Contents...Contents Sept/oCt 2009 volume 17, No. 5 FEATURES 18 2009 Nationals Wrap- Up By Mary Beth...

Contents Sept/oCt 2009volume 17, No. 5

FEATURES 18 2009 Nationals Wrap- Up By Mary Beth Vorwerk

24 World Cup 2009 Update By Mary Beth Vorwerk

DISCIPLINES14 Pistol By Keith Sanderson

15 Rifle By Launi Meili

16 Shotgun By Bret Erickson & Mark Weeks

COLUMNS 6 From the Editor By Mary Beth Vorwerk

7 Aim with AMU By SFC Richard Merrill

8 Inside the Blue By Sr. Master Sgt. Jeffrey J. Julig

10 On the Firing Line By J.P. O’Connor

12 Coaches’ Corner By Rifle Coach Dave Johnson

AROUND THE RANGE 28 Shotgun Junior Olympic Wrap-Up ON THE COMPLEX 30 Thoughts from: The Executive Director Paralympics Marketing Competitions Operations

33 NEWS & EVENTS

USA Shooting News is published six times a year. USA Shooting is the national governing body for Olympic Shooting sports in the United States. USA Shooting News is produced as a service to international shooters, coaches, officials and media who cover Olympic-style shooting. Shooters featured in USA Shooting News magazine may be photographed without eye protection. These are posed photographs using unloaded guns and do not represent actual competiton. USA Shooting encourages all shooters to use proper eye and ear protection when shooting. Inclusion of advertisements in USA Shooting does not constitiute endorsement of advertised products or services by USA Shooting, its staff or its sponsors.

www.usashooting.org 3

18

USAShootingNews

USA Shooting1 Olympic Plaza

Colorado Springs, CO 80909Phone: 719-866-4670

Administration Fax: 719-635-7989Competitions Fax: 719-866-4884

Lindsay BrookeCompetitions Manager

[email protected]

Buddy DuVallDirector of Marketing

[email protected]

Bob FothNational Paralympic Coach

[email protected]

Cynthia JacksonCoaches’ Assistant/Team Manager

[email protected]

David JohnsonNational Rifle Coach

[email protected]

Nicole LevineCompetitions Assistant

[email protected]

Sergey LuzovNational Pistol Coach

[email protected]

Robert MitchellChief Executive Officer

[email protected]

Nichole RaeMembership/Merchandise Manager

[email protected]

Bill RoyDirector of Operations

[email protected]

Mary Beth VorwerkMedia & Public Relations Manager

[email protected]

Mark WeeksNational Shotgun Coach

[email protected]

Corrie WestMarketing Manager

[email protected]

Karie WrightController

719-866-4887

Editor: Mary Beth VorwerkDesigner: Claire Landis-Tyson

Printing: Sport Graphics

Contributors:Contributors:

Lindsay BrookeBuddy DuVallBret Erickson

Bob FothSenior Master Sgt. Jeffrey J. Julig

Launi MeiliSFC Richard Merrill

Robert MitchellJP O’ConnorMarcus Raab

Bill RoyKeith Sanderson

Wolfgang Schreiber

Cover Photo: Wolfgang Schreiber, issf-sports.org

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Columns

Coolest Picture I’ve Ever Taken!By Mary Beth Vorwerk, Media and Public Relations Manager

When I discovered this picture two days after I actually took it during the Men’s Double Trap Final at the 2009 USA Shooting Shotgun National Championships, I quickly emailed it off to my fellow staff, as well as family and friends with the subject heading, “Coolest picture I’ve ever taken.” I must say, this is definitely by far the best photo I have snapped in my eight years of working in Media Relations for the Olympic movement. I am by no means an accomplished photographer, in fact, I got pretty lucky with this picture, but I do enjoy taking photos and getting a shot like this doesn’t happen too often. Stand-ing in back of the bunker, I was taking pictures behind the shooters hoping to get a puff of orange from the target breaking in the sky in some of my photos. I literally had no idea until two days later when I finally had a chance to go through all my pictures that I got the perfect shot: lightening flashing in the background as well as a puff target, another target breaking and two shooters at the line. I guess the photo was the perfect way to showcase what a great match we had this year at Ft. Carson’s International Shooting Park, by bringing out the “electrifying” nature of this shotgun event in general!

I can’t imagine ever being able to take a better picture if I tried! It was definitely luck, but I am certainly happy with the result, and especially since so many others seemed to love it as well. I heard several people talking about the infamous “lightening photo” throughout the course of the nationals.

The picture seemed to spread like wildfire on email as I had numerous shooters, referees and others come up to me and tell me what a great shot it was. I was a little embarrassed and even a little reluctant to publish it in the magazine, but knowing how many people enjoyed seeing it, I really did want to share it with all of our USA Shooting News readers.

I would like to point out, however, that the lightening is MUCH farther away than it appears in the photo. National Shotgun Coach Mark Weeks and his staff are constantly watching out for threatening weather and checking the lightening detector at the range and would never keep our shooters on the field if they were in any sort of danger. So, the lightening that appeared in the picture was definitely not a threat to our shooters. With that being said, I really hope you all enjoy seeing the “coolest picture I’ve ever taken”!

From the Editor Aim with AMU Inside the Blue On the Firing Line Coaches’ Corner

Columns

Grip Fitting 104By SFC Richard Merrill and the USAMU International Pistol Team

In our previous discussions on grip fitting, we have moved from the logic of properly fitting a grip, to tools and shaping, to important ter-minology. Now we will conclude the series with a focus on fine tuning your grip from the rear forward.

Working from the rear of the grip around to the fingers brings us to the palm ridge line and the ball of the grip. If you look at your hand, the palm ridge line is the line that extends from your wrist towards your fingers. The ball is at the end of this line. In your hand the ball is a concave depression, but on the grip it is the round protrusion that fits into our palm. Most commercial grips already have this line and you only need a minor adjustment to fit it to your hand. The easiest way to fit this part is to add filler to the grip and grab the grip starting from the back with the hand getting as high and into the grip as possible, then reaching around with the fingers. From now on, this is how you should grip your pistol to guarantee consistency.

If filled correctly, you will form a knuckle-looking feature on top of the ball. This forms from the tendon for the middle finger, which also happens to be the deepest part of the ball. To know if you have added enough filler, you should not feel high points on your palm from the ball. The ball is on the side of the grip. If the ball is too large then you will feel it push into your hand and this push will cause sight misalign-ment. If you feel a gap in your palm, then you need more filler to provide a proper index to ensure you have a proper grip. You can test if the ball is in the right spot by holding the pistol for at least an hour without taking your hand out of the grip. When you release the grip there should be a red mark in the deepest part of the ball on your hand. If this red mark is not in the deepest part then you need to move the ball to the deepest spot.

The next index is the finger ridgeline. The valley under your fingers goes along with the finger ridgeline. The finger ridgeline is easy to set, and next to the ball, is the best index to make sure your hand is in the same place on the grip every time. To form the ridge line simply add filler in a line between the middle finger shelf and the palm shelf. After filler is added grab the pistol from the rear going forward again. The filler should be where your fingers and palm meet. Do not make this ridge too pronounced. This ridge is on the side of the grip, and if you make it large, then it will push your hand to the side causing sight misalignment. Again, you should not feel this ridge. If you feel it, then you have used too much filler. If you feel a gap, add more filler.

After the finger ridgeline has set, adjust the valley. The valley is the area between the finger ridge line and the ball. Simply remove enough wood so that your hand is not squished into the grip. Avoid making

this valley too deep because this will produce the same problem as having a finger ridgeline that is too pronounced.

Last on the grip are the fingers. To keep the grip pressure aligned from front to rear, the fingers must be placed so that the middle seg-ment of the middle finger and ring finger are perpendicular to the axis of the barrel. Form a grip feature that allows fingertips to lie, but not a place to push into. If the middle segments of the fingers are incorrectly placed, the fingertips will be pushing from the side causing sight mis-alignment. So, like the thumb, the finger tips just lie there, but do not add pressure. The pinky finger hardly ever fits because on most peo-ple, it is too short. In order to remove enough wood to fit the pinky, you would be grinding the frame. Just give the pinky a good natural place to lie that will not place any unwanted pressures to the grip.

Some grips have ridgelines between every segment and every fin-ger, such as a Steyr air pistol. These ridgelines are fine to have, but not necessary. Since our hands expand and contract every day, these ridgelines will usually be in a different place every day. For example, if your hand expands one millimeter every day, then each finger will expand one millimeter giving your fingers an overall expansion of four millimeters compared to the one millimeter of your hand. If you think your grip feels different from day to day, your fingers definitely will. If you have finger ridgelines, keep them rounded so you can barely feel them.

The middle finger shelf hardly ever has to be adjusted, but some people need to move their middle finger closer to the trigger. This means you need to make this shelf thinner. The middle finger shelf should also extend all the way over the top of the middle finger since this is one of the two spots supporting the weight of the pistol.

After you have adjusted the grip to fit your hand, then adjust your trigger. The tip segment of your trigger finger should be placed on the trigger shoe so that the segment is perpendicular to the barrel axis when taking up the second stage of the trigger. This will allow you to pull the trigger straight back. If you have inconsistent trigger squeeze, it will effect your sights less if the trigger comes straight back. Some people like none of their trigger finger touching the grip and some like the bottom segment of the trigger finger touching the grip. This is personal preference.

Fitting a grip does not need to be a daunting task. If you know what to look for, you can personalize all your grips. Be patient and stick to the basic principles we’ve discussed, and you will be shooting a lot more tens. My hope is that this series has helped you progress in your shooting career. Until next time STAY ARMY STRONG!



