From a press release by Scott Engen

SALT LAKE CITY- While everyone’s attention was focused on the football action between 6^th ranked Utah and arch nemesis BYU in Rice Eccles Stadium a few weeks back, another longstanding intercollegiate rivalry was being decided in favor of the nationally ranked Shootin’ Utes pistol team with their victory over West Point at the UPMS range in the Naval Sciences Building on the University of Utah campus. The Utes posted a team aggregate score of 6131 for the three pistol matches, a 27-point margin over the Army team.

The Utes won the Standard Pistol team event outright with a 2066, an impressive 99-point margin over the Cadets, and Utah’s Matt Jones winning the individual title with a 533 out of a possible 600 points. The Ute’s Leslie Nelson won the individual Women’s Air Pistol match posting a 365 out of a possible 400 points. With greater depth and numbers than their Utah rivals, the West Point cadets posted solid team wins in Air Pistol, Free Pistol and Women’s Sport Pistol, and individual wins in Open Air and Free Pistol.

Arnie Vitarbo, a former US national pistol team coach and Olympic competitor, will conduct a free two-day pistol clinic for both youth and adults to introduce them to the demanding sport of Olympic pistol shooting. The clinic will be held at the UPMS Range in the Naval Sciences Building on the University of Utah campus on Friday, January 14 from 6:00 to 9:00 pm and on Saturday, January 15 from 8:30 am to 3:00 pm. Friday's session will focus primarily on a classroom description of events and techniques; Saturday will be spent incorporating those techniques into the athlete's

shooting on the firing line in each of the seven events in International-style pistol. Always an entertaining and dynamic speaker, Vitarbo will provide an overview of the numerous Olympic shooting events, discuss equipment and technique, provide demonstrations and one-on-one coaching for those who want to try these challenging events firsthand. In addition, Vitarbo will be helping selected shooters analyze their technique by using the Rika system, a state-of-the-art computerized training device that uses infrared lasers to measure and plot the athlete's gun movement before, during and even after a shot is fired. A limited number of match pistols will be available and participants may also bring their own .22 target pistols and ammunition. Because clinic space is limited, advance registration is required. Contact Matt DeLong at (801) 581-7462 or delong@physics.utah.edu to register.

Well, a few weeks back Matt was asking people to volunteer and help out the club, so feeling very safe because I live so far away (Hyrum, Utah), I e-mailed him and said that I would be happy to help anyway that I could………. oops! So, in spite of objections of me being illiterate and having five thumbs on each hand, etc. I got the job of Bullseye editor. Seriously, I am glad to be able to help the club in any way.

I have been into shooting all of my life. Some of my earliest memories are of my mom and I out in back of our house shooting "targets" with her BB rifle. She grew up on a farm and one of the main forms of recreation was shooting. She was and still is an amazing shot with a rifle. My family owned a few pistols but considered them fun noisemakers. It was not until about 3 years ago, when a friend from work invited me to shoot a bullseye league, that I found out it was possible to hit anything with a pistol. After the first couple of matches, I was hooked! After the first year, the person running the leagues could not continue. So I stepped in and ran a winter and spring bullseye league (10 weeks each), with an occasional outdoor "any gun" 900 during the summer. The league has increased from an original 5 shooters to 17 in last winter’s league.

Since everything we perceive has already happened and reactions take time to initiate and complete, it is virtually impossible to consistently yank the trigger when we see everything is perfect, and have the shots hit the middle. Then how can we find a way to hit the middle? In our very old description of the perfect shot we can find the clues, "Align the sights and manipulate the trigger so as to not disturb this alignment." In my personal analysis of this statement and the study of the activity that goes on during a shot, I’ve formed my own interpretation. I call it creating the best environment for a good shoot. Let’s take portions of the whole and then look at the entire picture. For the first portion, let’s analyze the visual input. What we see is not a perfect picture as in the books. But everyone already knows that. Some of us less than others, but all of us see movement. What is movement? It is our body trying to align the sights and place them at a specific point. The reason we can’t hold perfectly still is because we have all these muscles contradicting each other’s pulls in varying amounts. What we end up with is an error-correcting routine which keeps moving around trying to keep us centered where we’re pointing. Let’s call this the natural arc of movement. If we let this arc proceed it will gently move around the center of the target. Were we have trouble is when we don’t like where it is at some point in time and "adjust" it. If we happen to fire while we’re adjusting it, the shot will most likely be less than perfect. For some of us, this adjusting is actually what we’re constantly doing. Instead of letting the arc take its course, we keep "fixing" it. We need to allow the natural arc of movement to proceed naturally.

Next let’s examine trigger manipulation. We’re always saying straight back and steadily increasing and such. I would like to suggest that the steadily increasing with no hesitation is more important that the straight back, but that the more straight you can make it, the better the shot if your trigger has hesitation. I hope I’m not too confusing on this issue. What I’m trying to get to is that the real trouble in obtaining centered shots comes form a start and stop trigger and is amplified by pressure that is not straight back. What causes us to hesitate? Why would we stop the trigger once we start it? Not accepting what we see. Something even worse, is trying to correct what we see. Our conscious self says, "It’s not right! Stop!" and then, "OK, start again." How do we fix this situation?

