A tech company by the name of Sight In Games SRL has come out with an app on the Android platform (iOS as well I presume but can’t find a link) that tries to simulate as much as possible shooting an air rifle at a 10 meter Olympic competition setting. It does this by mimicking the front and rear sight picture upon a target, then using a thumb adjustable pad on the right of the screen to simulate a trigger. By applying screen pressure, the trigger is pressed, and the shot is recorded downrange, along with all the previous shots. The game also comes in a multiplayer mode, wherein gamers can play with a number of other gamers across the world in tournaments. They can even compete with each other, and see scores in real time.

Shooting World Cup – SWC is a close to real sports shooting as a smartphone game can get – see for yourself. You will experience realistic rifle sway and you’ll be using an almost exact replica of the actual two stage triggering mechanism that air guns have. How do we know that? Our team includes ex-sports shooters – some of them are continental championship medalists.

Shooting World Cup – SWC present to you an air rifle 10 meters discipline. You’ll use true-to-life air gun models, actual sport shooter’s clothes, real target models and real RWS pellets. Even if you haven’t tried out sport shooting yet, you’re at the right place. The realistic mechanics of this game will improve your real life shooting skills as well.

I think the app is a neat idea, we’ve seen numerous apps and games made for competitive shooting over the years. I’m especially fond of the long range ones where you can actually “load” your ammunition and use it to compete with. However, from a shooting training perspective I’m not so convinced. As an app, something fun you could play on a train or bus, it seems to be realistic enough. But if you want to actually use it as a training tool, the company could possibly have included something better.

For example, breath control, trigger control, and follow through are some the biggest obstacles that shooters consistently face the world over. How this game accounts for those three obstacles isn’t necessarily clear. There has to be some way a phone’s internal gyroscope can be used, when holding your phone out in front of you, to account for the weight of a rifle. It would match your breathing and heart beat through your hands. With the prices of Virtual Technology steadily coming down to consumer availability, I can imagine a company being able to hook up a VR device to a phone, and have something attached to whatever actual rifle you practice with, and getting into some tech dry fire!