Chinese air rifle bullets hit their mark

In late July, when Chinese sharpshooters Sheng Lihao and Huang Yuting delivered under pressure to win the first gold medal up for grabs at the Paris Olympics in the 10-meter air rifle mixed team event, Fu Qiang was more excited than most.

Fu, 65, the founder of Zhuhai Qiangyuan Sports Goods Co, was proud that the winning air rifle bullets — the QYS brand used by Sheng and Huang — were produced by his company.

A native of Zhengzhou, Henan province, Fu said his high-quality bullets are currently in wide use by both Chinese and foreign competitive shooters. The company can now produce around a billion bullets annually.

In 2000, the bullets quickly achieved a 100 percent market share domestically. The Chinese shooting team began to use them in training that year and later adopted them for competitions because of their proven superior accuracy.

Xu Haifeng, China's first Olympic gold medalist in 1984, was head coach of the Chinese shooting team when the bullets came on the market. He described how the team had been using foreign-made bullets because domestic products could not compete. He said he was pleased when the high-grade QYS brand became available.

Fu recalled: "As the performance of the Chinese shooting team improved, foreign athletes took notice and started using our bullets at the Olympics and major global competitions."

Many overseas athletes have now won medals in major shooting competitions for their countries using the QYS brand. Those events include the Olympics, the World Cup and the World Championships. Fu said he knows this because he could see the boxes, labels and packaging in videos, and he could track their purchase channels.

QYS air rifle bullets have been sold in more than 50 countries and regions around the world, he said. Top shooters acknowledge the accuracy of the brand, which exceeds the previous favorite, which was manufactured in Germany.

Fu established his company in 1994 after he learned that Team China was using the German bullets.

"At that time, people poured cold water on me, telling me not to think about impossible things. You can't surpass Germany," he said. But his strong self-confidence and imagination took over.

It took time to perfect the process, Fu said, noting that the accuracy of the first batch of bullets he produced was far inferior to those from Germany. He modified the design and purchased two machines — using manual methods to improve their accuracy.

The Henan Provincial Shooting Team provided Fu with great support by using his bullets, he said.

After multiple improvements over two or three years, sales of Fu's bullets in China were on par with the German ones.

"But for competitive sports, no athletes will use products unless they are the highest quality, especially for the Olympic Games, which are held every four years. They don't want to waste precious opportunities," he said.

After another five or six years of improvement and development, Fu's bullets were finally adopted for use by the Chinese shooting team at the Olympics.

In 2002, Fu moved his company from Zhengzhou to Zhuhai, Guangdong province, and established Zhuhai Qiangyuan Sports Goods Co to meet growing market demand. The company was among the first designated civilian firearms and ammunition production enterprises to be approved by the Ministry of Public Security.

Fu said the company is now preparing to enter the foreign civilian air gun bullet market.