Columns

Inside the Blue: Second OpinionBy: Senior Master Sgt. Jeffrey J. Julig, Air Force Shooting Team

Success is an inside job. It is a leadership and self-improvement maxim that transcends many aspects of business, sport and personal life. Successful individuals sow the seeds of im-provement within and nurture them to reach their goals. It is internal drive and determina-tion that motivates and inspires people to reach their goals. The tangible reward or recognition at the end of the match is the product of high performance, but true satisfaction is held deep within knowing you reached your goal. The passion to compete and the reasons for accept-ing the challenge are found inside each athlete.

Athletes often focus improvement efforts externally to address performance equipment, physical fitness, performance techniques and match plans. However, an athlete must also direct attention inward because the catalyst for success lies within. In this article, we will explore how looking within may help improve your performance.

What is Success?Webster’s Dictionary defines success as: “a

degree or measure of succeeding” or “a favor-able or desired outcome.” For an athlete, it is a subjective standard based on an individual or group’s evaluation of performance. But who de-fines success: the group or the individual ath-lete?

Success is a subjective evaluation of perfor-mance and should be based on an athlete’s goals and self-image. For some athletes, success is winning a medal during an international com-petition. For others, it is recognition as one of the greatest all-time competitors in his or her sport. Others believe it is achieving peak per-formance within time and resource constraints. Still others feel it is a measure of their ability to set a goal and achieve it. Your standard may dif-fer. As a subjective standard, athletes should ap-ply their own criteria to evaluate the results of their performance. It is an inside job. However, without a destination, success is an elusive, ever-changing target.

Choose Your DestinationAs an athlete, you must have a vision, a des-

tination and a timetable to get there. Without it, success is difficult to measure. Where do you see yourself at the end of the season or in five years? What is the difference between your cur-rent performance, your expected performance and your final destination? Is your timeframe realistic? Choosing a destination allows you to

form a plan to get there, set waypoints and make course corrections along the way. Look inside to determine the level of commitment you will need to reach your destination.

A destination should incorporate factors within an athlete’s span of control and not just focus on an outcome. Outcomes (e.g., taking home a medal, winning a club championship) may influence the perception of success but are not conclusive evidence of success. For exam-ple, if an athlete sets a goal to win the National Championship in his or her sport and fails, was he or she successful? What if the athlete posted his or her top score in the final, set a National record during the qualification rounds and still lost? Is success tied to the medal? Because suc-cess is a subjective standard, athletes must care-fully choose a destination to avoid setting them-selves up for failure.

Choose a destination linked to performance – something you can control – and let the match director rank the performance of a group of competitors. An athlete must define success by choosing his or her own destination. Experi-ence will help you make an informed decision.

Value ExperienceSuccess comes from taking advantage of op-

portunities to gain experience before they are lost forever. It goes without saying, but athletes will never go undefeated. Even the best are overcome at some point, but their experience – even in defeat – is invaluable for the athlete’s development. Greatness is not only a measure of actions in victory but also actions shown in defeat. Disappointment over a loss or poor performance is understandable, but the actions following the event are the most important for long-term improvement.

Each athlete’s background includes a unique set of experiences to build upon. The challenge is to relate a past experience to a present oppor-tunity and reach your peak performance. When you reflect upon your earliest experiences in your sport, what is different now? What did you learn? Did you have to learn the same lesson more than once? What did you learn from your most recent match or training session? Com-paring and contrasting past experiences against present opportunities is an important step to de-veloping as an athlete – it can only happen when you look inside and reflect.

The athlete who stands ready to compete when it really counts and is able to apply his or her skills under pressure is usually the one who

took advantage of his or her unique set of op-portunities. Training is over when the match begins. Scores are counted and head-to-head competition begins. What you bring to the line is the sum of your experiences, good or bad. Your opportunity to learn is over because you now must perform. Experience is gained this way, by embracing the opportunity to act and learn even when the conditions are not perfect. After the match your opportunity to improve begins again. If you failed, you must learn from it.

Leverage FailureFailure is not the enemy of success; it is the

teacher of success. Failure to reach a goal does not mean an athlete is a failure. It may reveal shortcomings in training, equipment or perfor-mance but it is not an indictment on the individ-ual. Athletes must balance growth in all areas of life (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, rec-reational and professional) and integrate within a larger society. In the end, far more athletes “fail to post the highest score” than actually lose in life. Failure to reach a goal in a one area of life does not paint the individual as a failure. This attitude is more than just an academic concept. It allows an athlete to use a setback as an im-provement opportunity in order to learn from his or her failures and not internalize it as an at-tack on his or her character.

A fundamental aspect of improvement is acknowledging the opportunity to fail. Avoid-ing failure and focusing only on areas an athlete does well is the surest way to perpetuate medi-ocrity. Athletes should seek new challenges as opportunities to learn rather than chances to fail. Embrace the chance to compete in a final with your heart trying to escape your body – at least you will know you are alive. Unfortunately, fear of failure prevents many otherwise capable athletes from reaching peak performance. If a setback is the result of a failed attempt, reflect on the opportunity and dissect the experience to learn what went wrong and what you did well. An athlete’s dedication to learn from his or her failure is the one of the most valuable elements of improvement and sustained performance.

A trusted advisor and mentor may help an athlete put a setback in perspective. Athletes should seek and value the advice, experience and knowledge of strong, match-tested marks-man when dealing with setbacks. There is no substitute for hearing, “I’ve been there before and know what you are feeling. Let me tell you


8 USA Shooting News

Columnswhat I did to overcome the challenge. Reflect-ing back on my experience, here is what I believe will help you succeed in the future.” Positive feedback and focusing on improvement allows an athlete to use failure to his or her advantage. Learn to evaluate your own performance and try not to make the same mistake twice.

Be the JudgeCompeting to meet another’s standards or

expectations is an impossible task and a perilous journey. An athlete must set his or her own cri-teria for success and resist the pressure to reach someone else’s goals. The athlete must judge his or her own success and failure and set the conditions for improvement and flame the pas-sion within to succeed. External inspiration or motivation may influence an athlete but only he or she can internalize and take ownership of a goal. Passion, drive and determination are in-ternal forces.

Consider the following: Is an athlete who fails to win a championship during his or her ca-reer unsuccessful? What if he or she sustains a high level of performance for years but performs poorly during a championship match when it matters the most? What if the athlete consis-tently performs above his or her peers but never becomes a champion? Which circumstance(s), if any, is a measure of success? Who gets to judge? The answer depends on an athlete’s aspi-

rations and whether he or she reached his or her full potential. Only the athlete knows if he or she can pass the mirror test. Only he or she can judge his or her own performance.

Society judges athletes on the number of championships and the tangible results they produce in competition. Anything less appears to invite someone to conclude the athlete is un-successful. This standard assumes that cham-pionships are the sole indicators of success. Athletes may be lured into this flawed logic and believe the only path to success is whether he or she is a champion in his or her sport. Success is based on an athlete’s ability to achieve his or her own goals as only they understand the totality of the circumstances that influence his or her abil-ity to accomplish the goals.

Championships and other awards are useful to stratify the accomplishments among athletes with comparable records but are not the exclu-sive indicators of success. If so, organizations like the Major League Baseball and National Football League Halls of Fame would only in-clude athlete’s who won a championship in their respective sport. Objectively evaluate your own performance using the high standards you set for yourself.

One Final ShotWhile success is often difficult to quantify,

choosing a destination, using your experience

to your advantage, leveraging failure to improve and judging your own performance helps an athlete define success. The ability to produce a desired outcome is the reason we compete. Suc-cessful athletes make informed choices, use ex-perience, learn from their mistakes and evaluate their performance to reach their full potential. Define success and achieve it. If all else fails, an athlete may always follow the advice of Ameri-can satirist and comedian Stephen Colbert who once said, “If at first you don’t succeed, redefine what you did as success.”

Until the next competition, the Air Force Shooting Team challenges each of you to seek improvement from within to discover your own path to success and pursue excellence in all you do. If you have any questions about the Air Force in general, please visit www.airforce.com for more information.

“Inside the Blue” is a running series that looks at international shooting sports from an Airman’s perspective. Senior Master Sgt. Julig is a member of the Air Force International Trap Team and he is presently assigned to Bolling Air Force Base in Wash-ington D.C. The views expressed in this article, un-less otherwise indicated, are that of the individual author. They do not purport to express the views of the Department of the Air Force or any other depart-ment or agency of the U.S. Government.


Columns

The Conflicted AthleteBy JP O’Connor

Forty-sixth in a series

It is human nature to enjoy doing the things we are good at doing, and to avoid doing the things we are not good at doing. How many athletes practice their favorite event or activity, even though they are already per-fect at doing so, and avoid working on the aspects of their game that are the weakest? No wonder they never get better!

This same effect influences whether we stick with a sport or leave. Once frustration and disappointment overcome enjoyment, the athlete is likely to leave. Yet, too many athletes quit in the face of a plateau or other obsta-cle without appropriately changing their approach, mindset, coaching or other aspect of their activity in order to remove the obstacle. Others leave after making many random changes, which made the departure more like-ly, rather than solving the problem with well thought out changes.

Is this always the case? Is there anything one can do? No and yes, in that order!

