On 12 July 2022 National Protea Colours were presented at the historic venue The View in Johannesburg. At this illustrious event 21 members of the South African Precision Rifle Federation (SAPRF) were awarded SA National Colours for the very first time!
The SAPRF will send a team to the World Championships which is being held in France from 6 to 12 August and will see 24 countries competing. Of our 21 representatives we have teams in four different categories.
The International Precision Rifle Federation began in 2019 with the first meeting taking place in Dublin Ireland with South Africa, Sweden, United Kingdom, USA and Ireland being represented. The Federation aims to unify the sport of Precision Rifle worldwide and set standards for competition internationally to enable a level field of play at Regional and World Championships.
Since then, the IPRF has grown in leaps and bounds with Nations joining and committing to set up their internal national structures as Precision Rifle sport matures in each country.
‘Precision Rifle’ is a multi-stage, long-range, practical shooting competition. During a shoot, competitors engage steel targets (widely referred to as gongs) at ranges of between 90 and 1200 metres from a variety of unconventional positions. Each stage is timed and on average competitors usually shoot between 6 and 10 stages per day, with between 6 and 12 rounds per stage. The total round count for a single day of shooting is usually between 60 to 80 rounds.
Although the sport had its origins in the United States it has since rapidly grown internationally and there are now Precision Rifle competitions in many countries, with well over 5000 competitive shooters worldwide.
Precision Rifle in South Africa
On the 8th of February 2019 the South African Practical Precision Rifle Federation (SAPPRF), incorporating Precision Rifle Series – South Africa, was recognised by the South African Shooting Sports Confederation (SASSCo) as an official Shooting Sport within South Africa, and as the official Precision Rifle Federation/Association.
Precision Rifle was started in South Africa with Tac Driver (Rob Ramsden & Steve Cox) running the first precision rifle event in August 2015. In the past seven years it’s grown rapidly round the country into National, Provincial, Club and PR22 matches hosted on an almost weekly basis.
