The men's 30 metre individual competition with free revolver was one of the five sport shooting events on the 1896 Summer Olympics shooting program.

Having won the 25 metre military pistol event, John Paine then withdrew from the 30 metre free pistol event, citing his desire to not embarrass his Greek hosts.

This was the first appearance of what would become standardised as the men's ISSF 50 meter pistol event.

The competition had each shooter fire 30 shots, in 5 strings of 6, at a range of 30 metres.

The maximum score possible in each string of shots was 216 (6 hits times 6 scores of 6); for the 5-string total, the maximum was 1080 points[4][5] The free pistol event was the first shooting event on the sixth day of competition.