The Plateau“I am so frustrated that sometimes I just hate to shoot. I always seemed

to get better, and now I have been stuck with the same scores and per-formances for the past two years. I should just quit but for some reason I can’t bring myself to make the decision.” The athlete’s frustration and pain were obvious in her words and facial expressions. A coach at the clinic responded, “Let me guess; despite being so frustrated that you want to quit, you cannot quit because you remember how much you used to love to shoot, cannot bear the thought of leaving that behind and wish you could recapture that feeling?” Her eyes grew wide in amazement and she said, “Oh, yes! That is it exactly!” The coach continued, “What if we could identify the reasons for the plateau and for your frustrations, identify the causes and work to resolve them, and make shooting fun again?” Her face lit up as she excitedly asked, “We can do that?!”

For the next few months, the athlete and coach worked together to stock her toolkit with sharp tools using robust techniques that can with-stand the pressure of competition (many techniques that seem to work well in training are “fragile” and break down in competition). She was al-ready very well trained in her technical aspects of shooting, so she and the coach decided on only a few smaller adjustments. Their primary technical focus was on building a robust shot process.

The major changes they worked on together were in her outlook and mental approach to the game. Soon, she could not wait to get to the range again, and went on to a very successful college shooting career.

In this case, the shooter truly appeared to be on the verge of leaving the sport. Because someone was able to help her discover that this did not have to be the case, and then traveled on the journey with her and helped her discover the skills she needed, she was able to rekindle her joy of the sport and improve her performances and scores. Different athletes have different needs. The coach must be attuned to the athlete in order to be effective. Luckily, that was the case in this instance.

Dark Moments and Hard WorkOur culture is results driven and we like to do well. When faced with

repeated “failures” in competition, our internal motivation diminishes. Coaches and athletes alike must be aware and monitor the “fun factor” as

part of the athlete’s development. At the same time, we must also realize that it is not always going to be fun and that there will be many “dark mo-ments” when the athlete suffers through a long plateau or other downturn. Sometimes, these “dark moments” can last a very long time.

While interviewing Jason Turner a few weeks after his medal winning performance in Beijing, when the topic of “dark moments” came up, it was obvious in his voice that he, like all great athletes had experienced times of deep frustration and doubt. Indeed, he indicated that the “moments” sometimes lasted much longer! Yet he found a way to keep going. Article 40 “On Stepping Up” discusses his story and this topic in greater detail.

Doing well at something certainly is fun and motivating. The danger is that when one is a “natural” at first, they often may not develop the mental toughness to work “hard” when their learning curve starts to level off. Those who do not start as a “natural” have to work at their game be-fore they ever gain the excitement of doing really well. Their expectation about the effort required is higher. Later, when the going gets tough, they have already developed the skills needed to keep going through the tough times. This is the “hard” part of the hard work of becoming a champion.

As a result of these dynamics, the young J3 shooter with the top scores may not necessarily be the one with the top scores in high school, college or beyond. There are exceptions of course, among the truly motivated. The athlete who is struggling along with “average” skills, if able to tough it out and remain motivated, is actually a bit more likely to be on top in later years.

Many years ago, a 13-year-old set a national J3 record at the National Junior Olympics after only a short time in the sport. Many predictions were made at the time about what this athlete would accomplish… and sadly, none came true.

There is hope for athletes who stick it out, even through the “dark mo-ments” of self-doubt and frustrating results. Certainly, Jason Turner pro-vides an example of how the medal goes to the one with perseverance.

Another example is Nancy Johnson. She worked and worked, made the National Team, worked more and… could not win the big matches. She worked harder than most… and still could not win the biggest matches. She became frustrated, and her coach Dan Durben assured her that if she would just keep going despite the frustrations, that she would prevail over those who were not working as hard. Sure enough, Nancy’s hard work paid off, she started winning the biggest matches, and then she moved up several spots in the biggest air rifle final of her life to claim the Olympic gold medal in Sydney.

Goals and Real GoalsAnother cause of internal conflict is a difference between the athlete’s

stated goals and the real goals they wish to achieve. One need not be an aspiring junior or elite athlete to experience this effect.

At the USA Shooting Nationals, the old man came to enjoy the com-petition and camaraderie. Although he knew how to train well, his re-sponsibilities had prevented him from doing any serious training for over two years. Still, he wanted to support the event, see his friends and enjoy shooting. Accordingly, he adjusted his goals and expectations – or so he thought!

“I am so frustrated I want to quit!

Yet I love this so much that I cannot quit!”


10 USA Shooting News

Columns

After each event concluded, a young man who is working hard and is making a name for himself came to see the old guy. They compared notes and encouragement about their shooting. The young man quickly realized that old guy was struggling with something. They talked each day through the week, and the younger shooter helped the older shooter discover something… while he had told himself that he had adjusted his goals and expectations… he still wished he shot at the higher levels he had achieved earlier when training regularly. Outcome-based expectations cause a lot of conflict if out of tune! After that, their conversations were even more en-joyable than they already were, as were the rest of the many competitions that week. The student had become the teacher!

Expectations, the dreaded “E” word, are often too high and often based on wishes rather than realities. Be honest with yourself. Happy is the ath-lete who understands and applies this insight. Otherwise, another con-flicted athlete suffers.

Coach-Dad-ItisSometimes the internal conflict has external roots. One of the most

common examples of this is “Coach-Dad-Itis.” When a parent, whether actually coaching their child or not, aggressively drives their child con-cerning outcome, the child develops a great deal of internal conflict.

This topic was explored in article 21 of this series using the example of a father and his daughter, along with the daughter’s ideas on the topic. How-ever, the concept applies universally to moms as well, to all sports parents even though they are not the child’s actual coach, and – even though the article was about a daughter – it applies equally if the athlete is a son.

After the article was published, a younger friend of mine who coached a junior program at the time told me how in their club the worst parent

in this regard noticed that the article mentioned a daughter and said the article didn’t apply to him because his athlete child was a son. Sorry, dad, that article should have been about you!

When a parent is overbearing on their child or is “merely” overenthusi-astic, the child may eventually wonder if they are shooting for themselves or for their parent. Or they will become frustrated at their parent’s con-stant “disappointment” in them. This is debilitating to the athlete’s perfor-mance. Either way, the athlete becomes de-motivated, just as surely as if they had hit a long plateau.

Clearing ConflictUltimately, the conflicted athlete is the one who must clear the con-

flict. Certainly a coach, friend, fellow athlete or other person may lend perspective, as in some of the examples above. Regardless, it is then in the athlete’s hands. Understand the sources of the conflict, and then address them. Yes, it sounds so simple – too simple. Learning to work with the difficulties of conflict strengthens and empowers the athlete to meet even larger challenges.

The important thing is to start – and keep going.

Based in the Atlanta, Ga., area, JP O’Connor ([email protected] and http://www.america.net/~jpoc/) is involved in shooting as a competitor, is a former Assistant National Coach – USA Paralympics Shooting Team, serves on the Na-tional Coach Development Staff in both rifle & pistol, coaches the rifle and pistol teams at North Georgia College & State University, and coaches a junior club. He enjoys working with a number of pistol and rifle athletes from around the country, ranging from beginners to the highly advanced, in clinics and one-on-one private coaching. Previous installments of this series may be found at www.pilkguns.com.


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The purpose of this article is to help maxi-mize what is perhaps our most precious re-source: time. I will give you a way to efficiently plan your own time on the range in training, but even more importantly, to take advantage of (and honor!) the time your coaches and club leaders have given to you and your team for training.

Creating a calendar-based training sched-ule is the first step in building a training plan that leads to skill improvement. The first step is also the easiest…the harder challenge is in-tegrating your goals into the plan so that your daily work leads to progress on your goals.

Use the following “Ticket to Train” ap-proach to create goal and skill based training on a daily basis.

Columns

A “Ticket to Train”By Major David Johnson, National Rifle Coach

1. Set and write down your goals (see the Resources/Downloads section of USA Shooting’s website, http://www.usashoot-ing.org/downloads.php, under Coaching to find a previous article written by John-son on “Setting and Sorting Goals”). List your outcome and their associated perfor-mance goals that lead to the outcome goal achievement. Prioritize the goals that you want to achieve in the next year or training period.

2. Download and/or print the “Ticket to Train” Excel spreadsheet (see the Re-sources/Downloads section of USA Shoot-ing’s website, http://www.usashooting.org/downloads.php, under Coaching to print your spreadsheet).

3. Start at the top, fill in the date and then fill in Part I: “Performance Goals I am going to work on today.”

a. Example--Outcome Goal: Shoot above 380/400 standing by December 2009 Winter Airgun Championship. Performance Goal related to this Long-Term outcome goal: Learn exactly where to place support elbow on hip so that I can have my best skeletal based position and know how to find it every time.4. From this example, the “Ticket to

Train” may have in block one, “Perfor-mance goals I am working on today”:

“Learn exactly where I should place my support elbow in standing to give me my best support.”

5. In the next section of the “Ticket to Train,” put after “I Will”: “do a holding exercise without my jacket for my first 20 minutes on the range today to help me learn where my support elbow should be for my steadiest position.”.Do this with your most important perfor-

mance goals and you will generate a list of things to do in that day’s training.

At the end of your training session, take five minutes and fill in the last part of the tick-et. Did you work on the things you set out to do that day? What is left to carry to the next session? File it in your journal and read it be-fore filling out the next day’s ticket to train.

Trainers/Coaches/Club Leaders/Parents: Help your athlete fill in the ticket—make it a requirement to get on the firing line each session. Help them manage their time so that they learn how many goals and tasks they can effectively work on in a typical training ses-sion.

Athletes: This exercise only takes about five minutes before you start and five min-utes at the end of the session. The benefit is attained instantly through more focused and productive training—which yields skill im-provement: shooting better!


