Mikhail Nestruev is one of Russia's top shooters. He has been European Champion on several occasions in numerous disciplines, and most recently was the winner at the 2000 Munich Airgun Matches in Air Pistol.

How old were you when you started shooting?
14 years old in 1982, I was in a sport school and I shot one time a week.

How did you progress up from there?
Just after two weeks I got a trainer and this trainer gave me the orders to train every day. There was a system if you were good at Shooting you get more ammunition for training. I earned ammunition and also for the trainer I used my own ammunition in my rifle and I was like a hooligan and I shot through the window at my house.

And you started out shooting with the rifle or the pistol?
I started out with a rifle, after 6 months I turned to Pistol. My first big success was to win the Moscow championships. After that I went to a special sport school for juniors just for shooting every day and then my results growing up every time and I was a lot of times in the European Championships Team.

What was your first major win?
The first time I was a European champion was 1986 in Standard Pistol in Budapest. The world championships for juniors in 1987 or 1988 I was second place.

Are you training for shooting at the same time you're doing army stuff?
Yes I'm still in the army in the army. I'm training twice a week. I believe smaller training is better results, I mean too much training you train also the faults and mistakes.

Did you get serious at the beginning or did it take you a while?
First I just shot for fun and then I became better and better, then shoot good. I can't decide, business, sports, school and I can decide what I will do with the time. I decide to train twice a week or so and the rest I'm learning for the future, I mean in the future my job will be a gunsmith. There are not so many gunsmiths in Moscow and I believe it's a good possibility for the future to be a gunsmith. I have a friend and he makes drills and also engravings and I'm also going to learn the job from the engraver.

What's your most valuable practice drill? What do you do for training do you dry fire or shoot, or point at a wall?
I never shoot dry fire. I have a fitness program and then I shoot with bullets, but I make a big mix. Sometimes I shot free pistol, sometimes air pistol, sometimes sport pistol, big bore. All of them are good for shooting. Shooting and training free pistol is good for holding, and shooting with big bore pistol is good for holding the pistol for the recoil, and so on, so I make it mixed.

How do you handle the mental game during a match?
Nothing special, just shoot.

How do you know when to take a break during a match, how do you know when to sit down?
No, normally I don't make a break.

What do you think about during the match?
I'm just thinking I must do all that I can to hit a ten every time. I'm not thinking for some mistakes, what I can do, I'm thinking what I can do to hit a ten. I am even thinking that ten is big enough I want to hit the middle, the center.

Do you prepare for a match differently at the beginning of the season verses later in the shooting season, like we've got the Olympic tryouts coming, will you prepare for a match differently?
I just train at the same style two times a week or so. Three weeks before the competition comes I start really hard to train.

Do you train with weights, weight lifting or anything, or running, cardiovascular exercises?
I have a small fitness program like all the other people, normal people. Just a little bit weight for the arms and a little bit run also, nothing special, not too much, not every day. When I'm in the sporting school I play football every day one hour and I go also to the sauna.

What one thing do you wish you could have learned earlier in your shooting career?
Difficult to answer, maybe I wished to start completely from the beginning. Nothing special, maybe it would be better to start from the beginning.

How do you select the front sight for your gun and the rear sight width? Do you make it special for each match?
So the front sight for every pistol is the same size as the black. With my pistol only I can shoot, the gap is too small for most people. Sometimes I change the position from the bulls-eye in sights, sometimes I have more, I go down, sometimes I go big (light gap), it depends on the light. I shoot on a lot of different shooting ranges of course, but my sight, the measurement of the front sight and the rear sight is good for me in each shooting range. It doesn't matter, bright light or dark light, just distance. I tried to train one time in the morning then next time in the evening, to change different shooting ranges, different times, all of that. The view of the sight is the same in every pistol, so free pistol, air pistol, doesn't matter, it looks like that.

I know years ago some of the Russian books I read on shooting used to advocate a U shaped front sight, but now do you like the square?
Long time ago, there were some shooters in Russia that used this sight for standard pistol, but not for free.

What is your funniest shooting experience?
Also nothing special. I have a good feeling every time I smile every day.

