president of the league) was coaching his son and some others in the scattergun events related thereunto. I asked about the pistols and he promised to bring one by for me to use in teaching the team I was working with how to improve their technique in doing the dead weight lift 10 and 25 meter trigger checks. One of the pistols is in the hands of one of the young men in the club. He's a crack skeet shot, but is interested in doing some pistol work as well. The other can be seen in the pics below.

So now the Steyr joins the Walther in the "armory" and I get to play with it should the urge so strike. This one hadn't had a pellet through it since leaving the factory, so I set up the pellet trap and gave it a try. 10 meters at a 1cm or so dot ain't as easy as one would think. I'll need to put up a larger marker next time and see if I can tighten that group a bit. It'd also help if I'd try it from a braced sitting position instead of standing on my hindlegs. I had to pull the palm shelf off the grip as they are S sized, and for some reason I had a hard time cramming my XL sized mitt into tha allowed space - until getting rid of the shelf completely. Here's the first 25 shots at roughly 10 meters, from my wife's office door to the bathroom sink down the hall.

I've never owned a firearm that costs as much as one of these - even at US retail prices. And these came in at roughly double that. So I'll enjoy playing with them while we look for a place to set up and folk interested. Oh, forgot to mention, at Nilo we also participated in a "parashooter" competition with a variety of "handicapped" folk shooting airguns at 10 meters. Folks with double amputation of the legs, single leg amputation, forearm/hand amputation, and a few other classes as well. One young lade could only work the trigger and the sights. Her mother set the rifle up for her and loaded each shot. I don't think I could match her grouping even using both hands and the same bracing set up! Most of them were shooting old "hand me down" single stroke pneumatics from back in the late 20th Century, rifles they'd managed to save and scrimp and scrounge for. We're contemplating setting up something similar locally and the league president says he's already got some candidates interested - but we STILL don't have a usable 10 meter range. One thing at a time. At least we've got the guns!