I was a pretty active air pistol competitor from about '83-'90. My best year was '89. We fired the NRA's national air gun postal match at Ohio State's indoor range that year under the auspices of their team coaches. I placed third in Ohio, which, in turn, placed third nationally. I was shooting the Feinwerkbau 65 then, though I'd have to look up the scores? Not too spectacular by current standards as the sport was still gaining popularity in the U.S. at the time. Also, the CO2 precision guns were not yet widespread, and I don't recall seeing any compressed air guns other than pump pneumatics available back then? The equipment has improved a lot since the spring guns ruled. I know I held a Master classification at the time, but since then they upped the classification percentages and they also changed the target to be slightly smaller, so I don't know where that would land me today? Probably another also-ran.
About that time my local Bullseye league lost its indoor range and so the compliment the airgun shooting made to my bullseye shooting became a less available measure. Moreover, I'd gotten more interested in service rifle matches and was focusing on that. In '92, the last year Jeff Cooper owned Gunsite and the hats were still orange, I, and several friends went out and got ourselves introduced to combat shooting, and that has become more of our pistol practice since then. My only bullseye pistol shooting since has been occasional participation in a .22 league at the University, though I did pick up 4 IEC points with the M9 at the end of the Army's SAFS at Camp Perry three or four years ago.
The main trick in practicing air pistol, as with all skills, is consistency. When I was doing my best I had a 10 meter range in my basement and went down there every day, without fail, to shoot a minimum of 60 rounds, usually all on one target just to see how the gun and I were grouping overall? I found I would have accuracy cycles. I would get a couple of weeks when I just couldn't miss, followed by a couple where the 10 ring seemed to keep dodging the pellets. During the best day in one of the good weeks, I could even hit 10's from goofy positions; back turned to the target and twisting around, one foot up on the bench, gun straight out in front, gun at full 90 degree oblique position, head on shoulder, head off shoulder. No matter what form I twisted into, the front sight just seemed to wander up into position under the bull and the thing went off. I proved to myself just how much of the game is purely psychological.
When I took my NRA rifle instructor's certification, the NRA Councelor giving the class was Web Wright, who still had a couple of world records standing in 300 meter International Rifle at the time. He related a similar frame of mind to what I'd found with the air pistol: There seemed to be days nothing he did would get an X and days when he could just about throw the rifle in the dirt and have it go off and still make an X. The game really is mostly in your head.
Web had us go through the required reading of the principles of marksmanship in the NRA course materials, but he also pointed out a problem with them. For one thing, the number of "fundamental principles" had changed over the years when the course materials had been revised. One revision would have eight, another twelve, another ten or some other number. It seemed to Web that if something was truly fundamental, it wouldn't change. He told us that after years of contemplating changing techniques and equipment, he'd come to the conclusion that only two marksmanship fundamentals were constant and real:
- You align the weapon so the projectile will strike the desired point on the target.
- You keep it that way until after the projectile has cleared the weapon.
Everything else is optional and subject to modification and review. Stance, breathing, timing, sights, slings or other allowed gear for a particular discipline is really up to the shooter's needs and is good only if it helps achieve those two ends.
When we moved in '93 I set up a new airgun range in the new basement, but I got discouraged because my pistol scores didn't seem to keep up with what they once had been. It wasn't until a decade later when I bought a second gun on sale at OK Weber, the inexpensive Russian Baikal single-stroke pneumatic, that I discovered the problem was not entirely with me, but rather was with the tired old Feinwerkbau. I did some arithmetic and figured out that I had put about 35-40 thousand rounds through it without any major maintenance. When I got a chronograph with illuminated screens for indoor use, this was verified. Velocity, shot-to-shot, had an extreme spread of 120 fps as the Feinwerkbau warmed up, and almost 70 fps within any given group of ten. The springs and seals were shot out. The Baikal, on the other hand, had an extreme spread of only about 6 fps.
But by then my old practice habits were gone and my eyesight was nowhere near the 20/10 I'd had when I started. Other things were constantly in the way, too, such as working out of town much of the time, so I've not gotten back into the game as I would like to. Life keeps getting under foot, somehow. Maybe it's time for a third career?
Those few extra percents are tough, and I imagine those above 95 are even tougher. I dry fire and shoot 20- and 40-round "mini-matches" daily, and progress is slow, at best. Every tiny little error is costly, and I seem to make several "tiny little errors" every match. It's deceptively difficult. Maybe that's part of the draw. 
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