Precision rifle shooting is not a unique phenomenon. A long time in different countries and on different continents civilian shooters clubs, sports organizations, hold various competitions close in form and content to the military and / or police sniping. The diversity of opinions and ideas about this leads to the fact that in countries, sometimes even in different regions of one country, the idea of sniping as a sports discipline has its own “unique”, as well as the rules of the competition.

I’m optimistic that a consensus has emerged in Europe on this issue. The name of this consensus is the sport of T-Class with disciplines where not only accurate bolt-action rifles but also semi-automatic and pistols are used. You can imagine a variety of interesting, complicated scenarios stages and exercises in such combinations in the discipline of Tactical Sniper [TS].

For the first time in years, I want to look back and ask those involved in the T-Class, do you remember how it all started in 2014 and continued in a next years?

It’s been a little over three years since I met Ivan Barzilov and the Bulgarian team at the 15th Police and Military Sniper Wolrd cup in Hungary. Participating in competitions together with military and police officers we discussed options of civil, sports sniping. It was not easy to find the right formula for assessing the skill of the shooter in such a complex, dynamic and diverse shooting.

Of course, the ideas are in the air, but the practical implementation of the idea of tactical sniping issued Bulgarian colleagues. Every T-Class competition held in the [TS] discipline confirmed the correctness of the chosen method of scoring. It is perfectly justified to divide multi-faceted shooting at short, medium and long distances into modules and determine the best result in each of them, which is the basis for determining the winner.

To win such competitions, you must be equally good at all aspects of sniper shooting. Applied in the T-Class parameter “hit-factor” stimulates a shooters not just accurately hit the target, but to do it as quickly as possible. All together, this makes it possible to infinitely improve their skills in the pursuit of maximum results.

The most dynamically developing discipline is the Tactical Sniper. Interesting and complex annual international competitions in Bulgaria at the Slivnitsa shooting range gather shooters from different countries of Europe and the United States. Great interest was aroused by the first multigun match “International T-Class Multigun Cup 2019”.

Given the ambiguous attitude to our passion and sport in many countries, we have yet to assess the huge amount of work done by our Bulgarian colleagues in the interests of the entire shooting community, regardless of the countries that we represent.

It’s probably not an exaggeration to say T-Class is a sport that may be of interest to those for whom it’s a profession. Fans of sniping in various formats, I can say that this is worth a try.

I hope that next year will be successful for the development of this interesting, young sport and will be another step on the way to the T-Class European Championship and the World Cup.

I wish all of us interesting meetings, exciting matches and success in 2020.

Sergei Gorobets
Regional Director of the Russian Federation