Nick Pye Reflects on Italy & Announces Development Squad Sessions for 2025
Well, there is not too much to report on the Development Squad, as we haven't had any training sessions since the summer! To remedy this terrible situation we have three more dates for you to put on your next year shooting calendars:
Saturday 25th January
Saturday 22nd February
Saturday 22nd March
This is again held at Callander Target Shooting Club, 9.30 to 3.30. The 25m range can be cold so bring warm clothes.
Hope to see you there and please contact me if you have any questions. We also have a Facebook page, just search Development Squad to join - it will have all the relevant news on it.
You can book your place through the STS membership and event system online here.
I must excuse this latent neglect of you all by explaining that I was in training for the Muzzleloading Championships 2024. This is a big event with massively high standards and unfortunately required my full attention if I was to have a chance of a decent score, so everything was put on hold in order to train for it. The pistols I was shooting are generally heavier than air pistols but to counter that you only fire thirteen shots per competition, so there is no room for error.
My training plan consisted of exercise on three days in order to cope with the weight of the pistols, and shooting after work on as many days as the weather would allow. I shoot in 5 different disciplines so I would concentrate on two or three per session. This was backed up by visualisation sessions on at least three days. This detailed mentally practising the setup, loading and shooting procedure as this is complicated…and of course visualising shooting well!
I am pleased to report I did shoot well, and more importantly had a great time in Italy - I had never been there before and it was a really wonderful experience for the whole team. After the shooting and travelling I had to take a step back and decompress, as you cannot keep that level of work up indefinitely. If you do, your form will suffer.
Air pistol wise I have kept my hand in, and have been enjoying attending the Grand Prix’s this year - mixed results but it’s early days! I've put a new grip and trigger blade on the Morini 162 ei and I am really enjoying shooting it. It's becoming a reliable and dependable shooting companion, and the trigger is fantastic.
I have invested in a Mantis trace system, like Scatt but not as much information feed back. It is adequate though and was much cheaper. It will be a really good tool for us as a squad to use to get real time feedback on hold and most importantly trigger control.
Tools like this are invaluable as they show you exactly what you are doing. No excuses now!
Going with this theme we will be doing some intensive work on the trigger in the next three Development Squad sessions. This is the area that as pistol shooters we need to master in order to get any kind of decent and consistent score.
We will also be working on some strength exercises (don’t worry nothing too much!) Again, this is one of the most important areas as with no strength and tone you will not be able to hold steady, and this will affect your trigger pull as you will be hunting for the right time to fire. All this can lead to rough trigger release and so we will be training on this vital combination. If you go into a competition knowing a good trigger technique is yours, you have a massive advantage over your opponent even before the start!
I am excited for the new year and looking forward to getting shooting again!
The Pistol AMG would like to thank Nick and Andy for their efforts in delivering these sessions!
Report by Nick Pye, Pistol Development Squad Coach