I am not sure what forum to post this in so I have put it in a few.

I have recently become intrigued with the biathlon sport. There is a club here in Maine and I am going to go to the next event they have.

I love shooting and my wife and kids and I have just started cross country skiing. I don't want to seriously compete as I am way to old (37) but I would love to get good enough to show up in a oldster/masters friendly competition and have some fun. I can shoot and I am in pretty good shape (I run marathons) so I think this is realistic for me.

I would love this to be a sport that my kids get into. I really appreciate the combination of max cardio output and then having to slow yourself down long enough to shoot a clean set and then back you go!


I have searched the forum and I found a few posts about biathlon rifles but nothing recent. I guess Anchutz is the leader in the field with Izmash coming up second. I would love to see some of the rigs that get shot out there.

Due to the fact that this is a underutilized sport in the USA there is very little in the way of information out there.

Any info (links, web sites ect)about the Biathlon, the equipment and the rules of the sport will be greatly appreciated.

THANKS

Actually Remington or someone like that came out with a "Biathlon" rifle for the last Olympics. Fairly reasonably priced but a rather garish stock as I recollect. I would not spend a lot of money on the gun as I am not sure that the accuracy requirements are that testing. I think you have to knock over metal discs (plates). Big thing is to get your breathing under control. These is a summer version of the Biathlon as well (running).
Peter.

When my daughter was considering branching off from Nordic skiing into Biathlon a few years back I attended a Level 1 coaching course. Neat stuff. As a high performance athlete you should have a nice time with the skiing. It's easier for a successful skier to learn marksmanship than a marksman to become a competitive skier. The proper straight-pull rifle is important. Like you said the two popular rifles are the Anchutz and the Izhmash. Another more expensive rifle is the Fortner which is built on an Anchutz action IIRC. The ammo is the best quality and purchased by the case to get the same lot number.

Google is good; here are some miscellaneous links:

http://www.biathlon.net/tips.html

http://www.biathlon.teamusa.or...eyword=US%20Biathlon

http://www.coloradobiathlon.org/classifieds.html

http://minnesotabiathlon.com/ This is the outfit I trained with.

http://adventure.howstuffworks...-sports/biathlon.htm

http://www.eberlestock.com/Biathlon.htm

http://mwscbiathlon.blogspot.com/

Take a look at Rimfirecentral under Russian/Biathlon and you should find some of the info that you are looking for with regards to the rifles used.

I have a Izhmash basic Biathlon in a .22lr and it came with a fantastic trigger pull already adjusted on it and the accuracy is superb. The toggle bolt takes a little getting use to and requires a pretty firm stroke on it to get it to function properly with extracting the fired case. Those rifles used to be around the $375-$400 range but I've had mine for a couple of years and am not familiar with the prices now. Izhmash does produce a complete line of the Biathlon rifles with models from the basic, like mine, to the wild.

I got into a little bit of biathalon when I was living in Alberta. I had a very nice older Shultz & Larsen biathalon rifle, and really enjoyed the rifle.

But, I didn't enjoy the sport much. The scoring system is so heavily weighted in favour of the cross-country skiing aspect, that as far as I am conceerned they might as well substitute pub darts for rifles in the target skill part.

Not quite my cup of tea. Funny, I feel about the same way regards soccer (futbol). Must be at least to a large degree that some of us only develop affinities for the sports we were "raised on".

quote:

they might as well substitute pub darts for rifles in the target skill part.

Now that is interesting! We could have a pub crawl on X country skiis!
Peter.

When I was in high school I was sort of the star of our rifle team and I loved to X-C ski as I'm now taching my six year old daughter to do.

My girlfrind in school was the star of the X-C ski team. We always said we were going to put our heads together and start biathlon but we never did. I went off to colledge with a small bore shooting scholorship and I think she got one for skiing but we haven't seen each other since and that was 1977.

Honkey good luck doing what I never did I'm sure you will have great fun with this sport that I missed out on. The shame of it is that our city has one of the best Biatlon courses in the country.

Thanks for the encouragement.

I dated a girl that was actually on our US Biathalon team.

She used the Anchutz rifle and match bullets. The accuracy was unreal to me at the time. I only fired 3 rounds with the rifle off of sand bags at the range with the peep sights on the rifle. All 3 went into the same hole.

I think you will do well being a marathon runner.
It's always fun to do something different.
Enjoy and keep us posted

Most people think that the purpose is to X country ski and then shoot. NO! The purpose is to X country ski without falling over and breaking the rifle, and then shoot!
Peter.

Thanks for the encouragement!!

I'm glad you brought up this thread. My kids all ski, but my boys don't seem overly enthusiastic about x-c skiing, they love downhill. I'm thinking if I arm them, they'll have a greater appreciation for x-c skiing.

One of our local ski clubs does biathalon competition, so I'll have to get them hooked up.

And the purpose isn't to ski w/o falling, it's a ski race where you get penalized if you miss the targets.

quote:

Originally posted by Paul H:
My boys don't seem overly enthusiastic about x-c skiing, they love downhill. I'm thinking if I arm them, they'll have a greater appreciation for x-c skiing.

One of our local ski clubs does biathalon competition, so I'll have to get them hooked up.

The Nordic skiers are fond of telling the Alpine skiers that real athletes ski uphill.

Some biathlon clubs have fun matches or family shoots where you can try the skiing and/or shooting with coaches and such. Our family attended one in Coleraine MN a few years back. They even had biathlon-style air rifles for the shorties. Good times.

Paul H how do you hit targets with a rifle that has a broken stock? That was my comment. I have seen Biathlon competition on TV (not in the USA) which NEVER shows it (at least not on broadcast channels) and have seen several instances where competitors were ruefully looking at their (broken) stock or looking for a lost magazine!
Peter.