Raising Their Sights : Huntington Beach-based Marksman Products and other U.S. makers of high-end air rifles struggle to popularize the Olympic sport of target shooting.

Gold medal winner Kristi Yamaguchi skated her way into a milk commercial. Carl Lewis dashed his way into a tire advertisement. And there’s no telling how many athletic shoes have been sold by basketball’s high-flying “Dream Team.”

But there won’t be a wealth of endorsements awaiting Deena Wigger, a crack rifle shot who wants to follow in her father’s footsteps by winning a gold medal in target shooting at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

The 28-year-old woman, who grew up around shooting ranges, is the official spokeswoman for Huntington Beach-based Marksman Products, whose air rifles she sometimes uses in competition. But don’t bother looking for Marksman advertisements featuring the coveted Olympic rings logo, because the privately held company can’t afford the steep price tag to become an official sponsor.

And even if Wigger wins a gold medal, Marksman President Robert A. Eck said, target shooting lacks the sizzle needed to interest American television network executives. Said Eck: “Even if someone uses [a Marksman product] to win, will anyone even see it?”

U.S. manufacturers are on target when it comes to the domestic market for inexpensive air rifles and pistols that youngsters use to knock cans off fence posts or dispatch varmints to an early grave.

But Marksman, Arkansas-based Daisy Manufacturing Co. and East Bloomfield, N.Y.-based Crosman Corp. haven’t been very successful competing against English and German counterparts who control the market for higher-priced adult air guns used by the best shooters.

Inexpensive rifles and pistols that retail for about $25 are “the meat and potatoes of our line,” Eck said. “We haven’t been able to take it to the next level in this country when it comes to adult air guns.”

That’s frustrating for executives at American companies who know that top-notch European shooters willingly pay thousands of dollars for finely tooled, highly accurate air guns. And they’re equally frustrated by their inability to use the Olympics to generate more sales of their higher-cost air rifles and pistols.

Part of the U.S. air gun industry’s problem is that target shooting, while obviously demanding, lacks the glamour needed to make it an attractive sport for the television networks.

If it were possible for Rodney Dangerfield to enter the Olympics, he’d likely be found on the target-shooting range.

To the uninitiated, target shooting remains “about as exciting as watching paint dry,” said John Ford, marketing manager of Daisy, the nation’s best-known air gun maker. “Americans are used to watching games where the field goal is kicked in the last three seconds or the basket is shot from outside the three-point line with three-tenths of a second left.”

Europeans are comfortable with air guns as weapons because they’ve been in use for hundreds of years. “When Napoleon entered their country,” Ford said, “Austrians met him with air guns in their hands.”

Yet, despite popularity overseas, domestic shooters fret that 1984 Los Angeles Games planners initially failed to include a target-shooting range in their construction budget. The oversight was corrected, they say, only after international Olympic leaders intervened.

Only swimmers and track and field athletes take home more Olympic medals than shooters, but the fans still are burning from NBC’s failure to broadcast a single target-shooting event during the 1992 Barcelona games. Fearful that they’ll again be snubbed in Atlanta, shooters are talking about using the Internet to narrowcast their events.

Target shooting also suffers from being tainted by news stories about the illegal use of traditional firearms.

“The average American thinks shooting is involved with some form of killing, be it war, hunting or crime,” said Eric Sundstrom, a fund-raiser for the Colorado Springs-based national shooting team. “But they don’t know that target shooting is very popular, that there are 150 countries with teams.”

Athletes also acknowledge that, while the sport is popular in Europe, it seems foreign to most Americans. “People grow up with basketball and volleyball,” Wigger said. “They understand those sports. But they don’t understand shooting.”

The three privately held U.S. air gun companies don’t release sales figures, but observers estimate that about 3 million rifles and pistols are sold each year and that the industry generates $100 million in combined revenue. Marksman has estimated sales of about $18 million.

Production costs have forced many consumer goods manufacturers to open offshore plants, but Marksman, Crosman and Daisy still make most of their entry-level weapons in the United States. “Wood and metal are going to cost the same anywhere, so we can make them in Huntington Beach as easily as overseas,” Eck said.

Marksman began chasing higher-end sales in 1993 with the acquisition of Beeman, a high-end brand favored by many advanced shooters. But, like a handful of high-end lines sold by domestic companies, Beeman rifles and pistols are imported from Germany and England.

