MARION - Vance Schmid didn't know it at the time, but when he put down his shotgun several years ago, he was paving the way for a world championship.

As a young man, Schmid qualified to tryout for the U.S. Olympic trap team in 1972.

"I didn't have enough money to go out to the training center in Colorado at the time," he said.

Eventually, he turned to pistol competition. That decision paid off in early November when Schmid, a retired Marion policeman, won the NRA World Action Pistol Championships in Hamilton, New Zealand.

He shoots in the metallic class, using a pistol with stock iron sights. In the open class shooters can use scopes, stabilizers and other equipment.

"I'm shooting a pistol at four different events, a moving target, a barricade, practical and falling plates," Schmid said. "There are four events, 48 shots in each event, a total of 192 shots. Each shot is worth 10 points.

"It's mostly an accuracy match, but you'd better hustle because you're going to run out of time, especially the barricade at five seconds. Beep, you draw, you set up, one, two three, four five six, and they better all go in that black (marked target area)."

In the championships, Schmid amassed 1,902 of a possible 1,920 points, a New Zealand record.

"I was shooting plates with a professional shooter, sponsored by Smtih and Wesson," Schmid said. "We had shot all the matches together we could. The mover is the only one you shoot one guy at a time. We shot the plates together. We shoot at 10, 15, 20 and 25 yards. We shot our 10 yards, no problem.

"I missed a plate at 15 yards, it's unheard of. It's not in the program to miss a plate at 15 yards. This professional shooter told me later, "Ahh, he missed a plate, the door is open."

On the contrary, Schmid slammed the door and claimed the title.

In terms of physical requirements, Schmid this type of shooting isn't particularly demanding.

"Hand-eye coordination, that's basically it," he said. "You have to recoil, a lot of these timed fires, it's controlled recoil. You can't have a jerk. You don't want to just squeeze them off, and that's the biggest thing for new shooters. They get up there and fight the recoil. They want to try to fight it and you can't. You just go with it."

That doesn't mean rising to the top doesn't take work. Schmid said he shoots 30-35,000 rounds in an average years. Some years he'll shoot as many as 50,000 rounds.

The former policeman has been shooting some variation of this competition since 1975.

"Shotgun shooting was OK, but it was real expensive and I was doing better pistol shooting," Schmid said. "I was doing real well in PPC (Practical Police Course) shooting in this area. It evolved into International Practical Shooters Confederation.

" This is the kind of shooting where you run, go through stuff, good-guy, bad-guy targets, swinging targets, moving targets, targets pop up, targets fall down. Now, it's evolved into three-gun type of IPSC, where you use a rifle, pistol and shotgun, for stuff that pops up, moves over."

Now, for the next few months, Schmid will step away from competitive shooting.

"I like it when the season ends in October," he said "I like to hunt, coyote hunt and deer hunt. I take a break, rebuild guns, if you need something done get it done now because it starts up in March again pretty solid."

And, in two years, Schmid will begin his quest to defend his world championship.

les.winkeler@thesouthern.com / 351-5088