ROGERS -- Competitors from across the nation are on their way to the 52nd annual Daisy National BB Gun Championship Match.
"Daisy is right here in Rogers. We've been here since the late 50s," said Lawrence Taylor, director of public relations for Daisy.
Approximately 500 kids and teenagers will participate in the championship Saturday through next Monday. Friday is a practice day. Daisy expects 3,000 attendees with accompanying family members.
Seventy teams, each with five members and two alternates between ages 8 to 15, will participate. Each competitor's ability is tested to fire a Daisy air rifle at a target 5 meters, or 16.4 feet, away from four different positions: standing, sitting, kneeling and prone.
"Everyone must use a Daisy Model 499B; that is billed as the world's most accurate BB gun," Taylor said. "They'll shoot several shots in each position."
Most teams come from 4-H shooting programs, Taylor said, but anyone can form a team, including Boy Scouts and the Royal Rangers, a church ministry for boys with chapters across the United States and one in Canada. Teams qualify by placing in the top three in a shooting contest sanctioned by the team's home state, he said.
Bob Abel coaches the Bentonville-based Ozark Youth Shooting Team, a perennial presence at the championship. Abel's son Chris Abel is on the team. Bob Abel said all of his children have learned to shoot using a BB gun.
"The BB program is the perfect way to teach them the proper techniques, the proper positions, breathing and shot follow through," Abel said.
Gun safety is a primary focus at the championship. Competitors are judged on shooting accuracy, with prizes going to individual performance and total team score. However, 20 percent of each competitor's score comes from a written test on gun handling and safety.
"When someone is interested in getting on a team, they have to spend 10 hours of classroom time learning gun safety about shooting and gun sports," Taylor said.
April Mahan, a 4-H leader involved with Madison County 4-H Shooting Sports, which qualified to participate in the national championship, said 4-H organizes gun safety classes.
"When we started the BB gun program, we wouldn't let any of the kids start until they went through the Daisy curriculum," Mahan said. "We spent a month and a half in the classroom before we actually started practicing with the BB guns. We made sure they have all been properly trained."
Lydia Paterson, a Kansas City, Kan., native who was the individual aggregate score champion of the Daisy contest in 2010, said learning how to safely handle a firearm is a fundamental aspect of the sport.
"My dad had always taken us to the range before we were old enough to shoot and showed us how to properly handle firearms," she said.
Paterson went on to become a member of the U.S. Shooting Team at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
"Without my start at Daisy Nationals, I wouldn't be an Olympian today. Once I won in 2010, I knew that shooting is what I wanted to do," Paterson said.
Paterson comes from a family of shooting enthusiasts, but her skills developed from continuous practice. Basic skills youngsters need to succeed include trigger squeeze and sight alignment, she said.
"The way you shoot a firearm is you have constant slow pressure on the trigger until the gun goes off," she said. "You have to have the confidence to have a really smooth trigger squeeze during the duration of your shot."
Remaining calm during the shot also is important, Bob Abel said.
"You have to practice breathing, breath control and trigger control," he said. "Your heart rate can cause your hand to shake and to miss your target. It doesn't take much of a wiggle for you to be out of the target zone."
Chris Abel said he clears his mind before each shot.
"I make sure there's no distractions and just focus on the shot," he said.
Bob Abel said many people have a fear of firearms, but learning to shoot with a BB gun helps young people develop firearm awareness.
"I don't necessarily expect my kids are going to become hunters," he said. "You don't have to go shoot animals. My kids don't hunt. But it's a precision sport, and, if you don't practice hard and practice consistency and have the ability to focus, you will not do well at this sport."
Metro on 06/26/2017