Category Archives: Service Pistol

USAR Pistol Team (International and Service)

Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) National Pistol Matches

by John Buol

With the final shots of the National Trophy Pistol Team Match fired and scored, the noise died down and the smoke cleared. Sgt. 1st Class Joshua Rosendorn, program coach and captain for Team Blackhawk Gold and Staff Sgt. Joel Eisen, a member of Team Blackhawk Gold marked the end of the 2022 Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) National Pistol Matches with an after-action review session conducted by Johnathan Loper, a Master Resilience Trainer/Performance Expert they had been working with over the previous three months at Ft. Hood.

Sgt. 1st Class Joshua Rosendorn, (left) United States Army Reserve Service Pistol Team shooter and captain for Team Blackhawk Gold, Jonathan Loper, (middle) a Master Resilience Trainer/Performance Expert, and Staff Sgt. Joel Eisen, (right) a member of Team Blackhawk Gold, pose for a picture during the Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) National Pistol Matches conducted at Camp Perry, Ohio from July 11th-17th 2022. Held annually at Camp Perry, the National Matches include the CMP National Trophy Pistol and Rifle Matches, the Pistol and Rifle Small Arms Firing Schools, the National Games Rifle Matches, the National Smallbore Matches and the National Long-Range Matches Photo By Staff Sgt. Edgar Valdez
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USAR Shooter Earns Distinguished

by John Buol

Congratulations to Army Reserve shooter SSG Robert Farrell!

This past weekend shooters from several states traveled to Sheboygan, Wisconsin, to compete in an 1800-point match that concluded in two Excellence In Competition matches. These EIC matches allow the top 10% of shooters to earn points toward their Distinguished Marksman Badge, which is awarded to any shooter who accumulates 30 EIC “leg” points.

It was at this match that SSG Robert Farrell, USAR Marksmanship Program, was awarded his 30th leg point and entered into the coveted brotherhood of Distinguished Pistol Shooters.

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Army Reserve at Pistol Nationals, Camp Perry

by John Buol

MAJ Thomas Bourne, MSG Kris Beerman, and SFC Joshua Rosendorn made the President’s Hundred. MSG Beerman was in the top 20 and this was SFC Rosendorn’s first.

1SG Sonny Pearman earned the Bronze EIC in CMP 22 Rimfire Pistol Distinguished and SFC Bradford Griffith had a top five finish in the Stock Glock GSSF match.

Two new shooters, SFC Kyle Smith (104th Training) and SSG Trevor Treml (95th Training), atteneded as their first Nationals and EIC events.

Other team shooters were LTC Patrick Sleem, LTC Luis Garcia, CSM Slee, MSG Lance Espinosa, 1SG Brenn Combs, SFC Richard Willis, SFC Larry Utt, SFC Romeo Santos, and SSG Robert Farrell.



2021 61st Annual Interservice Pistol Championship

by John Buol
The U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU) hosted the 61st Annual Interservice Pistol Championship, June 12th-18th, on Phillips Range at Fort Benning, GA. The Interservice Championship competition is an outdoor tournament open to U.S. military members’ only. Eligible participants include individuals and teams of the Armed Forces, Active, Guard, Reserve and Military Academy, along with ROTC cadets and Officer Candidate Course (OCS) students. This is a high-level event where most services from across the Department of Defense send their best teams to compete against each other to see who is the “best in the Department of Defense.”

This year the USAR team took 3rd Place in the Overall Team Aggregate. This means that our team performed better than most other competitors within the Department of Defense. The Active Duty US Army Marksmanship unit took 1st place and a team from the National Guard took 2nd place in the team championship.
We maintained a commanding lead all week over the Marine Corps Reserve pistol team. Despite finishing slightly ahead of us during the last team match of the week, we were able to maintain our lead and defeat them in the overall team aggregate. This year the AMU and the National Guard had very strong teams.

Performance this year was good considering that we have not been able to practice as normal due to COVID-19 mitigation policies in place during 2020. When we receive ammunition re-supply in July we should be able to issue that out and return to practicing in the hopes of defeating the National Guard teams next year. We are scheduled to receive the correct 185-grain .45 caliber ammunition that the team needs. We also need to continue to pursue requisition of 9mm match ammunition. The ammunition that we have used in the past was match-grade Atlanta Arms ammunition. The M1152 ammunition that we have tried out recently seems to work for competition at the 25 yard line. At some point we still need to procure more match grade 9mm for use at 50 yards. We have enough 9mm match grade ammunition to last for the rest of this season and into next year.

MSG Espinosa was indispensable in helping account for all our team items and update property records. He was hard at work on this all week in addition to shooting.

Overall, this was a successful event with a significant number of “new” shooters in attendance. We look forward to Nationals and continuing to train the next generation of marksmen for the Army Reserve.

COMMENTS: Thank you for the continued support. We definitely appreciate getting some 185-grain match ammunition for .45 caliber matches. We hope to be able to draw some more match grade 22 caliber ammunition soon, as well as some match grade 9mm ammunition at some point.