Shooting: F-Open
As we all know, F-Class Shooting got its start in Canada by George Farquharson (the sport is named for him). The original (and still the best) form of this sport is F-Class Open. The spirit of the F-Class Rules is to encourage innovation. People outside of the sport can often be put off when they see at all the equipment used, and immediately think the sport is too expensive to get started in or that all the equipment makes the sport too easy and there no challenges. The truth is that a fully custom built F-class rifle costs less than most off-the-shelf tactical style rifles. If you don’t want to go down the custom route, Savage Arms make an F-Open rifle not too dissimilar to the Savage F-TR rifle. Shooters very rarely by all equipment from new in one go, a lot of equipment can be purchased second hand and at reasonable prices. The challenge in F-Open it to shoot perfect or at least near-perfect scores all the time and regardless of the weather.
The rules for an F-Class can be found at www.icfra.co.uk/FCRules_2009.pdf
In short the rules governing the rifles for F-Open are as follows (these are a summary of the rules and should be read as a guide only, the exact wording of each rule can be found at the above link):
- Maximum weight of rifle: 10kg including all attachments that recoil or partially recoil with the rifle (scope etc).
- Calibre of the rifle can be anything up to and including 8mm (although 7mm is considered about the maximum a shooter can handle in terms of recoil).
- Maximum width of fore-end is 3” and the rifle cannot be in contact more than 3”x3” of the front rest.
- Any trigger weight that when tested and found safe can be used.
- The rifle cannot be loaded from a magazine, if a rifle has a magazine it can only be used as a loading platform.
- Muzzle breaks and suppressors are not permitted.
- Either front or back rest may be mechanically adjustably but not both.
- Front and rear bags must be filled with a granular material and must compress when weight is applied.
- The rifle cannot be clamped, magnetically or viscously held, or in any other way joined to the rifle for each shot, if a rest even slightly rises with the rifle when vertically lifting the latter from its rest(s) then the rest must be weighed as part of the rifle.
Our F-Open team will begin training for the upcoming 2013 F-Class World Championships being held in Raton, New Mexico. We are fortunate to have in our squad several very experienced members who have previously competed on Irish and European teams all around the world. Our goal for 2013 is simply to win; we will succeed in Raton.
If you would like to be part of the F-Open team for Ireland please feel free to come along to any of our training days listed on the calendar or email info@nrai.ie. Keep an eye on our website gallery page for more pictures as our training progresses.