Shooting - General information

Target shooting for the vision impaired uses standard shooting equipment with a special electronic audio aiming device fitted to the gun. The aiming device detects the point of aim of the gun relative to the target and provides the shooter through headphones different tones indicating the point of aim.

Also, within a competition a VI shooter is permitted an assistant to provide information such as the position of shots which have been taken. Through these adaptations a VI shooter, regardless of amount of sight, can achieve an accuracy comparable to a fully sighted shooter.


Caption: a blind shooter in action.

IBSA organised international competitions in shooting for the visually impaired for many years. Currently all IBSA competitions are 10m air rifle competitions shot using .177 air rifles. This is due to limitations of older aiming devices, so in addition to the standard standing air rifle event IBSA has created 10m air rifle prone and 3 position events to widen the disciplines available.

In IBSA competitions, all VI shooters, B1, B2 and B3, compete in a single sight class. As aiming is done by sound from an audio aiming device a shooter with some sight does not gain an advantage by trying to aim by sight and so blindfolds are not used.

To keep up to date with the latest in international VI shooting, watch out for news items on the IBSA website, join the IBSA-shooting-news Google group or go to the IBSA shooting FaceBook page. Visit the Facebook page of Shooting