MERIDIAN, Idaho (AP) — The difference between winning and losing a championship in the extremely precise world of air rifle is down to a few thousandths of an inch. At the Meridian Optimist Junior Rifle Club, a number of teenagers are pushing their limits and taking their skills to national competitions.

Three of the club members qualified for the Junior Olympics in Colorado Springs earlier this year, but because of the COVID-19 pandemic, that plan has been scrapped for the foreseeable future. But, Elijah Spencer, 15 of Boise, the Idaho 10-meter air rifle champion, Aubrey Anderson, 15 of Kuna, and Rachel Engels, 16 of Meridian, qualified for the national championships after Idaho’s state championships earlier this year. One more girl, Waverly Cinise from eastern Idaho, also qualified for the Junior Olympics.

The club has shown results before this year’s success, the Idaho Press reports. Engels has qualified for national events all over the United States while Anderson has a shadowbox filled with medals and awards for her marksmanship.

The club has been in existence in some way or another since 1961, but took its current form in 1972 and its members have been practicing in an empty Idaho Power transformer building since 1981. While the current shooters are young enough to be the great-grandchildren of the club’s original members, they are carrying on a legacy of marksmanship.

On Wednesday evenings, the club members meet and practice at the old transformer building. Their air rifles, generally made by German companies such as Walther or Feinwerkbau, fire lead pellets at around 800 feet-per-second 10 meters (just shy of 33 feet) downrange into a series of small targets with bull’s-eyes about the size of pen-tip. And the shooters can’t use any kind of magnification to see the tiny target.

Maybe having young eyes helps.

Elijah Spencer has been shooting small-bore rifle for three years and air rifle for the past 16 months. Spencer’s interest in marksmanship began as part of her 4-H membership, but then expanded into its current iteration of precision shooting.

“I started in 4-H that was in a club at my church that did a lot of baking and cooking,” Spencer said. Over time she shifted into livestock raising and the shooting sports.

She started with BB-guns and then in 2017 moved to small-bore, or .22-caliber rifles that start most people on the path to hunting or match-shooting competitions. The Meridian Optimist Junior Rifle Club has sent three members on to high-caliber match rifle shooting programs across the country in the past few years, something club president Jason Haycock said was part of their goals.

“You don’t have to be a naturally-gifted athlete to be good at this,” Haycock said. “This is 90% mental, and that’s what I like about it.”

There are 60 shooters in the club this season, ranging from 10 to 18 years old, and of all skill levels from beginner to state champion. It’s easy for beginners to rack up medals showing their progress through the ranks of accuracy and skill, but as time goes on and they get better and better, the margin of error shrinks and shrinks. And that’s what makes shooting such a mentally-intensive sport, Haycock said.

“The margin of error with the top shooters is so small there is very little room for it, so it’s easy to get down on yourself, right?” Haycock said.

Getting into a “flow zone,” where the bull’s-eye feels as big as a dinner plate and the shooting action is unconscious, is the key to success. On a recent Wednesday, Aubrey Anderson, the state’s 10-meter air rifle champion, is dressed in the heavy and stiff uniform of the competitive shooter and keeps her feet exactly spaced for long intervals of time while she places shots downrange. Going through the same steps every time they take a shot is par for the course for the best of the best, and that helps them get into the flow state necessary to win competitions.

The pop of each shot in the old building is followed by reloading and another pause to aim as each shooter marks their distance and seems to freeze in space before squeezing the trigger and sending the pellet downrange. While the 10-meter air rifle shooters do wear heavy leather suits that help them stabilize, accuracy comes from the ability to repeat the motions that make previous shots on target.

Roy Boehm, a leader of the 4-H Little Explorers, a group that also shoots competitively in the Valley, said process was the most important part of shooting well.

“It’s all about consistency. In 4-H, we teach the scientific method which is the same process each time,” Boehm said.

Accuracy in process, precision in results.