The two steps to setting up an environment goes back to the old quote from above. First, set up the error-correcting routine that provides our hold and produces our arc of movement. Study this process at home and at times when you’re not shooting. Recognize your personal pattern in this movement. Second initiate the trigger such that it will complete somewhere within your minimum arc. Don’t correct anything! If you drift too far out of your aiming area to accept, abort the shot. If you notice that your finger stopped bringing the trigger back, abort the shot. Learn to accept the natural movements of the sights and bring the trigger back as one continuous motion. In this way you have the error-correction routine working to keep you in the middle and the steadily increasing trigger pressure to cause ignition during that natural arc. All this probably sounds like, "Align the sights and manipulate the trigger so as to not disturb the alignment."

Some examples of VERY SIGNIFICANT CHANGES are:

Pistol: All measurements and weights as described in 8.16.0 for 25 m Rim Fire Pistols (25m Pistol and Standard Pistol) are valid without any exceptions (compensators, muzzle brakes, perforated barrels or any device(s) functioning in a similar manner are not allowed).

Ammunition: 5,6 mm (.22") Rim fire Long Rifle

For the Rapid Fire Pistol Event: Minimum bullet weight 2.53g = 39gr; Minimum velocity 250m/sec.

Malfunction Pistol Events: Only one Malfunction will be permitted where two were

allowed previously (until end of 2004).

8.8.4.5.1 In the case of a NON-ALLOWABLE MALFUNCTION every shot that is not fired will be scored as a miss (zero). No re-fire or completion is permitted. Only the values of shots fired will be credited to the shooter. The shooter may continue to shoot the remainder of the event.

For sale - Colt "Officers Model Match" in 38 spl. with a 6" barrel. It is in about 95 to 98% condition. Contact Scott Healy at 801-581-5991 or Scott.Healy@admin.utah.edu.

Match Results:

Report on UPMS ranges: status and projections.

Current University range. We anticipate signing the "lease" (officially called a "Shared Use Agreement") by the end of the year. All major hurdles have been met. It is now essentially ours for the next 10 years, if necessary. "Ours" means we have to do the maintenance and upkeep, but we also get to make modifications and improvements. The first improvement will be to make lockers so people can keep their guns there. (Principally the collegiate team) This is scheduled for completion between Christmas and New Years. We need to upgrade the lighting. The current winning thought is to buy 18" flourescent fixtures and attach them to the inside of the new wall, just above the shooters. At some point we need to make the Visqueen wall more permanent. Plywood with plywood doors, like we had a year ago? (We still have that plywood.) Something flexible like Visqueen? I have an idea how to make doors that actually don’t fall off after an hour. Scott Engen had a wonderful idea: paint the new wall and start putting trophies up there. Maybe even use it for the permanent trophies for State Champions. If we do that, we’ll need some kind of enclosure to keep them from getting covered with dirt.

What other ideas do you have for improving our range? Who will help make these ideas a reality? The first issue is lighting. What should the lighting in each position look like? We need more details in our formal procedure for range cleaning. We need people to do the actual cleaning on a regular basis. We don’t yet know how often we will have to run the vacuum or take out the lead or replace the wall. Who will volunteer to paint the range?

Now for the real question: so we have the resources to commit to running that range for another 10 years? Several of us are getting old. Who will pick up the torch for the next generation?

New range, tentatively at the U. About a year ago we had a meeting with Congressman Rob Bishop and University Senior Academic Vice President Dave Pershing. Rob agreed that we need a new range and said he would look for the money. A few weeks later his assistant who makes things happen came by for details. She told us that $4.5M would be too much to get in one piece. We said "Fine, we are in no hurry. How about $1.5M per year for three years?" That seemed much more reasonable. I contacted her a month or so ago and learned that we were not high enough on the priority list for this year. The latest brainstorm is that we have a new shooter with us: Mark Morris. Mark is the father of Ashley Davis, Collegiate All-American and former State Junior Olympic Champion. Mark spends a lot of time in Senator Hatch’s office. He and I met recently to discuss strategy for getting the new range funded. The really good news is that he has offered to help us get this done. We will need all of you to help in various capacities. One thing we definitely need to do is re-invigorate the Range Committee. More news as it becomes available.

Officers and directors. This year’s Annual Meeting was a great social event, but a bust for administrative reasons. We had only two Directors there, so we couldn’t elect officers or Directors. Lets do nominations and elections electronically, as we have been doing most board "meetings" and votes.

2003-2004 Corporate Officers:
President Matt DeLong
Vice President Rachael Jensen
Secretary John Campbell
Treasurer Allen Johnson
Assistant Treasurer John Burns
Social Director Dan Durham

Rachel is in the middle of an MBA program and currently unable to participate in many activities. Perhaps it’s time to recognize someone else. Wayne Bloomquist? Other nominations?

Board members:
Matt DeLong, Christian DiFrancesco, Elwood Powell, Steve Corbin, Dan Durham, Arnie Vitarbo, and Grant Hutton

In 2004 the Class III seats of Matt DeLong, Christian DiFrancesco and Steve Corbin expire.
Christian has offered to continue as Board member and Scholarship Committee chair. Steve has agreed to accept a full term. Other nominations?

Frequent volunteer and competitor, Grant Hutton takes aim during the December ’04 Air Pistol match