Discipline · trial competitions 2026
Steel animal figures at four known distances. Shot standing, without support, one shot per target. There is no kill zone: only a silhouette that falls off its stand scores.
Working draft of the rules · September 2026
A standard club round is 20 targets: five silhouettes of each kind. The organiser may set up several sets so that more shooters can shoot in parallel.
The further target is also the bigger one, so through the scope all four look almost alike: between 1.5 and 1.9 mrad. What gets harder is what you cannot see: the pellet to the ram flies longer, drops more and drifts more in the wind.
Actual size
Same scale for all four: further away, bigger target.
Dot on the right: a 4.5 mm pellet
Through the scope, from the firing line
Angular size: all four look almost the same size.
1.7 mrad · one tick = 1 mrad = 1 cm at 10 m
Heights are approximate, from the table in the rules. Lane distances are to scale; the silhouettes on the lane are enlarged.
Silhouette is a discipline in which metal animal figures are shot at four known distances. Unlike Field Target, the target has no kill zone: a hit counts when the correct silhouette is hit and knocked off its stand. This document is a practical club proposal based on the format PFTA uses in Poland for shooters whose main discipline is FT/HFT, drawing on the international Metallic Silhouette tradition.
The club FT/HFT variant allows PCP and spring air rifles in 4.5 mm calibre. The proposed limit for Serbia is 16.3 J at most, the club’s existing FT limit, so existing FT equipment can be used without re-tuning the power.
All shots are fired standing, without external support. The rifle is held by and rests only on the shooter’s body. A bench, tripod, stick, tree or any other object used as a rest is not allowed. In the club FT variant the usual FT stock features such as an adjustable butt, hook and palm rest may be used, provided they do not create an external support.
A bank of five silhouettes is shot in order, from left to right. Each silhouette gets one shot only. The shooter may not deliberately move on to the next target and come back to the previous one later. Hitting the wrong silhouette does not count as a hit on the correct target.
Correct silhouette knocked down = 1 point. A miss, a hit after which the target stays on its stand, or a hit on the wrong target = 0 points. The maximum in one 20-target round is 20 points; in a two-round match it is 40 points.
A series of 20 shots, one round across all four stands, has a limit of 10 minutes. The clock starts once the shooter has loaded the first pellet and the referee gives the command to start shooting, and it does not stop while the shooter moves from stand to stand. The time is the same for all shooters.
Adjusting parallax, elevation, magnification or any other permitted part of the optics is done within that time. The clock stops only while the lane is being repaired (rule 9).
Completed from PFTA 6.3
Typical FT/HFT optics are allowed. The shooter may use the known distances and adjust parallax/elevation before individual shots, unless the organiser sets a more restrictive HFT class. Lasers and electronic rangefinders are not allowed.
Silhouettes must stand freely on a flat, solid metal rail/stand and must fall reliably after a proper hit. The organiser checks that every target works before the match. Distances are measured from the firing line to the silhouette.
The stand is 60 to 110 cm high. Each figure is placed with the rear edge of its foot flush with the rear edge of the stand. The gap between neighbouring figures is no less than one and no more than three figure lengths. The front edge of the stand and the figures must be in contrasting colours.
Figures may be tied to the stand with a cord; the cord should be at least one and a half times the height of the stand. A lane consists of four stands with five identical figures each, and at least two lanes are recommended.
If the shooter knocks a figure down out of order, or another figure falls together with the correct one, the shooter tells the referee that the lane needs repair. The referee decides when and how, without disturbing other shooters. The shooter’s clock stops during the repair; afterwards the shooter continues from where they stopped, with the time that was left. A figure that fell together with the correct one does not score.
Completed from PFTA 5.2–5.10, 6.6–6.7
The muzzle must point safely down range. Loading is allowed only on the referee’s command or once the line is officially open. On the command STOP, shooting stops immediately. Nobody goes forward to the targets until the line is declared safe. All additional safety rules of the host range apply.
If placings between shooters with the same score must be decided, the organiser may hold a shoot-off. The recommended format is one or more pre-selected silhouettes shot standing, at the same distance for everyone in the shoot-off, until the scores differ.
This is neither an official translation of nor a replacement for the current IMSSU or PFTA rules. The document was prepared as a practical basis for a trial Silhouette discipline within Field Target Club Serbia. For an international or officially sanctioned competition, the current edition of the governing body’s rules applies.
Sources
The club format follows the PFTA rules from Poland, adapted for shooters whose main disciplines are FT and HFT. The shape and exact dimensions of the figures come from the IMSSU metallic silhouette specifications.
Trial competitions
You need the same rifle as for FT. Get in touch and we will let you know about the first trial match.
Source: Field Target Club Serbia, Silhouette, proposed rules for trial competitions 2026 (working draft, September 2026). Rules 7 and 9 completed from the PFTA rulebook (2015). English translation by the club; the Serbian text prevails.