Air rifle in the context of "ISSF 10 meter air rifle"

Shooting is the act or process of discharging a projectile from a ranged weapon (such as a gun, bow, crossbow, slingshot, or blowpipe). Even the acts of launching flame, artillery, darts, harpoons, grenades, rockets, and guided missiles can be considered acts of shooting. When using a firearm, the act of shooting is often called firing as it involves initiating a combustion (deflagration) of chemical propellants.

Shooting can take place in a shooting range or in the field, in shooting sports, hunting, or in combat. The person involved in the shooting activity is called a shooter. A skilled, accurate shooter is a marksman or sharpshooter, and a person's level of shooting proficiency is referred to as their marksmanship.

A repeating rifle is a single-barreled rifle capable of repeated discharges between each ammunition reload. This is typically achieved by having multiple cartridges stored in a magazine (within or attached to the rifle) and then fed individually into the chamber by a reciprocating bolt, via either a manual or automatic action mechanism, while the act of chambering the round typically also recocks the hammer/striker for the following shot. In common usage, the term "repeating rifle" most often refers specifically to manual repeating rifles (e.g. lever-action, pump-action, bolt-action, etc.), as opposed to self-loading rifles, which use the recoil, gas, or blowback of the previous shot to cycle the action and load the next round, even though all self-loading firearms are technically a subcategory of repeating firearms.

Repeating rifles were a significant advance over the preceding single-shot, breechloading rifles when used for military combat, as they allowed a much greater rate of fire. The repeating Henry rifle was used by the infantry and Spencer rifle was used by the cavalry during the American Civil War and the subsequent American Indian Wars, and the first repeating air rifle to see military service was the Windbüchse rifle.

A dart gun is an air rifle that fires a dart. The dart is tipped with a hypodermic needle and filled with a sedative, vaccine or antibiotic. A dart gun containing a sedative is called a tranquillizer gun (also spelled tranquilizer gun, tranquilliser gun or tranquiliser gun).