But you've not had something happen that was very funny? Somebody did something and everyone laughed?
No, I tried to make a joke. I live in Moscow and I have an absolutely normal face from Moscow. People I look like a Muscovite. That was like a joke; so if you can see a very honest people looking like that, he's from the Ural Mountains.

Do you make many changes between air pistol and free pistol and lift pistol? Any thinking?
Absolutely. I mean every kind of shooting is good for some technique. Air pistol is good for sights, sport pistol is good for my mind because I can shoot many times a ten, and free pistol is good for holding. The difference between free pistol and air pistol is free pistol I concentrate on the rear sight and the front sight at the same time. Air pistol I concentrate just only on the front sight and the differences also is if I has some moving with my body it's much more difficult with the air pistol then in sports pistols 25 meters, because the ten is bigger. So if the same movement I have in air pistol it's a bad nine, it's the difference.

Do you shoot your trigger on air pistol with over travel or not?
Probably normal trigger (right out of the box). And also 25 meters on the sports pistol. Important to trust the trigger, the point is very dry. It's important that the trigger is very very dry otherwise during the time I'm pulling the trigger I make errors up and down.

Do you when you're looking at the target do you want to know when the trigger breaks, cause you want it very dry, or you want it to surprise you because you are holding very still?
It's a surprise. The trigger weights for each discipline. For example 500 grams air pistol I take a minimum of 550, and if it needs 1000 grams I take 100 more over. In Centre Fire I go 300 grams over, and the last time after the competition they say the trigger is too heavy, and they tested the trigger and it was 2 kilograms! I mean the trigger weight is not really so important. The first time I tried to shoot with electronic trigger I didn't like it, I use a mechanical trigger. I am not sure the trigger weight is faulty, I believe I never had it tested.

Tell me about what air pistols you have shot?
All the time I shot with Feinwerkbau, all models, the 65 and the 90, the C20 and so on. As far as I shot every time Feinwerkbau since many years, the P34 has a very good feeling, I like the balance but I don't like the sights. The rear sight is too much in this position, too far to the rear. I didn't like that position, I shoot also very good with the P34 but I need too many times for training. I must much more train with the P34. And if I take too much time to train with the air pistol, the results with the free pistol are bad. I want to have the same sights for each competition in every kind of pistol, and in the Steyr I can move that, and that's it. I need less time to shoot good with the LP10. The most differences that I don't really know with the Feinwerkbau, I don't really know why the ten is left or right, up or down, I can't say why. The feeling for to hit the center of the ten is just the same for left ten or so, and the Steyr pistol is much easier to call from the shot (you know what I mean) so if I am thinking I shot a 10.2 on the left side then it is on the left side and not in the middle. The best (score) with the P34, that I have been shooting since nearly two years was a result of 589, and with the Steyr (LP10) pistol the best result was 591 even when I have only been shooting for two months, so it's just easier to shoot.

So you have only been shooting the LP10 about 2 months now? (January of 2000)
Yes, only a small time, but it's a very good pistol.

What do you think about the recoil absorbers that the P34 and the LP10 has as compared to say a P30 or an LP1?
I am not able to feel the shot absolutely, no movement at all. I just hear the ping and next I see the hit on the target and no feeling.

Do you think the LP10 or the P34 with no movement is better to shoot than the unstabilized guns?
Absorbers and stabilizing systems are good for shooting but I have my own special kind of thinking. I change the movement from the absorbers in the Steyr. I can do this as a gunsmith, and also in the free pistol I want to have a small, very small recoil. Absolutely no recoil I am thinking is not so good and the reason is if I have a small, a very small recoil, but it must be the same from shot to shot, but I like to see the point I am shooting. That one moment when I have a very, very small jump from the barrel so I can see that point, that moment, when leaving the bullet from the barrel. So I know but it must be from shot to shot the same, and I have made a change from the position of the absorber, but it must be the absorber, not the compensator. In that case it maybe is not so good. It has an influence in the groups. I like to have a good result and I have good training, so I can shoot good, very good with any kind of pistol, it doesn't matter. But in bad days or not so good days, it is important to know (when the shot breaks). In the competition today, I have only made two good tens 10.8 and 10.7. By this I mean, every other ten was 10.2, 10.3 and so only two really good tens, but they were tens. So that means I was really not so good but never the less I can hit the ten, even by shooting this way I can win even on a day when I'm not so good. I am always thinking to hit the center of the ten for each shoot, center of the ten, center of the ten, each shot and I am always waiting when does it come, that shot, the center of the ten.

