ActionAirgun LLC
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ActionAirgun is an action target shooting sport that harnesses the power of the internet to allow global competition in timed shooting events. Equally suited for experienced shooters looking to stay sharp or for groups of beginning shooters to learn about firearm safety and the excitement of shooting sports competition at a minimal cost. Competitors use standardized shooting kits to shoot special courses of fire specified by the league and keep track of their scores using an interactive website. The database maintained on the internet allows all competitors to see how their shooting compares to every other shooter in the league.
This targets-only shooting sport is modeled after several competitive shooting sports such as [1], [2] and [3]. The equipment used for ActionAirgun has been around for years under the generic name of 'airsoft'. Airsoft guns are faithful reproductions of actual firearms made of metal and plastic that shoot 6 mm plastic BBs instead of gunpowder propelled lead projectiles. As an alternative to expensive “race guns” and the rising cost of ammunition, the sport of ActionAirgun fills a niche as a new, exciting, lower cost entry level action shooting sport.
ActionAirgun is played by individuals or groups of five shooters known as fireteams on an 8’ by 16’ indoor range. Spare rooms, garages, meeting rooms, basements, gymnasiums, etc. are perfect sites to set up a range. Courses of fire are downloaded from the ActionAirgun website and are used by competitors to configure the range telling shooters how to set up targets, where to stand and how the airgun will be used. Competition can be between individuals, against every other competitor signed up for an event or fireteam against fireteam. The rules of ActionAirgun competition prohibit the modification of equipment. Everyone uses a standardized shooting kit which contains everything needed to compete in the sport. One shooting kit is capable of supporting several shooters. This sport places more emphasis on the shooters rather than specially modified equipment.
Typically airsoft guns are electric, spring, CO2 or “green gas” powered. ActionAirgun uses CO2 powered airguns because of their reliability and the availability of CO2 chargers around the world. The ammunition used is small 6 mm plastic BBs which are very inexpensive and can be purchased in bulk. BBs are loaded into a magazine along with a fresh CO2 charger and inserted into the handle of the airgun. The high quality pistol is patterned after the venerable Colt 1911, which requires the slide to be cycled by hand to load the first BB. This action puts a BB in the chamber and cocks the hammer. Each time the trigger is pulled the CO2 propels the BB and re-cycles the slide which loads another BB into the chamber and cocks the hammer. This is a very realistic feature of the 1911 known as gas blow back operation. Each time the trigger is pulled the slide will cycle until the supply of BBs in the magazine is exhausted. Once exhausted of BBs, the slide locks back in an open position. A small button is pressed on the left side of the airguns handle which releases the magazine so a loaded magazine can be inserted in its place.
Each year is divided into a number of seasons with seasons divided into stages. A typical season is 12 stages long with each stage lasting one week. At the beginning of each stage registered shooters download new courses of fire from the interactive website. Each shooters has all week to practice shooting and enter their official shooting times before the next stage begins. For example, if a group of shooters plan to meet on Wednesday to shoot, they can download courses of fire on Sunday, practice, and be ready to shoot their official times on Wednesday. As an individual or a group, each shooter’s score is entered into a simple form on the website where their scores will be automatically calculated and ranked. Shooters who fail to record their scores in time will receive a default score equal to the slowest shooting time for that stage. Scores are kept secret until the beginning of the next stage. One key feature of the website is a database which allows shooters from all over the world to compare their scores with every other participant, or just the members of their own shooting group. As the sport expands, the database will evolve into a unique way for people from all over the world to interact on a personal and competitive level.
During the third ActionAirgun season the top competitors in the league will become apparent. Those top shooters will be invited to a world championship.
ActionAirgun provides a perfect blend of firearms safety, education, fun and excitement. The shooting is exciting, fast paced, and changes week to week and course to course. Shoot alone or with a group of friends, but remember, you’re shooting against the best in the world.
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[edit] I. History:
[edit] The Story
Sports can materialize from the simplest of things. An old peach basket and a round ball, a stick and a small bag of feathers. Or a lousy day of weather. Back in Fall of 2001, founder W. Collins White an avid shooter and gun enthusiast was sitting in his study in upstate New York, surfing the Internet looking for a new firearm and wanting to target shoot. The wind was blowing and the temperatures were hovering around freezing when the idea for a new shooting sport surfaced. A shooting sport that could be performed indoors;year round with inexpensive shooting equipment that employs the use of airsoft pistols and green gas propellent.