Crosman failed in a recent attempt to market a higher-priced line, and Daisy’s rifles and pistols top out well below the level demanded by top-notch shooters.

Air gun manufacturers traditionally have tried to build consumer interest by funding junior shooting contests and encouraging young shooters to take up target shooting while in Scouting or 4-H programs. Now they’re trying to convince youngsters to keep shooting as they grow older--and to buy more expensive guns.

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The sport’s governing body also is trying to make shooting more attractive to television.

Electronic scoring has replaced the old system of manual judging, which forced competitors and spectators to sit idly while judges retired to a back room to tally scores. Spectators now watch television monitors that show the exact placement of each shot. The old “winner-take-all” system has been replaced by a shoot-off that often tumbles front-runners from their perches during the final round.

Marksman is sponsoring “bikathlons,” competitions that combine off-road bicycling and shooting. Eck also serves as chairman of a fund-raising group that supports the national shooting team.

Yet, even hard-core target shooters agree that the sport is hard for newcomers to embrace.

“As a sport, adult air gunning [in the United States] is dead,” said Steve Ryan, 28, a firearms salesman at B&B; Sales in Westminster, who has shot air guns for nearly two decades. “I don’t know what it will take to revive it.”

Eck and others in the industry are betting that air gunning’s popularity will gradually increase as increased gun ownership regulations and spreading urbanization--which contributed to air-gunning’s popularity in Europe--make it more difficult to own and use traditional firearms.

“It’s becoming harder and harder to find a place to shoot a real firearm,” said Ted Horrocks, Crosman Corp.’s director of marketing. “Air guns are a much simpler way to enter the sport of shooting.

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“You can shoot in the basement or the garage,” Horrocks said. “The best way for the industry to grow is to promote the cost-effectiveness and ease of air gunning.”

But regulations might not help to counter one common misperception: “In a lot of places, folks are still of the perception that an air gun is not a real gun,” Ford said. “They believe that it’s not really shooting if there’s no bang, kick and the smell of powder.”

Despite the uphill battle for consumers’ time and dollars, shooters say they’ll continue to push for more recognition.

“Any time you go into the Olympic year, interest will increase in all of the sports,” said Nancy Moore, spokeswoman for U.S. Shooting, the sport’s Colorado Springs-based national governing body. “We’ve watched the other sports grow as they got more media attention and we’re wondering how do we tap into that.”

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Marksman at a Glance Founded: 1948 Headquarters: Huntington Beach President: Robert A. Eck Products: Air rifles and pistols Employees: 100; 140 during peak season (August-November) Estimated annual revenue: $18 million Best-selling pistol: Marksman 1010 Best-selling rifle: 1710 Plainsman Distribution: Worldwide

Olympic Shooting: Aiming for Atlanta

U.S. shooters are perhaps the least-known of all Olympic athletes. Of the 15 events, five involve air-powered pistols and rifles. Shooting competitions have been part of the Olympics since the first modern games in Athens in 1896. Details on Olympic shooting: * Competitors: 430 in 1996. * Team USA: 10 women, 21 men; selection based on series of pre-Olympic matches. * Competition: July 21-27, 1996. * Location: Wolf Creek Olympic Shooting Range Complex near Atlanta.

Source: Marksman Products

Researched by JANICE L. JONES / Los Angeles Times

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Types of Air Guns

Air guns are categorized by the method of compressed air used to fire pellets. * Spring piston: Mechanical piston creates compressed air upon firing. Quiet, with highest velocity, accuracy and efficiency. * Pneumatic: Manual pumping action forces air into storage chamber where it is held until firing. Power varies according to number of pumps. More popular in United States than in Europe. * Pre-charged pneumatic: Uses rechargeable bottles of compressed air. No pumping; provides enough power for hundreds of shots; bottles refillable from compressed-air tank. * CO-2: Uses small cylinders of carbon dioxide gas. Louder, least accurate; power varies with temperature and fullness of cylinder.

How Air Guns Work Olympic shooting teams use spring-piston rifles and pistols. How they work: 1. Cocking retracts piston and compresses powerful spring; trigger mechanism engages piston and holds it firmly. 2. BB or pellet loaded into barrel. 3. Pulling trigger releases piston, which moves forward and compresses air in front of it. 4. Compressed air forces pellet or BB through barrel.

Source: Marksman Products

Researched by JANICE L. JONES / Los Angeles Times