| | 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	360	Ragnar Skanåker	SWE	567	98	92	95	94	97	91	Gold	OR
2	328	Dan Iuga	ROU	562	93	92	92	95	96	94	Silver
3	11	Rudolf Dollinger	AUT	560	91	96	92	94	95	92	Bronze
4	286	Rajmund Stachurski	POL	559	91	88	99	95	92	94
5	148	Harald Vollmar	GDR	558	93	93	94	93	93	92
6	368	Hynek Hromada	TCH	556	90	94	92	95	92	93
7	179	Kornél Marosvári	HUN	555	90	90	93	92	94	96
8	393	Grigory Kosykh	URS	555	92	93	94	93	93	90
9	118	Gérard Denecheau	FRA	554	92	92	90	95	92	93
10	355	Kjell Jacobsson	SWE	554	92	91	93	94	92	92
11	37	Dencho Denev	BUL	554	91	88	93	94	97	91
12	372	Miroslav Štefan	TCH	554	91	93	95	93	94	88
13	259	John Rødseth	NOR	553	91	93	94	93	92	90
14	140	Frank Wyatt	GBR	552	90	93	89	95	90	95
15	152	Heinrich Fretwurst	FRG	551	90	92	94	93	91	91
16	159	Heinz Mertel	FRG	550	92	91	90	91	92	94
17	398	Vladimir Stolypin	URS	550	88	94	88	93	95	92
18	120	Jean Faggion	FRA	549	83	95	90	96	95	90
19	106	Seppo Irjala	FIN	548	95	92	89	93	90	89
20	177	Pál Katkó	HUN	548	89	94	90	97	89	89
21	131	Hubert Garschall	AUT	548	91	91	93	95	90	88
22	215	Shigetoshi Tashiro	JPN	546	89	92	90	93	92	90
23	278	Zbigniew Fedyczak	POL	546	90	90	95	92	90	89
24	422	Fatos Pilkati	ALB	546	93	92	92	93	87	89
25	216	Yoshihisa Yoshikawa	JPN	545	94	90	87	91	92	91
26	105	Immo Huhtinen	FIN	545	93	89	93	87	94	89
27	62	Gilberto Fernández	COL	544	90	88	93	86	91	96
28	406	Jimmie Dorsey	USA	544	94	87	89	88	92	94
29	39	Ivan Mandov	BUL	544	89	90	96	92	85	92
30	306	Fernando Miranda	PUR	543	89	91	91	93	91	88
31	134	Harry Cullum	GBR	542	87	93	87	90	93	92
32	47	Edward Jans	CAN	542	94	90	91	86	92	89
33	418	Petar Bajić	YUG	541	85	87	93	96	91	89
34	402	Hershel Anderson	USA	540	91	92	88	91	90	88
35	248	Tserenjavyn Ölziibayar	MGL	539	89	93	87	89	91	90
36	35	Bertino de Souza	BRA	539	86	93	89	90	92	89
37	381	Sutham Aswanit	THA	539	87	93	89	91	90	89
38	164	Dimitrios Kotronis	GRE	539	93	86	97	84	92	87
39	142	Tüdeviin Myagmarjav	MGL	537	88	90	89	88	90	92
40	376	Somsak Chaiyarate	THA	537	89	89	89	96	87	87
41	100	Severino Requejo	ESP	536	88	93	86	85	89	95
42	240	Juventino Sánchez	MEX	536	91	92	90	87	88	88
43	65	Jorge Henao	COL	535	88	83	93	89	91	91
44	83	Santiago Trompeta	CUB	535	93	87	89	91	87	88
45	352	Jules Sobrian	CAN	534	91	87	91	89	88	88
46	32	Durval Guimarães	BRA	534	90	87	92	88	93	84
47	271	Art Macapagal	PHI	533	88	88	90	88	88	91
48	305	Santiago Machuca	PUR	533	91	88	91	84	92	87
49	425	Hồ Minh Thu	VNM	524	80	89	93	86	83	93
50	210	Teodoro Kalaw	PHI	524	82	83	92	90	88	89
51	423	Afërdita Tusha	ALB	522	85	94	87	83	87	86
52	25	André Zoltan	BEL	521	88	85	85	91	87	85
53	31	Jaime Sánchez	BOL	514	84	91	89	88	79	83
54	221	John Harun	KEN	512	86	83	85	90	85	83
55	232	André Antunes	POR	510	83	85	90	85	81	86
56	426	Hương Hoàng Thi	VNM	487	80	77	80	85	84	81
57	194	José Álvarez	ISV	486	76	81	85	85	76	83
58	224	Abdul Rahman Omar	KEN	474	73	84	79	78	73	87
59	170	Owen Phillips	BIZ	376	49	70	57	61	73	66
DNS	80	Armando Rigual	CUB	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
DNS	256	Gaute Flesland	NOR	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
DNS	301	Song Gi-Man	PRK	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
DNS	327	Lucian Giușcă	ROU	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
DNS	363	Zakai Hakki	SYR	–	–	–	–	–	–	–