“I am interested in competitive shooting. How can I get information on matches?”
When first learning about military-sponsored shooting teams many troops naturally ask how they can get a slot.
Step One: Go shoot!
Your first step in earning a slot on a shooting team is to start in competitive shooting. The best way to start in competitive shooting is to go find events, be it military or civilian, on your own and attending. Consider a player vying for a position on a team in the NFL. If he doesn’t already have years of solid background with high school and college teams, forget it! A couch potato who was never played a game is not going to be offered a tryout. Why bother?
Yet, you’d be amazed how many troops with zero competition shooting experience complain that they can’t get started because no team will give them equipment or fund their travel to a match. For every 100+ troops with no previous competition experience maybe one of them is worth a look. Even if/when you earn a slot you’ll still have to shoot and train on your own so already having places and venues to do so will help long term as well.
Find out what ranges are in your area and look into attending organized civilian events. http://wheretoshoot.org/ is a great resource. Nearly every team shooter has a civilian shooting background and the best way to get started is to simply jump in. If you approach a team having already participated in matches and earning higher level classifications on your own any coach will want you to try out.
For military sponsored events, find a National Guard sponsored event in your state. Even if you’re not the Guard, you can shoot the EIC events. The Arkansas Guard, at Camp Robinson, is the national headquarters for this.
http://www.arguard.org/mtu/history.htm
All Army is hosted by the Army Marksmanship Unit at Fort Benning every year in the spring and is open to all Active, Reserve and Guard Army personnel. Even if you’re not on a team you can register in advance on your own and be able to borrow guns and get a free place to stay on post. The event is HIGHLY recommended!
http://usamu.com/
Step Two: Train your Discipline
The USAR shooting team focuses on three disciplines. Two of them, Service Rifle and Service Pistol, are shot as civilian competitions recognized by the NRA and CMP. Shooting Sports USA lists events and is a free, on-line magazine.
http://www.odcmp.com/Competitions.htm
http://www.nrapublications.org/ssusa/index.html
http://digital.olivesoftware.com/Olive/ODE/ShootingSportsUSA/
The third discipline, Combat, is a NATO event that doesn’t have a civilian equivalent, however practical competition such as Action Pistol, IDPA and USPSA Multigun is close. This is also the style event you’ll find at National Guard hosted events.
http://www.uspsa.org/rules/
http://idpa.com/
http://www.nrahq.org/compete/dept-action.asp
The bottom line is, if you want to be on a military sponsored shooting team you need to be a competition shooter. You become a competition shooter by being a competition shooter. Shoot events on your own, attend All Army and you’ll earn a slot.
John,
Spot on, as usual!
John,
Spot on as usual!
[...] Earn a Slot [...]
The last paragraph is as spot on as it can be. Is hard to tell soldgiers that the shooting team is not the place to learn HOW. Mainly becouse the Army in their vast wisdom rid us all of the “farm team” program that was had in the past. No longer do we have a venue to grow, Mentor, and educate competant marksmanship within the army reserve as a whole. The result of that action can be related directly to golf. Get rid of most the golf courses, hold no golf tounraments at local, regional, or state levels. Get rid of the golf instructors becouse all the duffers can teach that stuff. Then why do we need to spend mony on it. Now the hard part, answering a soldgiers question. How do i get a slot on the team? its really hard to answer, becouse we need shooters who can produce a score, peroid. our Team mission statement and our team goals are basicly to win! at “PGA” levels. How does a duffer with no supported training preform at a level to allow the team to win at the “PGA” level. Answer HE/SHE DOESNT!!! The only way it can be do first understand what disipline HE/SHE wants to shoot. Then get the gear needed to accomplish that task and start shooting. Attend matches and clinics held around the US. Learn the “how to’s”. and then Produce the scores that will draw the attention of the teams. The service teams are very aware of the people who are shooting at the National Matches held at Camp Perry Ohio. We also look at the scores fired by soldgiers there. We also have made contact with soldgiers who have fired good scores while at the nationals and have offerd slots to them. We are also open to be visited while we are there as our new team truck is our rally point at Camp Perry. Simply put we need to see a true commitment to shooting and the USAR. lastly the most simple way on the USAR Service Pistol Team is to shoot some one off of it. Only scores can do that.
J F Arcularius
NCOIC
USAR SERVICE PISTOL TEAM