The key to success in competitive pistol shooting, as with any sport, is training. An ath-lete’s training determines the rate and degree of improvement. Too often shooters believe the only way to improve is to spend more time at the range shooting bullets. Unfortunately, un-limited range time is a luxury that most of us cannot afford, and live firing alone seldom re-sults in maximum improvement.

It’s common at training sessions and major competitions to see elite pistol shooters per-forming holding drills and dry fire exercises, of-ten a dozen athletes sequestered in a designated hallway pointing at a wall.

So if live shooting is not the key to improve-ment, then what is? The answer is dry fire train-ing.

Training with real bullets, on a real target, and at the full distance is an absolute necessity for successful pistol shooting, but those ele-ments are just small pieces of the puzzle. Dry fire is a pistol shooter’s primary training tool. In dry fire training there is no recoil to hide your mistakes, which allows you to find them and correct them.

There are several types of dry fire training and each type helps you focus on perfecting par-ticular fundamentals. Let’s discuss four types of dry-fire training:

Disciplines

Pistol Dry Fire TrainingBy Keith Sanderson, 2008 Olympian

Pistol

1) Holding Drills: Holding drills help build your position and grip, critically im-portant to the physical aspect of pistol shoot-ing. Holding drills help you develop a consis-tent natural point of aim by building muscle memory. Effective holding drills occur when you dry fire, then hold your follow-through for 30 to 130 seconds. During this time your primary goal is to maintain consistency in your position and grip. Your sight align-ment and the feel of your hand indicates your grip consistency. Your sight picture indicates your position consistency. It is helpful, if not completely necessary, to have someone watch you to ensure that your body remains in the same position as you become fatigued. You can also use smaller targets to help you develop a smaller hold. Here is a holding drill routine that I use to build my position:

Dry fire on a target, blank face, or a ver-tical and horizontal line. Hold your follow-through for 60 seconds. During that time keep your sights aligned and pointed at the same spot. Keep every joint at exactly the same angle. Don’t allow your position to change at all as you tire. Hold for 60 seconds then relax for 120 seconds. Do this six to eight times, three to five times a week.

2) Eyes Closed: Dry firing with your eyes closed allows you to work on your trigger control without visual distractions. For your trigger control to be truly uninterrupted, it must be completely independent of sight alignment and sight picture. Dry firing with your eyes closed is the best way to work on your trigger control because it isolates what you see from what you feel and do. This exercise also allows you to zero in on your grip, ensuring that it is absolutely consistent throughout your shot-process.

3) Blank Target: Dry firing on a blank tar-get is firing on a light colored background, and not on an actual target. A white wall is a great example of a blank target. This exer-cise forces you to focus on your sights. Sight

alignment is the primary goal. Make sure that when you release the trigger there is no movement in the front sight or its relation-ship to the rear sight notch.

4) Reduced Target and Match Target: Dry firing on a match target is firing on a real tar-get at the appropriate distance for the event for which you are training. If you are unable to train at the full distance, you can use a re-duced target at a reduced distance. Training on a target allows you work on and perfect your shot process, fundamentals and sight picture. In Men’s Rapid Fire, target training helps develop the muscle memory to move to each target.

Follow-through is incredibly important for both live fire and dry fire training. Dry fire training allows you to concentrate on follow-through without the distraction and masking effect of recoil. Exaggerate your follow-though in training and maintain focus and continue the application of the fundamentals for an extended period of time after the dry fire shot. The goal is to keep your position exactly the same, your grip perfectly constant and to continue aligning the sights without interruption. This will polish your technique and correct most mistakes. This “polishing action” makes dry fire extremely im-portant for pre-match warm-up.

There are times that high volume training is necessary to elevate your performance or to pre-pare for a long match. There is a certain point in training when shooting more bullets will just damage your technique because recoil will cover up your mistakes, effectively turning your train-ing into negative training. Before you reach this point, you should replace actual shooting with dry fire. Dry fire allows you to continue to train without developing bad habits as long as you maintain your mental intensity and stay focused on the fundamentals. With this type of smart training you can have both quantity and quality training.


Disciplines

Adding Imagery to Your Training PlanBy Launi Meili, Olympic Gold Medalist

Rifle

In the first part of our discussion on motivation and imagery, I offered some suggestions and insights on the drive of a champion. Clearly, you’ve got what it takes to be a champion, and you are willing to do what-ever it takes to achieve your goals. But like so many shooters, you might be ne-glecting an important tool that can really make the difference in competition: Imagery. In my own com-petitive shootings and with many of the athletes I have coached, imagery—or im-

aging—has played a critical role in the path to success.There are numerous imagery techniques you can adopt, and I sug-

gest you try several. The tactics I explain here can be a good starting point, but the most important concept is this: You can control your thoughts and their positive outcomes; do not let negative thoughts control you.

Here are some imagery concepts for you to consider and try:1. Use relaxation in conjunction with mental training and im-

agery. Relaxation techniques train your body to respond to cues when facing tense situations and help you feel more in control. They also set the stage for imagery to have a greater impact because you are calm and open for ideas.

2. Rifle and pistol shooters should primarily use “internal” imagery. This is where you are imagining what you want to see through the perspective of your own eyes, like looking through a camera at your hold and sight picture. The other type is called ex-ternal imagery. This where the “camera” or view is turned on you, where you see your whole body performing the task. This is effec-tive for shotgun shooters to imprint the perfect body movements from stance, mount, timing and follow-through. Rifle and pistol shooters can imagine a perfect position, but since there is no physi-cal movement to perfect (except for some pistol events) there really is not enough information in looking at your position to really help become a better shooter under pressure. Information used to shoot a good shot revolves around the sight picture, which means using internal imagery.

3. Practice imagery before you go to sleep, but do not hesitate to

practice it any time you can fit it in. Right before you sleep, how-ever, your mind is open to suggestions and ideas, and it is a good time to explore a wide variety of competition situations. It is also a good time to reinforce that personal belief that you have something special inside. Feed the drive.

4. Make imagery part of your shot plan. A shot plan is a list of items you need to accomplish in order to shoot one successful shot. It covers the physical aspects of mounting the gun properly and feeling balanced, as well as correct head position and sight picture. Advanced shooters have developed a fairly “automatic” shot plan. In fact, things may not come to their attention unless an element is off, like cheek placement or tension somewhere in their body. Once the element is corrected, the plan falls back into place and they produce what it takes to shoot a good shot almost automatically. What helps this become automatic is the use of imagery. If the last thing “loaded” into a shooter’s mind is anticipating or reacting to the perfect sight picture, there is nothing in the way of “letting” the perfect shot happen. They have controlled all the elements going into the shot, and the last part is mentally getting and staying in the “10 ring” with imagery. Beginning and intermediate shooters will probably think about what the perfect sight picture should be, and then squeeze the trigger once they see it. They are still in a stage where they need to “make” the correct things happen, and that is perfectly fine. Advanced shooters have developed a better sense of timing and realize their hold is establishing the perfect sight picture earlier due to all the thousands of rounds down range.

5. Imagine the task and the outcome. There is no doubt that it is a great feeling to be a champion. Thinking about accomplish-ing that feat can be the fuel to your motivation and drive for as long as you are in the sport. Do not let it be so addicting, however, that you let go of what it takes to get you there. Shooting in tough matches and situations can be challenging and uncomfortable, but it is managing and getting through those situations that will make you a champion and allow you to achieve the long-term goal you seek. So yes, it is nice to see yourself up there on the podium, but before you revel in all the glory, don’t forget to image yourself fac-ing all the challenges that will come, how you are going to handle them, and pay the dues that need to be paid so the championship feels earned and deserved.

Shooting is a great road to find out what you are made of. Just be sure to fuel the belief in yourself with the right words, thoughts, ac-tions and images of the shooter you want to become. When words or thoughts are continuously negative and destructive, they will have an impact on your motivation. It is up to you to turn them around so they are a positive force on your belief, drive and destiny.


Picture courtesy of the U.S. Air Force Academy

With the changing of the guard and Mark Weeks taking over the USA Shooting National Shotgun Coach position and appointing a new regime of assistant coaches under him, I thought I would talk a little bit about coaching in this article. There are an increasing number of coaches in our sport, which shows that our sport as a whole is growing, with more and more people wanting to get involved. This is a great time to be involved in international shooting with ample opportunity for coaching, sponsor-ships and media attention. When I started 25 years ago, none of these things were available.

I strongly urge you to check into the background of any coaches you may want to use or hire. I have commented many times that a person does not have to be an Olympic or world champion to be a great coach, but I believe that any good coach must have some experience in his or her sport. It is tough to teach fundamentals if you have never shot the game. For instance, it is virtually impossible to explain to a student about the pressure you feel in international competitions if you have never been there. The assistant coaching staff Mark has chosen all have different experiences and a great amount of knowledge to bring to the sport. I tell all my students that no one person has all the answers, it is up to you to decide who the best person is to give you that piece of the puzzle to become the best shooter that you can be. As coaches we need to realize our limitations so that if we take a student to the high-est level we are capable of, we should all leave our egos behind and try to get that shooter to someone who can further their ability to excel.

