Airgun in the context of "Varmint rifle"

Shooting sports are a group of competitive and recreational sporting activities which focus on shooting accuracy, precision and speed. Shooting is the art of using ranged weapons, mainly firearms and airguns, such as handguns, rifles and shotguns, and also bows/crossbows.

Shooting sports can be categorized by equipment, shooting distance, targets, time limits and the degree of athleticism involved. Shooting sports may involve both team and individual competitions, and team performance is usually assessed by summing the scores of the individual team members. Due to the noise and high impact energy of the projectiles, which can be lethal, shooting sports are typically conducted at either designated permanent shooting ranges or temporary shooting fields in areas away from human settlements.

Iron sights are a system of physical alignment markers used as a sighting device to assist the accurate aiming of ranged weapons such as firearms, airguns, crossbows, and bows, or less commonly as a primitive finder sight for optical telescopes. Iron sights, which are typically made of metal, are the earliest and simplest type of sighting device. Since iron sights neither magnify nor illuminate the target, they rely completely on the viewer's naked eye and the available light by which the target is visible. In this respect, iron sights are distinctly different from optical sight designs that employ optical manipulation or active illumination, such as telescopic sights, reflector (reflex) sights, holographic sights, and laser sights.

Iron sights are typically composed of two components mounted perpendicularly above the weapon's bore axis: a 'rear sight' nearer (or 'proximal') to the shooter's eye, and a 'front sight' farther forward (or 'distal') near the muzzle. During aiming, the shooter aligns their line of sight past a gap at the center of the rear sight and towards the top edge of the front sight. When the shooter's line of sight, the iron sights, and target are all aligned, a 'line of aim' that points straight at the target has been created.

A trigger is a mechanism that actuates the function of a ranged weapon such as a firearm, airgun, crossbow, or speargun. The word may also be used to describe a switch that initiates the operation of other non-shooting devices such as a trap, a power tool, or a quick release. A small amount of energy applied to the trigger leads to the release of much more energy.

Most triggers use a small flat or slightly curved lever (called the trigger blade) depressed by the index finger, but some weapons such as the M2 Browning machine gun or the Iron Horse TOR ("thumb-operated receiver") use a push-button-like thumb-actuated trigger design, and others like the Springfield Armory M6 Scout use a squeeze-bar trigger similar to the "ticklers" on medieval European crossbows. Although the word "trigger" technically implies the entire mechanism (known as the trigger group), colloquially it is usually used to refer specifically to the trigger blade.

Obturation is the necessary barrel blockage or fit in a firearm or airgun created by a deformed soft projectile. A bullet or pellet made of soft material and often with a concave base will flare under the heat and pressure of firing, filling the bore and engaging the barrel's rifling. The mechanism by which an undersized soft-metal projectile enlarges to fill the barrel is, for hollow-base bullets, expansion from gas pressure within the base cavity and, for solid-base bullets, "upsetting"—the combined shortening and thickening that occurs when a malleable metal object is struck forcibly at one end.

Obturation is achieved in shotgun shells (which have multiple pellets much smaller than the barrel bore) by placing a plastic wad or biodegradable card of the same diameter as the barrel between the propellant powder and the pellets.