Currently there are plenty of shooting sports based on the use of handguns using gunpowder based ammunition. But many countries, states and local ordinances prohibit or restrict their use. The sport of ActionAirgun is a one-design indoor shooting sport using airsoft equipment and courses of fire that are shot for best time. In using airsoft pistols the sport of handgun shooting becomes available to a wide variety of people. Perhaps the most distinctive part of this sport is the use of the Internet to allow participants to form a global community and for the dissemination of courses of fire and the recording of shooting performance.
[edit] The Concept
Based in part on outdoor shooting sports like International Practical Shooting Confederation and International Defensive Pistol Association shooting, ActionAirgun competitions can be held year round indoors anywhere there is an 8’ x 16’ floor space. Using softair pistols, shooters download 3 courses of fire each week to shoot on homemade ranges. During the week shooters practice then after practicing, shoot each course of fire three times for an official time. Official times are uploaded via the Internet to a central website where scores of every other competitor can be tabulated. At the conclusion of a week of shooting competing members can see how their scores measure up to scores posted by members from around the world. This shooting cycle continues for the duration of each season. Annual seasonal competition is intended to find the fastest shooter in the world.
[edit] Education and Firearm safety
Shooting clubs, National Rifle Association instructors, Concealed Carry Weapons Instructors, Law Enforcement, Military and the list goes on use ActionAirgun as an entry level activity that reinforces safe firearm practices. Each competitor uses the same type of firearm so at this level instructors can develop safety lessons based on one type of gun which improves the efficiency of the instructional model. There is virtually no recoil, noise or other hazard associated with airsoft shooting although all participants must wear eye protection.
[edit] Equipment:
[edit] Pistol
Softair or airsoft pistols are gas or spring operated BB guns which shoot 6mm or in some cases 8mm plastic BBs at velocities up to 300 feet per second. The total energy produced by a BB fired from this airsoft pistol is less than 1 joule. A joule is equivalent to a person jumping up 1 to 3 mm or the movement of a crawling baby [4]. Some pistols are primarily made of plastic with a few essential metal parts. Others are mainly made of metal with a few plastic parts. Prices can range from a few dollars to a few hundred dollars. Competitors of ActionAirgun all use the same pistol. The design is patterned after the 1911 model semi-automatic pistol designed by John Moses Browning and made legendary in the form of the Colt M1911-A1. Unlike IPSC shooters which use highly customized handguns, ActionAirgun operates under a one-design concept.
[edit] Magazine
BBs are held in a 15 shot capacity magazine with a built in gas reservoir. Novice hand gunners get the feel of loading a magazine much like a real semi-automatic. At the bottom of the magazine is a small spring valve that accepts a filler nozzle from a metal container filled with liquefied propellant known as “green gas”. The gas is actually colorless and has a perfumed fragrance which is used as a signal that the gas is present. The gas is flammable and needs to be treated with caution.
[edit] Holster
An ambidextrous one design holster is part of the standard. The holster can be used by a left or right-handed shooter. The material is a ballistic nylon with provision for carrying a spare magazine. The gun is secured into the holster with a thumb break. Drawing a holstered firearm to shoot a course of fire adds an additional skill dimension to the sport. As one of many specifications contained in courses of fire, the holster increases the level of difficulty.
[edit] Timer
The object of this sport is to shoot courses of fire faster than anyone else. Unlike scenario based airsoft games where the objective is to shoot at each other this sport is about shooting targets set in specific configurations in the least amount of time. A shot clock timer is worn on the wrist. The shot timer has buttons which start, review and reset the display. At the beginning of a course of fire, the shooter starts the timer by pressing the start button. Upon that action the internal clock begins to record elapsed time. As each shot is fired the processor inside the time keeps a record of each shot and how much time there is between shots. At the moment the last target is knocked down by the shooter, the timer stops recording. The shooter can see displayed on the face of the shot timer the total time elapsed to shoot the course of fire.
[edit] Ammunition
Airsoft uses 6mm precision ground plastic BBs. There are many manufacturers of BBs in many different masses (weights) as this is a one-design sport all ammunition used is 6mm with a mass of 0.20 grams.