Disciplines

Finding a Good CoachBy Bret Erickson, Four-time Olympian

Shotgun

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As National Coach I can’t be everywhere at once, so I rely on assistant coaches to help pick up the slack. As Bret mentioned in his article, I have chosen a group of assistant coaches who offer all different types of coach-ing styles and experience. Because not ev-eryone can readily adapt to one particular coach or coaching style, I feel that it is crucial to have a variety of coaching choices for my shooters. Even though the experience and coaching styles differ among each of my as-sistant coaches, one thing we all agree upon is the importance of fundamentals. With ev-ery great shooter in the world comes great fundamentals; it is the foundation of a good shooting career. If you do not know the basics and are unable to consistently repeat them, then there is no reason for us to teach you ad-vanced shooting techniques.

One of the things that has excited me most since I started coaching is the number of new shooters entering the sport. While there is no secret to reaching Olympic gold except for lots of hard work, time, and dedication, good coaching can be a big boost to a beginning shooter. A few pointers for selecting a coach include:

1. Make sure that you check the back-ground of the coach you are looking to hire. For example, verify their experience in the sport. It is imperative that a coach has experience in actually competing in the sport in order to understand what they are teaching. 2. Find out who else the coach works with and ask those people for their opinion on how well your coach teaches. 3. Make sure you are comfortable with the price the coach plans to charge you.

4. Meet the coach before you take a lesson. If you do not click with the coach, then you will not be happy. You will not trust a coach if you don’t mesh well with them. Trust is the key to any coach/shooter rela-tionship. 5. Don’t expect your coach to work mir-acles! While a good coach can help im-prove your skills, there is no replacement for hard work, dedication and shots down range. In addition, I am always available to an-

swer questions and give advice. Please do not hesitate to contact me at [email protected]. You can also contact my as-sistant coaches, listed below. I wish you good shooting and hope to see you on the competi-tion field in the future!

Bret Erickson – Bret has been on 25 Na-tional teams, 14 World Championship teams and four Olympic teams. He was assistant coach and trap team leader for 22 years at the U.S. Army Marks-manship Unit in Fort Benning,Ga. He is cur-rently the manger of Wil-lawalla Creek Shooting Center, Saint Jo, Texas (a regional training center for USA Shooting). Con-tact information: (706) 577-1963, www.breter-ickson.com.

Dan Carlisle - Dan is the only person to win the USSCA, SCA and NSCA National Cham-pionships, the only per-son to earn a position on

the NSSA, ATA, NSCA, SCA, USSCA All-American teams and is the only person to win back-to-back national championships in trap and International Skeet. On the international scene, Dan holds an Olympic medal from the 1984 Olympic Games, won the gold medal at the Pan American Games in International Trap and is an International Trap Team World Champion. He is also the personal coach to Glenn Eller, 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist in Double Trap. Website: www.shootsporting-clays.com.

Dwayne Weger – Dwayne has 20 years of competition experience. He was a National Team member and is a USAS certified coach, He was also the Team Leader for the 2008 U.S. Olympic team for Shooting. Email: [email protected]

Joe Bernoflo – Joe also has 20 plus years of experience in shooting. He is a USAS certified coach and has taught many Junior Olympic Team camps.

Disciplines

By Mark Weeks, National Shotgun Coach

Tips for Selecting a Coach

Skeet shooter Caitlin Connor and Mark Weeks at the 2009 World Cup in Minsk.

By Mary Beth Vorwerk

Nationals

Intense heat and humidity at the 2009 USA Shooting National Cham-pionships for Rifle and Pistol June 13-20 made for very harsh shooting conditions, but that did not stop the 300 plus athletes from shooting high scores and performing at an elite level in an exciting match at Ft. Benning’s International Shooting Complex, home of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU). This week-long event featured competition in all ten rifle and pistol Olympic events, as well as four non-Olympic shooting events.

Men’s 50m Free Pistol was the first final contested at the 2009 Rifle/Pis-tol Nationals and three-time Olympian Daryl Szarenski (Saginaw, Mich.) won the title for the second consecutive year.

USAMU member Szarenski finished with a match score of 1098, a final of 96.3 for a total score of 1194.3 points. James Henderson (Columbus, Ga.), a USAMU Service Pistol shooter, took second place after firing a score of 1096 in the qualification, a final score of 97.4 for an overall score of 1193.4. John Zurek (Chandler, Ariz.) grabbed third place with a total score of 1184.6 (1091+93.6) points.

The National Championship title in Junior Men’s Free Pistol went to Air Force shooter Alex Callage (Columbia, Md.) with 1033 points. Gary Reburn (Kensington, Md.) took second with 1026 and Jack Dutoit (Ar-lington, Texas) finished in third place with 1000 points.

Jamie Beyerle (Lebanon, Pa.), a 2008 Olympian, claimed the national title for the second year in a row in Women’s 50m 3 Position Rifle the following day after firing a match score of 1152, a final of 97.8 for an over-all score of 1249.8. Beyerle’s 2008 Olympic teammate Sandra Fong (New York, N.Y.) took second place with a total of 1247.5 points. Emily Hol-sopple (Wilcox, Pa.) finished right behind Fong in third place with 1246.4 points. Fong and Holsopple also grabbed the first and second spots re-spectively in Junior Women’s 3 Position and Caitlin Morrissey (Topeka, Kan.) claimed third place with 1243.1.

In Men’s Air Rifle, West Virginia University rifle shooter Wallizer claimed his first USA Shooting National Championship title with a match score of 1185, a final of 103.4 for an overall score of 1288.4 points. Jona-than Hall (Carrollton, Ga) finished second with 1285.6 and Matthew Wal-lace (Fairbanks, Alaska) took third place with 1284.8 points. For the ju-niors, 2008 Olympian Stephen Scherer (Billerica, Mass.) finished on top with 1275.9, while Dempster Christenson (Sioux Falls, S.D.) took second place with 1267.9 and Zachary Wells (Sharpsburg, Ga.) finished third with an overall score of 1267.0.

Szarenski won his second title of the match on June 17 when he took first place in the Men’s 10m Air Pistol event and four-time Olympian Libby Callahan (Columbia, S.C.) captured the title in Women’s 25m Sport Pistol.

Szarenski fired a match score of 1147 and a final of 101.1 for a total of 1248.1 points to finish in first place in Men’s Air Pistol. Szarenski’s USAMU teammate Thomas Rose (Columbus, Ga.) was tied with two-time Olympian and 2008 bronze medalist Jason Turner at 1244.8 after the final, but then shot a 10.0 to Turner’s 9.9 in the shoot-off, taking second place, while Turner finished third.

Callage won his second national title of the 2009 National Champion-ships, taking first place in the Junior Men’s 10m Air Pistol event with a total score of 1228.0. DuToit grabbed second place with 1210.4 points, while Reburn finished in third with an overall score of 1189.4.

Fifty-seven-year-old Callahan won the national title in Sport Pistol af-ter shooting 1144 points in the qualification, 200.4 in the final for a total score of 1344.4. Teresa Meyer (Dearborn, Mich.) finished second with an overall score of 1329.6 and 2008 Olympian Brenda Shinn (Riverside, Calif.) took third with 1326.9 points. Hannah Lewis (Colorado Springs, Colo.) grabbed the national title for the junior women with 1086 points, while Courtney Anthony (Lexington, Neb.) finished second with 1084 and Kelsey Imig (Westminster, Mass.) claimed the third spot with 1081.

Beyerle earned the top spot on the podium for the second time at the 2009 nationals when she finished first in Women’s 10m Air Rifle on the fifth day of the match. Beyerle fired a qualification score of 791, a final of 103.4 for an overall score of 894.4. Amy Sowash (Richmond, Ky.) took second place with 889.4 points, while two-time Olympian Emily Caruso (Fairfield, Conn.) finished right behind Sowash in third place with 888.9. Denise Martin (Chewelah, Wash.) won the title for the junior women with an overall score of 886.7. Samantha Trisdale (Aurora, Colo.) grabbed sec-ond place with 885.2 and Alivia Yeager (Louisville, Ky.) took third with 881.4 points.

In the Men’s 50m 3 Position Rifle event, the shooters had to battle extremely hot weather conditions as well as a delay in shooting, but the USAMU came out and dominated, winning all three spots on the podi-um. Three-time Olympian Jason Parker (Omaha, Neb.) shot a qualifica-tion score of 2344, a final of 96.2 for an overall score of 2440.2 to win the match easily by 16.4 points. Parker’s USAMU teammates Michael McPhail (Darlington, Wis.) and 1996 Olympian Eric Uptagrafft (Spokane, Wash) took the second and third spots with overall scores of 2423.8 and 2416.5 respectively.

For the junior men, Brian Carstensen (Hoover, Ala.) claimed the title with a total score of 2390.2 points, while Scherer captured second place with 2388.1 points. Ethan Settlemires (Walnut, Miss.) grabbed the third spot with 2378.4 points.

Shinn won the national title in Women’s 10m Air Pistol by 20 points on the second to last day of competition, finishing with an overall score of 855.1. Kylie Gagnon (Bozeman, Mont.) took second place with 835.1 and Callahan earned another spot on the podium finishing in third place with 832.9. Gagnon also took the junior national title, while Lewis finished second with 827.5 and Anthony took third place with an overall score of 825.1.

In the Men’s 25m Rapid Fire Pistol event, Emil Milev (Tampa, Fla.) won his first ever USA Shooting National Championship title with a to-tal score of 1349.0 points. USAMU members Brad Balsley (Uniontown, Pa.) and Sean Ragay (Buena Park, Calif.) finished in the second and third spots with 1338.4 and 1315.6 points respectively. Christopher Nona (Richmond, Texas) finished first for the juniors with a score of 933, while Alexander Chichkov (Temple Terrace, Fla.) took second with 919 points.

