| | Event type

Free Pistol, 50 metres, Open

Date	27 August 1972 — 9:00
Status	Olympic
Location	Schießanlage, Hochbrück, München
Participants	59 from 36 countries
Format	50 metres. 60 shots in six series of 10. 600 possible.

The defending champion was the Soviet Grigory Kosykh, who also held the world record with 572. He competed at München but placed only eighth. The gold medal was an easy victory for Sweden’s Ragnar Skanåker, whose score of 567 was five points ahead of Romania’s Dan Iuga in second place. This was the first shooting event of the 1972 Olympics and brought Sweden its first shooting gold medal in 36 years. This was Skanåker’s first Olympics, but far from his last. He would compete continuously thru 1996, appearing in seven Olympic Games.

Pos	Number	Competitor	NOC	Points	Round 1 Points	Round 2 Points	Round 3 Points	Round 4 Points	Round 5 Points	Round 6 Points
1	–	Ragnar Skanåker	SWE	567	98	92	95	94	97	91	Gold	OR
2	–	Dan Iuga	ROU	562	93	92	92	95	96	94	Silver
3	–	Rudolf Dollinger	AUT	560	91	96	92	94	95	92	Bronze
4	–	Rajmund Stachurski	POL	559	91	88	99	95	92	94
5	–	Harald Vollmar	GDR	558	93	93	94	93	93	92
6	–	Hynek Hromada	TCH	556	90	94	92	95	92	93
7	–	Kornél Marosvári	HUN	555	90	90	93	92	94	96
8	–	Grigory Kosykh	URS	555	92	93	94	93	93	90
9	–	Gérard Denecheau	FRA	554	92	92	90	95	92	93
10	–	Kjell Jacobsson	SWE	554	92	91	93	94	92	92
11	–	Dencho Denev	BUL	554	91	88	93	94	97	91
12	–	Miroslav Štefan	TCH	554	91	93	95	93	94	88
13	–	John Rødseth	NOR	553	91	93	94	93	92	90
14	–	Frank Wyatt	GBR	552	90	93	89	95	90	95
15	–	Heinrich Fretwurst	FRG	551	90	92	94	93	91	91
16	–	Heinz Mertel	FRG	550	92	91	90	91	92	94
17	–	Vladimir Stolypin	URS	550	88	94	88	93	95	92
18	–	Jean Faggion	FRA	549	83	95	90	96	95	90
19	–	Seppo Irjala	FIN	548	95	92	89	93	90	89
20	–	Pál Katkó	HUN	548	89	94	90	97	89	89
21	–	Hubert Garschall	AUT	548	91	91	93	95	90	88
22	–	Shigetoshi Tashiro	JPN	546	89	92	90	93	92	90
23	–	Zbigniew Fedyczak	POL	546	90	90	95	92	90	89
24	–	Fatos Pilkati	ALB	546	93	92	92	93	87	89
25	–	Yoshihisa Yoshikawa	JPN	545	94	90	87	91	92	91
26	–	Immo Huhtinen	FIN	545	93	89	93	87	94	89
27	–	Gilberto Fernández	COL	544	90	88	93	86	91	96
28	–	Jimmie Dorsey	USA	544	94	87	89	88	92	94
29	–	Ivan Mandov	BUL	544	89	90	96	92	85	92
30	–	Fernando Miranda	PUR	543	89	91	91	93	91	88
31	–	Harry Cullum	GBR	542	87	93	87	90	93	92
32	–	Edward Jans	CAN	542	94	90	91	86	92	89
33	–	Petar Bajić	YUG	541	85	87	93	96	91	89
34	–	Hershel Anderson	USA	540	91	92	88	91	90	88
35	–	Tserenjavyn Ölziibayar	MGL	539	89	93	87	89	91	90
36	–	Bertino de Souza	BRA	539	86	93	89	90	92	89
37	–	Sutham Aswanit	THA	539	87	93	89	91	90	89
38	–	Dimitrios Kotronis	GRE	539	93	86	97	84	92	87
39	–	Tüdeviin Myagmarjav	MGL	537	88	90	89	88	90	92
40	–	Somsak Chaiyarate	THA	537	89	89	89	96	87	87
41	–	Severino Requejo	ESP	536	88	93	86	85	89	95
42	–	Juventino Sánchez	MEX	536	91	92	90	87	88	88
43	–	Jorge Henao	COL	535	88	83	93	89	91	91
44	–	Santiago Trompeta	CUB	535	93	87	89	91	87	88
45	–	Jules Sobrian	CAN	534	91	87	91	89	88	88
46	–	Durval Guimarães	BRA	534	90	87	92	88	93	84
47	–	Art Macapagal	PHI	533	88	88	90	88	88	91
48	–	Santiago Machuca	PUR	533	91	88	91	84	92	87
49	–	Hồ Minh Thu	VNM	524	80	89	93	86	83	93
50	–	Teodoro Kalaw	PHI	524	82	83	92	90	88	89
51	–	Afërdita Tusha	ALB	522	85	94	87	83	87	86
52	–	André Zoltan	BEL	521	88	85	85	91	87	85
53	–	Jaime Sánchez	BOL	514	84	91	89	88	79	83
54	–	John Harun	KEN	512	86	83	85	90	85	83
55	–	André Antunes	POR	510	83	85	90	85	81	86
56	–	Hương Hoàng Thi	VNM	487	80	77	80	85	84	81
57	–	José Álvarez	ISV	486	76	81	85	85	76	83
58	–	Abdul Rahman Omar	KEN	474	73	84	79	78	73	87
59	–	Owen Phillips	BIZ	376	49	70	57	61	73	66