[edit] Target System
Shooters are timed according to how many targets they can shoot down in the shortest period of time. Up to 20 individual targets can be specified in a course of fire. Targets are either 3" or 2" in diameter and constructed of steel. Written into the course of fire a target may be designated as an Alpha, Omega, Shoot, or No-Shoot. These target designations are variables used to alter the level of difficulty in a particular course of fire. Alpha targets must be shot first, Omega targets are shot last, a Shoot target might be shot in a random manner or have a specific order assigned to it and No-shoot targets are designed to increase the level of difficulty in they may be place close to other targets which may be shot.
Targets are placed in various patterns on from one to four target stands. Target stands come in two sizes all are 18" high. The smaller stand is 45" long and 15" wide. The larger stand measures 48" long and 18" wide. These stands are printed with a grid system for standardized placement of targets. In a particular course of fire, the number, size and designation of a target is specified and the location of the target is mapped out. This is part of the one-design concept of shooting where participants from around the world are shooting at the same target configurations.
[edit] Range Specifications
The shooting range can be outdoors or indoors although the indoor version is more common as BB trajectory can be adversely affected by wind. The overall dimensions for the range are 8 feet by 16 feet with a minimum 7 foot ceiling height. Three sides of the range require no official covering although the back wall requires a material capable of absorbing the impact of BBs. A series of three shooting areas are lined off at one end of the range. These areas, A,B and C are 36 inches by 32 inches. A course of fire will specify the starting area and finishing area that a shooter must occupy during the shooting of a course of fire. At the opposite end of the range from the shooting areas is the target stand area. In this area from one to four target stands are configured horizontally, vertically or in combination to provide the setting of targets according to the specifications contained in the course of fire.
[edit] Courses of Fire
Courses of fire are described as a set of shooting instructions. Each course of fire specifies any number of parameters that allow for the level of difficulty in shooting to increase or decrease. The typical course of fire includes the following information, where the shooter stands and how they move, the number and size of targets, the arrangement of target stands, the condition of the gun whether loaded unloaded and the amount of ammunition allowed. Some courses of fire may require the use of a second magazine of ammunition depending on the number of targets. In addition special items are included in courses of fire that may include the use of a holster, chairs, tables, boxes, other props and in many cases the specific order in which the targets must be shot.
[edit] Season Structure
Each shooting season begins in February. There are three 12-week seasons with 3 week breaks in between. The first two 12-week seasons are regular seasons. The third season is the Championship season, also 12 weeks in duration. At the 10th week of the Championship season, top shooters identified and invited to compete in the annual ActionAirgun Challenge Cup. The AAG Cup is held at various locations awarding prize money and trophies to the fastest shooters in the league.
[edit] Global Sporting Community
[edit] Internet Support
Shooters in this sport can communicate with other members using a community hub. The forum allows shooters to organize events, provide tips and advice as well as check up on the performance of competitors. Being a one-design sport, all competitors are bound by the same rules and equipment. There is no variation or modification of equipment allowed. At the community hub, shooters download identical courses of fire to shoot during a weeks worth of competition. After the courses of fire have been shot for official times, the times are uploaded to the hub. At the beginning of the next week, all shooters can see the results of the previous week as they download the new courses of fire.
[edit] Scoring
Participants shoot three courses of fire each week. They are shooting for the fastest times. Each course of fire is shot 3 times for official times. Theses official times are uploaded to the scoring database where they are compiled and compared with shooters from all over the league. No participant knows the scores of any other shooter until the close of a weeks shooting. Of the 3 times uploaded to the database, the two best times are used as official statistics. At the end of a shooting week, participants can login to the database to see the top scores from the previous week. At the end of the 12-week season a total of 108 individual times have been calculated to determine the top shooters.
[edit] Demographics
As this is a global sport, provision is made on the database for participants to compare their shooting with other shooters in a search able database of everyone else in the league.
[edit] Scoring
[edit] Modified Comstock
Scoring of action shooting sports can be accomplished by measuring time only, time plus accuracy, accuracy, or by time,accuracy and power. This sport uses a modified Comstock method of scoring. Under Comstock the competitor's total target points are divided by elapsed time in order to arrive at the final score[5]. ActionAirgun uses a modified comstock scoring system where targets are shot in a specified sequence for elapsed time. As there are no scoring rings on official targets, elapsed time and sequence are used to establish a shooters score.
[edit] Penalties
Penalties result in the addition of time to the base shooting score. [6] Penalties include, running out of ammunition, not shooting all targets, out of bounds. Flagrant safety violations, modification of equipment or not following officials instructions can result in disqualification.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- [4]Official Website