The USAMU dominated the podium once again on the final day of competition at the 2009 USA Shooting Rifle/Pistol National Champion-ships with team members McPhail, Uptagrafft and Parker taking the top three spots in Men’s 50m Prone Rifle. McPhail finished in first place after firing 1194 points in the qualification and 104.5 points in the final to end with 1298.5 points. In a tight race for the second and third spots, Upta-

Rifle/Pistol

Features


grafft ended up in second place with 1295.2 points and three-time Olym-pian Parker finished right behind him in third with 1295.1

Christenson claimed the national title in the Junior Men’s Prone Rifle event after finishing with a total score of 1284.3 points. Samuel Muegge (Boling, Texas) took second place with 1283.3 and Michael Liuzza (New

Orleans, La.) finished third with 1282.8. For complete results from all of the events at the 2009 Rifle/Pistol Na-

tional Championships, please visit the Competitions/Match Results page of USA Shooting’s website at www.usashooting.org.

ELEY is a Proud Sponsor of the USA Shooting Rifle and Pistol Teams:ELEY Limited, manufacturer of the world’s most consistently accurate rimfire ammunition, has been the Official Sponsor and Official Supplier of .22 rimfire ammunition of the USA Shooting rifle and pistol teams since 2000. For more information on ELEY and their products, please visit http://www.eley.co.uk/.

ShotgunThe 16th Annual USA Shooting National

Championships for Shotgun were held July 11-18 at Ft. Carson’s International Shooting Park where two hundred and fifty shooters from around the U.S. gathered to compete in the five Olympic shotgun events.

Kicking off the competition was the Men’s Double Trap event with Josh Richmond earning the national title.

U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU) member Richmond (Hillsgrove, Pa.), who is the 2009 Munich World Cup gold medalist and San Marino World Cup bronze medalist, won the title in an exciting three-way shoot-off with his USAMU teammate Jeff Holguin (Yorba Linda, Calif.), a 2008 Olympian, and Billy Crawford (Johnstown, Ohio). The three shooters were tied at 341 out of 350 targets after the final and in the shoot-off, Crawford missed the second target on his second pair, taking third place overall. Richmond and Holguin battled it out until the 15th pair when Holguin missed his first target, ending in second place with a total of 29 hits in the shoot-off, while Richmond hit 30 tar-gets to take the top spot.

USAMU member and 2008 Olympic gold medalist Glenn Eller (Katy, Texas) took fourth place with 336 targets, while Derek Haldeman (Sunbury, Ohio) finished fifth with 330 targets and 2000 Olympian and USAMU member Bill Keever (Rutherfordton, N.C.) claimed sixth place with 324 targets.

Crawford captured the top spot for the ju-niors with 337 total targets. Haldeman took second place with 327 targets, while Ian Rupert (Muncy, Pa.) grabbed third place with 300 hits. Abel Spire (Cushing, Okla.) finished fourth with 283 hits, while Lindenwood University’s Kyle Umgelder and Kelcey DePatis (Donovan, Ill.) took the fifth and sixth spots with 269 and 261 targets respectively.

Two Olympic medalists, Kim Rhode, the 2008 Olympic silver medalist, and 2008 Olym-pic gold medalist Vincent Hancock, earned the national titles in the Skeet event on July 14.

Rhode (El Monte, Calif.) won her third con-secutive national title in Women’s Skeet finishing the event with a total of 267 targets after shoot-ing a perfect 25 targets in the final. Haley Dunn (Eddyville, Iowa), who shot a perfect 100 on the

first day of the match finished in second place overall with 263 total targets. Dunn is the first woman to shoot 100 straight targets in a skeet event at a USA Shooting national competition.

Taking the third spot for the women was 2009 Minsk World Cup silver medalist Caitlin Connor (Winnfield, La.), who also shot a perfect final score of 25 targets to end with 261 total tar-gets. Amber English (Colorado Springs, Colo.) finished fourth with 258 targets, while Emily Blount (Tucson, Ariz.) took fifth with 252 hits and two-time Olympian Connie Smotek (Bryan, Texas) grabbed the sixth spot with 251 hits.

Connor earned the national title for the Ju-nior Skeet Women with a total of 260 hits. Eng-lish took second with 259, and in a shoot-off for third place, Jaiden Grinnell (Port Angeles, Wash.) defeated Ali Chiang (Redwood Shores, Calif.) two targets to one. Brandy Drozd (Bry-an, Texas) grabbed fifth place with 242 hits and Morgan Craft (Hughesville, Pa.) took sixth place with 222.

U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU) member Hancock (Eatonton, Ga.), who like Dunn, also shot a perfect 100 on the first day of

Features

the match, finished in first place overall in Men’s Skeet after a shoot-off with his USAMU team-mate Shawn Dulohery (Lee’s Summit, Mo.). Both shooters ended the final tied at 268 targets and in the shoot-off, Hancock hit six targets to Dulohery’s five to take the top spot, while Dulo-hery, who was shooting his last National Cham-pionship as a member of the USAMU finished second.

Frank Thompson (Alliance, Neb.) grabbed third place with 266 total hits. Sean McLelland (Mission, Texas), a 2008 Olympian, finished fourth with 265 targets, while Jon Michael Mc-Grath (Tulsa, Okla.) and BJ Blanchard (Vidor, Texas) took the fifth and sixth spots with 264 and 263 targets respectively.

In the Junior Men’s Skeet event, McGrath captured the top spot in a shoot-off against Blanchard. At the conclusion of the final, Mc-Grath and Blanchard were tied at 263 targets and in the shoot-off, McGrath shot 12 targets, taking first place, while Blanchard shot 11 tar-gets to finish second. Thomas Bayer (College Station, Texas) grabbed third place with 261 hits and Nick Kimbrough (Atlanta, Ga.) finished fourth with 257 hits. Chris Haver (Clinton, Mich.) finished in the fifth spot with 252 targets and Granger DeWitt (Bryan, Texas) finished right behind him in sixth place with 251.

The 2009 USA Shooting National Shotgun Championships came to a close on July 18 with John Mullins and 2008 Olympic bronze medal-

ist Corey Cogdell earning national titles in the Trap event.

Mullins (Bremerton, Wash.) took the top spot for the men with 265 total targets. Jacob Turner (Richland, Wash) finished right behind Mullins in second place with 264 targets and in a shoot-off for third place, three-time Olympian and 1996 bronze medalist Lance Bade (Colo-rado Springs, Colo.) shot five targets defeating Richard Valdez (Canon City, Colo.), who shot four targets. Both shooters ended the final with 263 targets. U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU) member Ryan Hadden (Pendleton, Ore.), the 2009 World Cup Cairo and San Ma-rino gold medalist, ended in fifth place with 262 hits, while Max Jolliff (Fredericksburg, Texas) took the sixth spot with 259.

For the second year in a row, Turner also finished in first place for the junior men with a total of 263 hits. Jake Wallace (Castaic, Calif.) took second place with 258 after a two to one shoot-off with Morgan Harbison (Farmersville, Texas), who finished third. Shane Herman (Peyton, Colo.) ended in fourth place with 255 hits, while Matthew Gossett (Springville, Ala.) earned fifth place after a shoot-off with Garrett Walters (Burr Oak, Mich.).

In the women’s competition Cogdell (Eagle River, Alaska) took home the National Champi-onship after shooting a total of 250 targets. Kay-le Browning (Wooster, Ark.) finished second with 247 targets and Tamara Desso (Castaic,

Calif.) grabbed the third spot with 245 total hits. Last year’s National Champion Miranda Wilder (Diana, Texas) earned fourth place with 243 hits and 1996 Olympian and USAMU member The-resa DeWitt (Cincinnati, Ohio) defeated Caitlin Barney-Weinheimer (Ingram, Texas) in a shoot-off to finish in fifth place with 241 targets.

Browning grabbed first place for the junior women with 247 hits, while Wilder finished second with 246 and Desso took third with 244. Stacey Schroeder (Washington, Mo.) earned fourth place in a shoot-off with Barney-Wein-heimer, who took the fifth spot, and 2009 Cairo World Cup bronze medalist Rachael Heiden (Clinton, Mich.) took sixth place with 240 tar-gets.

New to the Shotgun National Champion-ships program this year was the first ever final held in the senior category of the Trap event. Dominic Grazioli (San Antonio, Texas), a 2008 Olympian, took home the title with 256 hits. Mike Herman (Peyton, Colo.) finished right behind Grazioli in second place with 255 total targets and DeWitt took third with 250. Guy Avedisian (Ocala, Fla.) grabbed fourth place with 248, while Maxey Brantley (New Braunfels, Texas) and Dick Lichtenberg (Bellevue, Wash.) finished fifth and sixth with 244 and 236 targets respectively.

To view all of the results from the 2009 USA Shooting National Championships for Shotgun, please visit www.usashooting.org.

Features

World Cup

UpdateBy Mary Beth Vorwerk

The U.S. Secures Four More Medals on the 2009 World Cup Circuit

Photos by Wolfgang Schreiber, issf-sports.org

Ryan Hadden loads ammo into his shotgun as he prepares to shoot for the World Cup gold

in San Marino

Features

Caitlin Connor (Winnfield, La.) took home her first ever ISSF World Cup medal on June 8 when she claimed the silver in the Women’s Skeet event in Minsk, Belarus.

Eighteen-year-old Connor, who was the youngest of the Skeet finalists, earned the sil-ver in very windy conditions after a three-way shoot-off at the conclusion of the final round. Connor, Katiuscia Spada of Italy and Cristina Vitali, also of Italy, were all tied for second place with a total of 95 hits at the end of the final. Connor secured the silver by shooting both the targets of her first shoot-off double, ending up on the podium with a total score of 95 (71+24) + 2 targets. Connor’s best finish in an international competition prior to Minsk was at the World Cup Cairo in May when she finished in sixth place.

