History of the SmallBore AMG

The Smallbore AMG deals with the Olympic and Commonwealth sports of smallbore and air rifle target shooting. There are three disciplines within that remit - Smallbore Prone Rifle, Smallbore 3-Positions Rifle and Air Rifle - each held separately for men and women at international level.

Prior to the creation of Scottish Target Shooting, this task was the responsibility of the Scottish Smallbore Rifle Association (SSRA).

Origins

The Scottish Miniature Rifle Association was formed in August 1909 at a meeting in Perth at which 47 clubs were represented, with a principal objective being to determine how to select the representative Scottish team for the International Match to be shot at Perth that year.  Mr Herbert S Pullar of Bridge of Earn was elected as the first Chairman. Amongst the clubs attending which are still operating under the same name were Larbert & District and Perth City & County.  Details remain vague, but this new Scottish association appears not to have lasted long before being merged into the UK-wide Society of Miniature Rifle Clubs, now known as the National Smallbore Rifle Association (NSRA).

Scottish Smallbore Rifle Association (SSRA)

The Scottish Smallbore Rifle Association (SSRA) was formed in 1966, with Willie Beattie as midwife, following the introduction of shooting to the Commonwealth Games programme that year, and motivated in part by the desire to have Shooting restored to the 1970 Commonwealth Games, after the capital’s choice of ten sports had seen Shooting excluded. This period also saw the first stages of co-operation between the various shooting disciplines with the creation of the Scottish Shooting Council, which would develop over the intervening years into the Scottish Target Shooting Federation (STSF) before the majority of the member bodies voted dissolve and join the current single unified body - Scottish Target Shooting.

The first six years were bogged down in a prolonged wrangle with the NSRA over constitutional powers to be devolved to the Scottish body, whilst retaining NSRA affiliation – resolved in the end by SSRA being initially restricted to individual membership and the running of individual competitions.  Over time, and in part influenced by the inclusion of sport in the devolution settlement which led to the reinstatement of the Scottish Parliament in 1999, these restrictions all disappeared, with the SSRA having both individual members and affiliated clubs and a range of competitions for both.

SSRA quickly took responsibility for the selection of the Scottish teams to contend the various Home Country International matches which have been held as part of NSRA Scottish and National Meetings. Prone matches began in the early part of the 20th Century, with the first Scottish team competing in 1906.  Air Rifle matches were added in the mid 1970s, and 3 Positions matches in the early 1990s.  Commonwealth Championships for the countries in the European region of the Commonwealth (otherwise known as the CSF(ED) Championships, or more colloquially the ‘Mini-Games’) began in the mid 1970s and have been held most years since.  A full Commonwealth Championships began in 1995 and have been held on a more erratic schedule – most often as a test event for a Commonwealth Games – with the most recent in Australia in 2017.  A full history of all those who have represented Scotland in these, and other, international competitions was first compiled in the early 2000s, and includes over 570 individual names covering the period 1906 – 2023, and a link to the up-to-date document is provided here along with a record of British and Scottish Champions.

Although the quest to have Shooting included in the 1970 Games in the Scottish Capital was to prove fruitless, the sport was part of every Commonwealth Games from 1974 to 2018, and a very successful one for Scotland at the majority of those events, with the Smallbore & Air Rifle shooters winning 35 of Scotland’s 51 Shooting medals to date.

While originally formed to take responsibility for team selection, the SSRA's responsibilities expanded over time to include responsibility for:

• the development of the sport in Scotland

• the education of coaches and the training of volunteers

• the training and selection of teams for a widening programme of international matches

• the running of an expanding range of domestic competitions

• considerable work in dealing with outside agencies such as sportscotland and the various UK governing bodies

• developing and promoting a facilities strategy which included the development of further regional facilities round the country.

Much of this was done in conjunction with the other member bodies of STSF.

Despite this workload, the SSRA continued to be run entirely by volunteers, with a council consisting of five office bearers and up to eight ordinary members - with restrictions on the total number of members from each geographical area.

Responsibilities

With the merger of SSRA and other bodies into STS in 2016, some of the responsibilities and administrative load are now shared across the central administration and performance teams in the new body.  The Smallbore AMG has inherited the smallbore and 10m air rifle specific roles around running domestic competitions, promoting and developing the relevant disciplines, preparing and selecting teams for Home Country Internationals and supporting grass roots shooting in clubs and with juniors.

UK Structure & RElationships

For historical reasons going back to the formation of the SSRA, the Scottish Leagues and County Associations were never affiliated to the SSRA, but remain tied to the UK governing bodies - usually the NSRA, but in some cases the National Rifle Association (NRA). Individual Members of the NSRA, the affiliated clubs, leagues and counties all have votes at the NSRA AGM, and the counties form a large part of the NSRA Shooting Council which meets to approve NSRA policy, while neither SSRA nor STS have ever had any formal voice within this structure.

Until recently the NSRA has run the Scottish Meeting - by far the largest annual smallbore competition in Scotland - which historically moved around the country from year to year, but for a few years before the COVID interruptions had been located annually at Lauder.  This week-long event has historically attracted two to three hundred competitors for a week of competition at 50m and 100yds. Post-COVID some of the key competitions that normally were held as part of the Scottish Meeting, including the ‘Haig’ Scottish Long Range Prone Championship, have been held over a weekend at Denwood in Aberdeen.

In addition the NSRA runs a number of other postal competitions restricted to Scottish shooters, clubs and counties, including the Scottish League and Scottish Cup for club teams, and the ‘Daily Record’ Scottish Short Range Prone Championship.

Over the years, many Scottish Smallbore & Air Rifle shooters have represented the UK at major international level, winning medals at all the major championships, including ISSF World Cups, European & World Championships, the European Games and the Olympic Games.  Post-war Olympians from Scotland are Alister Allan (1968, 1976, 1984, 1988 & 1992), Jonathan Hammond (2008 & 2012), Jen McIntosh (2012 & 2016) and Seonaid McIntosh (2020).