More than 150,000 young people participate annually in 4-H shooting sports programs using Daisy equipment. In addition, Daisy has teamed together with the American Legion, the National Rifle Association and the National Guard Youth Marksmanship Program to make instructional material available.
No matter if you know almost nothing about shooting, or if you are already a pretty good shot, there are few thrills that compare with watching your score rise as you participate in one of these programs. If you become a very good shooter, the door can open for some extraordinary opportunities. For example, some colleges offer scholarships for members of their competitive shooting teams.
Airgunning is recognized as an internationally competitive sport at the highest levels. The very first gold medal at the Sydney Olympic Games was awarded to Nancy Johnson, an American, for her first place in the Women's 10-Meter Air Rifle. She had beaten her closest competitor by 2/10ths of a point. Her husband Ken figured that her margin of victory was the equivalent of the width of three human hairs. Nancy Johnson started shooting when she was 15 at local rifle club. She shot powder exclusively for three years, then began shooting both .22 and air rifle in college at the University of Kentucky. She continued to shoot both right up until after the US Olympic trials. Then she concentrated on shooting air rifle because that was the event she had qualified for.
"Air rifle is a lot more pure," Johnson says. "In .22, you're shooting outdoors, and you're dealing with ammunition factors - on rare occasions you get fliers. But with air rifle, it's just you and your ability to shoot, and I've never seen a flier in air rifle. It's a lot more honest," she says.
Even if you are not a youngster, airgunning can offer competitive challenges. Pistol silhouette is world-class competition at a bargain basement price, and air pistol is the fastest growing segment of the International Handgun Metallic Silhouette Association.