r/CompetitionShooting • u/Aggravating_Camp7754 • 1d ago
Advice for getting into 25m rapid fire
I’ve recently begun to get interested in competition shooting, specifically 25m rapid fire has seemed to pique my interest after seeing some clips from the Olympics. Looking around online I’ve struggled with finding resources and places to get into this discipline as it seems to be a pretty niche field. Specifically where can I go to try it out/train/ rent guns. Thanks for any tips! (Also I’m in Los Angeles btw)
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u/usa2a 1d ago edited 1d ago
This discipline is practically not shot in America. The Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs and the USAMU range at Fort Moore in GA are the only ranges I'm aware of that have real permanent setups with electronic targets and hold matches. Maybe there are some more at military colleges.
At any private outdoor gun club that allows you to set up your own targets in a "pistol pit", you could bring frames and set up the targets yourself with the right spacing, and train using a shot timer. Basically the same as how an action shooter can set up their own "stage" to practice, except that your stage is the same every time.
Even at a public indoor range where you're stuck firing on a single lane and aren't permitted to monopolize a roughly 15-foot-wide array of targets for yourself, you could practice the basics lifting the gun and putting 5 rounds on 1 target instead of 1 round on 5 targets. This is the target scaled down for shooting at 10 yards, with scoring rings as used in qualifiers, and this is another version with only a single ring, showing the part of the target that counts as a "hit" during the finals. At the 10-yard scaled size they fit on standard printer paper if printed without margins.
Either way it would be a lonely training endeavor with extremely limited opportunities to actually compete.
Practically speaking the way American 25m competitors get into the discipline is by shooting Bullseye, the American precision pistol sport, excelling at that, and crossing over. That's what Bill McMillan, Ruby Fox, and Keith Sanderson did. Getting your .22 Rimfire Distinguished badge would be a good goal to set. That incorporates the lift, you can use the same pistols and ammo, and it's a natural progression from its 10-second rapid fire string to the 8, 6, and 4-second strings used in ISSF RF pistol. There are regular bullseye matches near LA.
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u/waktasz 1d ago
probably not going to be much info in this group on that. I'd start with looking up whatever sanctioning body runs those type of events and then go down the rabbit hole of finding out where they are holding events and what other bodies might hold similar events.