“I was feeling very confident in spite of the weather conditions and I am very happy about my first ISSF medal,” said Connor after

winning the silver. Russian shooter Svetlana Demina shot a

perfect 25-target final in spite of the windy conditions and won the gold medal with a total score of 96 targets (71+25). The bronze medal went to Spada, who won the duel for the podium against her teammate Vitali, fin-ishing third with a total score of 95 +1+2 tar-gets.

Josh Richmond (Hillsgrove, Pa.) finished in fifth place in the Men’s Double Trap event on June 10, which was the highest finish for the U.S. in Double Trap.

U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU) member Richmond, who won the gold in Double Trap at the 2009 World Cup in Mu-nich, went into the final in fourth place with 141 out of 150 targets. Richmond shot 47 tar-gets in the final to end with 188 targets, which tied him with Hakan Dahlby of Sweden and Saif Alshamsy of the UAE. In the shoot-off,

Alshamsy was the first to miss, ending in sixth place with 188+3 targets. Richmond kept on shooting right to his fourth pair, when he dropped a target, finishing in fifth with 188+7 targets. Dahlby took fourth place with 188+8 targets.

China’s Hu Binyuan won the gold in Dou-ble Trap and set a new World Record Final of 196 targets, shattering the previous record of 194, which was in existence since 1999. Ron-jan Sodhi of India finished in second place claiming the silver with a total score of 194 hits. Russia’s Vitaly Fokeev took home the bronze with 190 hits.

Richmond’s USAMU teammates Glenn Eller (Katy, Texas), the 2008 Olympic gold medalist, and 2008 Olympian Jeff Holguin (Yorba Linda, Calif.) finished in the eighth and 13th spots with 139 and 137 targets re-spectively.

Caitlin Connor Wins Silver in Skeet at Minsk World Cup, Richmond Finishes Fifth in Double Trap

Josh Richmond, Minsk

Caitlin Connor, MinskCaitlin Connor, Minsk

USA Shooting is proud to once again be a part of the Com-bined Federal Campaign (CFC) program for the next year. Our campaign number is 11094 and we would ask that you consider

USAS when making contributions or payroll deductions. We sincerely appreciate your donations to USA Shooting!

Combined Federal Campaign

Features

The final leg of the 2009 ISSF World Cup Series for shotgun was held in San Marino June 16-23 with the U.S. adding three more pieces of hardware to their 2009 World Cup medal tally. USAMU mem-ber Ryan Hadden (Pendleton, Ore.) won his second gold medal of the 2009 ISSF World Cup series in the Men’s Trap event in a rainy San Marino on June 23. Hadden previously claimed the gold at the 2009 Cairo World Cup.

Hadden entered the final tied with three other shooters for first place with 121 out of 125 targets. Hadden and 2008 Olympic gold medalist David Kostelecky of the Czech Republic each shot 23 targets in the final and ended the match with 144 total hits. In the shoot-off, Hadden hit three targets to Kostelecky’s two targets to finish first and take home the gold, leaving Kostelecky with the silver.

“The qualification round was a little bit difficult because of the vis-ibility, but I entered the final very confident and I felt confident go-ing into the shoot-off.” said Hadden right after receiving the last gold medal of the San Marino World Cup.

Sergio Pinero of the Dominican Republic finished in third place with 143 targets to take home the bronze.

Four-time Olympian Kim Rhode (El Monte, Calif.) won her second medal of the 2009 ISSF World Cup Series when she claimed the silver in Women’s Skeet in San Marino.

Rhode, who is the 2008 Olympic silver medalist in Women’s Skeet, shot a qualification score of 65 out of 75 targets to enter the final in third place. At the end of the final, Rhode was tied with 2008 Olym-pic bronze medalist Christine Brinker of Germany at 88 targets and

U.S. Captures Three Medals in San Marino - Hadden Claims 2nd World Cup Gold won the shoot-off to claim the silver, while Brinker took the bronze. The gold medal went to Italy’s Chiara Cainero, the 2008 Olympic gold medalist, who finished with a total of 95 hits.

“It was great to be back on the podium with Brinker and Cainero like at the Games,” Rhode said following her match. “The qualification rounds were kind of difficult because of the rain, but I tried to focus on each target. The final finished in a shoot-off, and shoot-offs are always unnerving, but I shot the best I could.”

Rhode’s U.S. teammates Haley Dunn and Ali Chiang finished in seventh and eighth places with 64 and 63 targets respectively.

Like Hadden and Rhode, Josh Richmond also won his second med-al of the 2009 ISSF World Cup Series in San Marino. Richmond fought through rainy and windy weather conditions in San Marino to earn the bronze in Double Trap.

Richmond entered the final in third place with a match score of 142 out of 150 targets, but then missed both targets of his first pair in the final and ended up with 48 out of 50 hits. Richmond finished with a total of 190 hits, taking third place overall. Junjie Mo of China captured the gold with 193 hits and Sweden’s Hakan Dahlby grabbed the silver with 191 hits.

Next up on the ISSF World Cup circuit will be the World Cup Final for Rifle and Pistol October 24 – 29 in Wuxi, China, followed by the Shotgun World Cup Final October 29 - November 3 in Beijing, China.

For complete ISSF World Cup results, please visit ISSF’s website at www.issf-sports.org

Josh Richmond, San Marino

Kim Rhode, San MarinoRyan Hadden, San Mariino

KIm Rhode, San Marino

Ryan Hadden, San MarinoJosh Richmond, San Marino


Winchester Ammunition is a Proud Sponsor of the USA Shooting Shotgun Team:Winchester® Ammunition has been the exclusive ammunition sponsor and supplier of the USA Shooting Shot-gun Team since 1999. Members of the 2008 shotgun team brought home four medals from Beijing using Winchester AA International Target loads. Winchester is an industry leader in advancing and supporting con-servation, hunter education and our country’s proud shooting sports heritage. For more information about Winchester and its complete line of products, visit www.winchester.com.

Around the Range

2009 Shotgun National Junior Olympic Championships By Mary Beth Vorwerk

Approximately 200 junior shooters participated in the Internation-al Skeet, Double Trap and Trap events at the 2009 Shotgun National Junior Olympic Championships July 25-August 1 at Ft. Carson’s In-ternational Shooting Park. Juniors qualified for the event by winning their State Junior Olympic Championships, or by shooting a qualifying score.

For the third consecutive year, USA Shooting and the Scho-lastic Clay Target Program (SCTP) teamed up to host the Na-tional Junior Olympic Championships, giving many more young shooters the opportunity to compete in the event.

SKEETThe competition kicked off with the

Skeet event with Olympic Training Cen-ter Resident Athletes BJ Blanchard (Vi-dor, Texas) and Amber English (Colo-rado Springs, Colo.) claiming the titles.

Blanchard finished in first place for the men, dropping only three targets in the match and earning a qualifica-tion score of 122 out of 125 targets. In the final, Blanchard hit a perfect 25 targets to end with a total of 147 hits. Rob Horton (Eatonton, Ga.), who also shot 25 straight in the final, took second place with 144 targets and Jon Mi-chael McGrath (Tulsa, Okla.) finished third with 143.

English earned the top spot for the women after an excit-ing shoot-off with Ali Chi-ang (Redwood Shores, Calif.). Both shooters were tied at 138 targets at the conclusion of the final and in the shoot-off, English shot five targets to Chiang’s four to take home the title. Chiang took second place and third place went to Morgan Craft (Hughes-ville, Pa.) who finished with 133 total hits.

Other top finishers in the Skeet event include:

Junior MenJ2 First Place – TJ Bayer, 118J2 Second Place – Granger DeWitt, 118J2 Third Place – Nash Porter, 116

J3 First Place – Philip Jungman, 114J3 Second Place – Luis (Taz) Gloria, 112J3 Third Place – Roy Chavalittlekha, 110

Junior WomenJ2 First Place – Brandy Drozd, 106J2 Second Place – Gayla Gregory, 88J2 Third Place – Olivia Ornouski, 84

J3 First Place – Kaycee McNutt, 39

The top SCTP individual finishers in Skeet include:

High Male OverallTanner Brooks, 113

Men’s Senior VarsityFirst Place – Brandon Belanger, 136Second Place – Jimmy Gibson, 131Third Place - Luis (Taz)

Gloria, 131

Men’s Junior VarsityFirst Place – Glenn Carl, 110Second Place – Jakob Keldsen, 110Third Place – Richard Riddle, 108

Men’s Intermediate Ad-vancedFirst Place – Ryan Smi-thart, 88

Men’s Intermediate EntryFirst Place – Aaron Vammer, 95Second Place – Brad Burch, 90Third Place – Mitchell Rob-inson, 74

High Female OverallMorgan Craft, 110

Women’s Senior VarsityFirst Place – Nicole Ellis, 45

Women’s Junior VarsityFirst Place – Olivia Ornouski, 84Second Place – Jamie Ommert-English, 66

Women’s Intermediate EntryFirst Place – Kaycee McNutt, 39


Around the Range

DOUBLE TRAPIn the Men’s Double Trap event Ian Rupert (Muncy, Pa.), who fin-

ished third at the JOs last year, won the top spot easily by 15 targets this year, finishing with a match score of 137, a final of 42 for a total of 179 targets. In a shoot-off for second place, Abel Spire (Cushing, Okla.) faced T.J. Bayer (College Station, Texas), who finished sixth in the skeet event earlier in the week, and hit two targets to Bayer’s one target to earn second place, while Bayer took third. Both shooters ended the final with 164 total hits.

