Learn › Track 01 · Foundations
What is 10m air pistol?
One person, one hand, one pistol, and a target ten metres away. There is no wind, almost no recoil and nobody to block you. So why does it take years to get good at it? Start with the clock.
Think first: A qualification match is 60 shots in 75 minutes. On average, how long do you get for each shot?
The event in one picture
You stand with both feet inside your firing point. The pistol is held and fired with one hand, and nothing else supports your arm. Ten metres in front of you is a card 170 mm square, with its centre 1.40 m above the floor. Ten-metre ranges are always indoors.
The pistol fires a 4.5 mm lead pellet at roughly 150 m/s. It is quiet, there is next to no kick, and the pellet punches a clean round hole. The skill is not strength. It is doing the same thing, in the same way, sixty times in a row.
A match, start to finish
A qualification match follows the same timetable at every level, from a club match to the Olympics.
- You are called to the line 25 minutes before the start.
- 10 minutes of set-up. Unpack, set up your stand, dry fire.
- 15 minutes of preparation and sighting. Fire as many practice shots (sighters) as you like. They don’t count.
- 60 match shots in 75 minutes. Scored in whole rings and shown as six series of ten. The best possible total is 600.
- The top 8 go through to the final.
Every shot in qualification is worth 0 to 10 points. You will see exactly how a hole becomes a score in The target and How a shot is scored.
Think first: You qualify first with 590. The eighth finalist shot 577. When the final begins, how far ahead are you?
- 13 points — the qualification gap carries over
- A few points — the gap is scaled down
- Not at all — every finalist starts from zero
The final
The final has its own rhythm. You get 5 minutes of preparation and sighting. Then come two series of five shots, with 250 seconds for each series. After that, every shot is fired on command, one at a time, with 50 seconds for each. Shots are scored in tenths, up to 10.9, and the scores are shown live.
After 12 shots, eighth place is out. Then one more athlete goes after every two shots until two are left for the last pair. A single bad shot late in a final can cost a medal. That pressure is a big part of what the event tests. The full detail is in The final.
Who it suits
There is no upper or lower age limit in ISSF rules. You are a junior until 31 December of the year you turn 21, and juniors may also enter senior events. Women and men shoot exactly the same course of fire, and there is a mixed team event that pairs one of each. Para shooting has its own 10 m air pistol events too.
Think first: What do you think was the average age of the Olympic shooters at Paris 2024?
You do not need special strength, but you do need patience. A match pistol weighs up to 1.5 kg, and you lift it at least 60 times in a match, plus every sighter and every shot you abort and start again. Good eyesight helps less than you might think: your eye focuses on the front sight, and the target is always a blur.
Think first: Even the best shooters’ sights wobble on the target. In studies of national-level and elite pistol shooters, what separated good shots from bad ones most?
- How still the pistol was held
- Where the sights were aimed, and when and how cleanly the trigger broke
- How sharp the shooter’s eyesight was
What it costs in time
A match day takes about two hours on the line. Becoming good takes much longer. Most people start with a club pistol and a coach, and buy their own pistol later. See the buying guide when you get there.
- One hand, standing, 10 m to a target whose centre is 1.40 m above the floor.
- Qualification: 60 shots in 75 minutes, whole rings, top 8 to the final.
- The final starts from zero: 24 shots in decimals, with eliminations from shot 12.
- No age limit. The skill is repeating the same shot, not strength or perfect eyesight.