Rifle Team Overview
The Avon Rifle Team has a long history at Avon Old Farms School. It is one of the oldest continuously run sports offered at AOFS. Each year it has produced top teams among the Prep School Rifle League and the CT State High School Rifle League. The rifle team is a safe and well supervised sport. The main emphasis is on teaching safety, concentration and discipline. The secondary emphasis is on scoring. Competitive shooting is a very individual sport, taking each individual performance and combining team members scores to make up the team score. Rifle shooting is 90% mental, 10% physical. Any stature, short, tall, large and small can make a great shooter as long as they have great mental and discipline attributes. Over the years we have found youngsters who are great at academics and not great at athletic sports do well with target shooting. Obviously this is not written in stone but does show a pattern.
The team consists of 10 shooters and four alternates. In matches, the top five scores are counted to make up the team score.
AOF Rifle Team shoots at the Metacon Gun Club which is approximately a ten minute drive from campus. Metacon Gun Club is an indoor range with nine firing points which are fifty feet from the targets. Metacon Gun Club has a waiting and assembly room and a well-lit shooting range area.
The rifle team shoots both 3-position and 4-position course of fire. In the 3-position course of fire the team shoots ten shots prone, ten shots kneeling and ten shots standing using the fifty foot USA shooting target. This course of fire is used by most colleges around the country and is an international course of fire depicting the 50 meter Olympic course of fire only the target is moved to 50 feet. The 4-position course of fire is five shots prone, five shots kneeling, five shots standing and five shots sitting using the NRA A-17 target. This course of fire is used in the high school matches.
The team competes against Xavier High School (Middletown, CT), Suffield Academy (Suffield, CT) and Wilbraham and Monson Academy (Wilbraham, MA). We also scrimmage against Vinal Tech and Abbott Tech. The team also competes in the 3 and 4 position NRA Junior Sectionals and the 3-Position Open Sectional as well as the Niantic David Thompson Invitational match and the CT State Gallery match.
The whole team is furnished with their own equipment to use during the season. The rifles we use are .22 caliber single shot bolt action target rifles, made primarily by Anschutz or Walther. Each member is furnished with a shooting jacket, shooting pants and shooting boots which help with stability. The firearms used have peep sights. No optic sights are used. Members use slings, kneeling rolls, shooting mats and off-hand stands to aid in the various positions.
The team is coached by David Lyman. David was the 1980 and 1981 National Civilian Rifle Champion. He attended the University of Alaska on a shooting scholarship. David has over thirty-six years of coaching experience. He coached the USA Wheelchair shooting team from 1980 – 1988 where he took the team to Seoul, Korea for the Paralympic Games. David has coached the India National Rifle and Pistol teams on three separate occasions. He has coached Avon Old Farms for three years and provides much of the equipment to the school through his own business, the Blue Trail Range and Gun Store. The team is also coached by Len Remaly, 3-time national champion and Bob Ronstrom.
There are over 300 colleges in the country that offer shooting as their sport or recreational programs. Some colleges are Div I NCAA rated and offer full 4 year scholarships for riflery. Other colleges offer tuition and books, others are just club teams. All shooters that graduate from the AOFS rifle program will be some of the highest level high school shooters in the country. So, yes, parents, it may pay off when your sons enter college. Shooting is not a popular sport like football or hockey where thousands are trying for just a few scholarships. The Avon rifle program is one of the best in New England. The coaches, staff and school have the ability to bring your sons to a state and national ranking if your son is ready and willing.
We hope you will come to Avon and try out for the rifle program.