Do you train any with like a SCATT, Noptel, or RIKA?
I train sometimes with the SCATT system but not so often. I think there is a big difference shooting with SCATT or RIKA system and real shooting because sometimes in the SCATT system I can see the holding is very good or at the last moment when the shoot breaks the shot comes right or so and I don't know the reason. It's not exactly know that point is, when I shoot. That is the difference between a real shoot (Editors note: it could be an older version of the software, or the unknown variables of pellet/bullet variations in flight, since the electronics systems use a perfect straight line, that is not possible in the real world).

Going into the standard pistol a little bit, since you have shot so many Feinwerkbau air pistols, Do you shoot the AW 93 as opposed to the IZH 35 (the Russian made gun that he the FWB is a copy of)?
The sports pistol, you mean the FWB pistol as a small bore pistol? I have the original pistol from Russia, same as the FWB. It is a very good pistol and this pistol does a lot for the shooter. It's easy to shoot the pistol FWB or the Russian that's the same and I also was testing of course Walther pistols and all of them are good pistols, but they really don't compare or, compete with the last Hammerli pistol. I think that's also a good pistol. A very good pistol. For the standard pistol discipline I am the holder of the Russian record with the Hammerli (SP20).

Another question, kinda odd ball. In America, a lot of air pistol beginners use the IZH46. Do you know it? The advertising claim is it has won many Olympic gold medals for the Russian team. Is this a popular beginners gun in Russia and what do you know about the IZH46?
In America? Really? It's the same in Russia a lot of people use this pistol when they start to shoot and I know a very good Russian shooter who is using only that pistol. And that shooter sometimes has the same score, like as mine. I don't understand this. I mean that it is very, very hard to shoot with this pistol because the speed is very low and so must always pump it, but this other guy has nearly the same results like me. And this guy I am speaking of was the European champion 1992 with that pistol. But I know that now he has a Steyr.

Do you shoot with a lot of junior shooters or do you help train young shooters and what if your were telling them to start out? What would you tell them?
I train two juniors, one of them has very good results the last time, he's not here but I suppose that he will go to the European championships already.

What would you tell a junior shooter starting out that they should concentrate on?
Each time the same. The most important thing for good shooter is the same for juniors It's a kind of thinking. I would always tell them what they have to do, not what they not have to do. Important is what you have to do to hit the ten, that's it, the most important thing. I know that most of the beginners want to shoot a lot (shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot) but that's completely wrong. The most, much more important thing is to shoot, but shoot slow and good (shoot,....shoot,...shoot, ....) is to shoot not so much but good.

Do you recommend dry firing for juniors or not, since you don't dry fire yourself?
I think most of the juniors want to go the discoteque or so and have not so much time. (Because) they doesn't want to spend much time for shooting and this small time when they shoot, it's better they really shoot and have fun and not so much dry firing. I think especially for the juniors, very important is the feeling of the guy after training. Does he have fun? Is it OK or not? Or was it boring? Therefore I mean shooting with ammunition is better than dry firing because after training they feel better. When I train juniors, it is really very important they have good feeling and they have fun. If one guy not have fun and stop shooting, then after that, another always stop shooting, and the next, and the next, so you must have a good atmosphere, shooting is nice. It was the same when I started to shoot. It was a very good atmosphere. It was in their shooting club that local men and women would get together, drink coffee and make themselves plans to go to the mountains and do something that had nothing to do with shooting.

Yes, that camaraderie is a very important thing, that we need to emphasize more in America.
. There is a interesting story, in my shooting club there was a woman, and this women came from the United States to Russia during the second world war, and then she live in Russia always until now. This is the person in the shooting club which I can a have always the most fun. She makes a very good feeling, She always was the optimist and so I had a very good relationship, and now she's gone back to the United States, to New York.

How old is she?
About 70 or a little bit more.

Did she marry a Russian or why was she there?
After the second world war she became a member of Russia, Soviet Union with her passport. In1990 the US embassy told her if she wants, she could go back to the United States. She wasn't married in Russia so she had a lot of relatives in the United States of course and she hadn't seen them in fifty years.