Explainers and guides on ISSF scoring, disciplines, gear, training drills, and getting the most out of TargetLog. Reviewed by the team, published in English.
ISSF 50m rifle 3 positions is a .22 LR event where shooters fire 60 shots across kneeling, prone, and standing. The top 8 advance to a standing-only final that decides the medals.
ISSF matches run on four core commands: load, start, stop and unload. The Range Officer has absolute authority over the line, and every command has a specific required response. Learn them before your first match and the firing line stops feeling foreign.
ISSF shooting glasses are a corrective lens system that lets you see your front sight (pistol) or target (rifle) sharply. Beginners need a lens matched to their prescription, an iris to control depth of field, and a blinder to block the non-aiming eye.
ISSF targets score ten concentric rings measured by outside diameter, from the 1 ring at the edge to the 10 ring at the center. Rifle and air events use decimal scoring that divides each full ring into ten tenths, so a shot can be worth anything from 10.0 to 10.9.
Wind pushes your bullet sideways at 50m, and you can read how much from the range flags, the mirage, and the grass between you and the target. Learn the clock system, watch the flags before every shot, and change your hold or sights only when the conditions tell you to.
Your first ISSF competition follows a predictable routine: equipment control, sighting time, qualification shots, and possibly finals. Arrive early with everything packed, and the day becomes far less stressful.
FFTIR, BDS and NRA targets all borrow the ring-target idea from ISSF paper, but each federation sets its own sizes, ring counts and gauge rules. FFTIR reuses actual ISSF cards like the C50 under French courses of fire, BDS designs its own targets with different ring geometry, and the NRA AR-4 scales everything down for 5m BB gun juniors.
ISSF World Ranking points count for 365 days from the last competition day of the championship where you earned them, and only your four best championships count. The Olympic Ranking works differently: results from the whole qualification period stay alive until the cycle ends.
A front sight insert is the ring or post element that clips into your front sight tunnel and forms the aiming reference you actually look at. Most target shooters use an aperture ring, sized so the aiming black sits inside it with a visible ring of white, and it is worth testing sizes in 0.1 mm steps because the right one depends on your eyes, your sight radius, and the light.
ISSF qualification gives you a 15-minute preparation and sighting period with unlimited sighting shots before match firing starts, and finals give you a short sighting block too. Sighters exist to confirm your zero and your position, not to chase a perfect score.
FFTIR TAR 830 and TAR 832 combine 20 slow precision shots on a C50 target with 20 shots at falling steel gongs in 20- and 10-second series. TAR 830 is for modern standard service pistols, TAR 832 for pre-1970 military handguns. Each round offers 200 points.
The BDS 100m Ringziel is the German BDS federation's ring target for 100m rifle classes. It scores 1 to 10 on a 395mm sheet, with a 34mm ten ring, a 17mm inner ten and a 204mm black aiming mark.
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