Other top finishers in Double Trap include:

J2 First Place – Trey Jones, 120J2 Second Place – Robert Perez, 118J2 Third Place – Chris Landfield, 109

J3 First Place – Roy Chavalitlekha, 106J3 Second Place – Nathaniel Lundie, 95J3 Third Place – Braxton Jones, 86

TRAPThe 2009 Shotgun National Junior Olympics came to a close on

August 1 with Collin Wietfeldt (Hemlock, Mich.) and Rachael Heiden (Clinton, Mich.) earning titles in the Trap event.

Wietfeldt shot 121 out of 125 targets in the match and shot 23 tar-gets in the final to finish in first place with 144 total hits. Jake Turner (Richland, Wash.), who won the junior event at the 2009 USA Shoot-ing Shotgun National Championships and came in second in the open category, finished in second place with a total of 142 targets at the JOs. Kevin Bockerstett (St. Charles, Mo.) finished right behind Turner in the third spot with 141 hits. Weitfeldt also won the High Male Overall SCTP honor.

Heiden, who is the bronze medalist from the 2009 ISSF World Cup in Cairo, won first place for the women easily by nine targets. Heiden shot a match score of 116, a final of 22 for a total of 138 targets. Jan-essa Beaman (Elbert, Colo.) and Ashley Carroll (Solvang, Calif.) were tied with 129 targets at the end of the final and Beaman earned second place in a shoot-off hitting two targets to Carroll’s one target. Car-roll finished in third place and also earned the SCTP’s High Female Overall award.

Other top finishers in the Trap event include:

Junior MenJ2 First Place – Matthew Gossett, 118J2 Second Place – Dustin Anderson, 117J2 Third Place –Garrett Walters, 116

J3 First Place – Austin Odom, 114

J3 Second Place – Roy Chavalitlekha, 100J3 Third Place – Daniel Mahaney, 98

Junior WomenJ2 First Place – Brandi Hobbs, 107J2 Second Place – Miranda Wilder, 104J2 Third Place – Rickelle Pimental, 101

J3 First Place – Jeni Clark, 99J3 Second Place – Holly Hodge, 93

The top SCTP individual finishers in Trap include:

High Male OverallCollin Wietfeldt, 121

Men’s Senior VarsityFirst Place – Kevin Bockerstett, 118Second Place – Garrett Walters, 116Third Place – Zack Bollman, 116

Men’s Junior VarsityFirst Place – Jess Harless, 111Second Place – Spencer Ensley, 108Third Place – Nathan Bassett, 108

Men’s Intermediate AdvancedFirst Place – Peter Fritz, 107Second Place – Luis (Taz) Gloria, 95

Men’s Intermediate EntryFirst Place – Nate Lundie, 88

High Female OverallAshley Carroll, 117

Women’s Senior VarsityFirst Place – Rickelle Pimental, 101

Women’s Junior VarsityFirst Place – Erin Danhausen, 81

Women’s Intermediate EntryFirst Place – Holly Hodge, 93

Complete results from the 2009 Shotgun National Junior Olympic Championships can be found at www.usashooting.org

On The Complex

DirectorWe all appreciate events that are scheduled well in advance. Pub-lishing USA Shooting events early allows coaches and parents to plan time off and allows athletes to develop detailed training plans. Sched-uling events with more lead time also allows the allied shooting orga-nizations to plan events with fewer conflicts, which in turn promotes participation and allows shooters more flexibility in selecting events in which to compete.

Not long ago, the annual event calendar was not finalized until spring of that year! Athletes and event organizers alike struggled with frustrating date changes. The USAS competition schedule is driven by the ISSF calendar. It has been most helpful that the ISSF has pushed World Cup organizers to coordinate and establish competition dates much earlier. World Cup and World Clay Target Championship or-ganizers have been selected for 2011 and have been identified on a preliminary basis for 2012. Further advanced scheduling at the ISSF level is headed in the right direction.

Once the ISSF establishes its calendar, USAS can then set dates for national championships and selection competitions. Our first consid-eration is to avoid conflicts with the ISSF and allow reasonable time between international and domestic events. We also attempt to avoid conflicts with allied organizations at the open and junior levels. It is extremely difficult to avoid overlaps during the busy summer months; everyone tries to conduct competitions when school is out. With East Coast schools holding classes until late June and many West Coast

schools starting early August, the desirable competition window is short—approximately five weeks.

Unfortunately, we can’t schedule all events during the summer school break; nor is it desirable since it is important to have a com-petitive season run through most of the year, thus providing regular competition opportunities. Additionally, a number of events are de-pendent upon availability of housing and meals at the Olympic Train-ing Complex. Competition scheduling may also be dependent upon range availability or seasonal travel cost considerations.

Another scheduling factor is consistency. We would love to estab-lish annual repeating dates for at least all of the national champion-ships. Holding events the same dates each year allows for even more advance planning and enhances participation. With the varying ISSF competition calendar, repetitive annual championship dates are not likely. However, we have been able to consistently hold the Rifle/Pistol Nationals in the mid-to-late June time frame, Junior Olympics for rifle and pistol in the later March and earlier April window and Shotgun Nationals over the span of late June through mid July.

There are many factors to be considered in establishing the annual event calendar. It is impossible to accommodate everyone’s desires, but it is our goal to establish a most workable annual event calendar at the earliest time possible. Events for 2010 have been set and programs will be available on the USAS website as soon as they are finalized.

2010 Event CalendarBy Robert Mitchell, Chief Executive Officer

ParalympicsParalympic Summer RecapBy Bob Foth, National Paralympic Coach

This has been an incredible summer for Paralympic shooting sports in the U.S. After the great Europe trip I described last issue, I attended the Endeavor Games, a multi-sport event at the University of Central Oklahoma, and helped the NRA conduct airgun training sessions for doz-ens of athletes. Along with enjoying some great shooting, we laughed along with one athlete with a unique tattoo on his leg, just above where it had been amputated: A small pair scissors and the words, “cut on dotted line” and the dotted line . . . .

I flew from there to the USA Shooting National Championships for Rifle and Pistol. U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU) soldier Josh Olson had a great first day and was in medal contention halfway through the match. Day two didn’t go as well, but he proved to everyone that he is capable of world-class scores. Flying from Georgia to Washington, D.C., I trained marksmanship instructors from Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Bethesda Naval Medical Center on using airguns in their rehab programs. Vanessa Warner and Marcus Raab from the NRA both helped with that training.

Two weeks later, I ran the Progressive Position Air Pistol Junior Olympics for the NRA and USA Shooting at the Civilian Marksmanship Program’s (CMP) new range at Camp Perry, Ohio. Attendance was up to 100 and numerous shooters had great performances. National Pistol Coach, Sergey Luzov, was there to award spots on the National Junior Team to men’s and women’s champions Jay Raymond from Mississippi, and Kelsey Imig from Massachusetts. Complete results are available on CMP’s website at www.odcmp.com. I flew from there to the National Veterans’ Wheelchair Games in Spokane, Wash. Vanessa Warner directed an airgun match there serving nearly 300 athletes on 10 relays in two long days. Many of those athletes expressed some interest in getting more involved in competitive shooting sports in the future. Back at the Olympic Training Complex (OTC), we hosted the State Games of America, including 12 rifle and pistol events for about 80 athletes from all over the U.S., and American Legion’s National Championships for 30 3-Position Air Rifle junior shooters. Upcoming events for shooters with disabilities include the Alicante Cup in Spain and the USAS Fall Selection match at Fort Benning. Information about Paralympic Shooting is available on the International Shooting Committee for the Disabled website at: http://shootonline.org/

The USAMU also has plans to grow their Paralympic program. Josh Olson currently trains there and is also part of the World Class Athlete Program. Numerous sources also provide training and support for disabled athletes interested in sport. Don’t assume you can’t afford shooting as you may be pleasantly surprised by the grants and other resources available.

In October, USAS will host the National Coach College and Conference at the OTC in conjunction with NRA and CMP. Level 1 Coach Schools for rifle, pistol and shotgun, Level 3 schools for rifle and pistol, the American Sport Education Program’s (ASEP) Coaching Principles Class will all be offered leading up to the conference, which will feature numerous expert guest speakers and chances for coaches to interact. Registration is available on the USAS website for this event. If you are coaching or have any interest in doing so, this is a “must attend” event.


Competitions

MarketingOn The Complex

53rd Annual SAAMI MeetingFundraiser generates over $24,000 in team support

By Buddy DuVall, Director of Marketing

The Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufactures’ Institute, Inc. (SAAMI®) held its 53rd annual meeting this year in Avon, Conn. SAAMI, estab-lished in 1926, is an association of the nation’s leading manufacturers of sporting firearms, ammunition and components. Since it inception, SAAMI has been actively involved in the publication of industry standards, coordination of technical data and the promotion of safe and responsible firearms use. SAAMI currently publishes more than 700 voluntary standards related to quality and safety in the manufacturing, transportation and storage of firearms, ammunition and components. In addition to setting product standards for firearms and ammunition, SAAMI proposes legislative develop-ments at the state and federal level and is an accredited United Nations ECOSOC Non-Government Organization.

At the conclusion of the meeting, SAAMI members participated in the annual “SAAMI Shoot” held at the nearby Hartford Gun Club, followed by an awards banquet and fundraiser. Event organizers of the 53rd Annual SAAMI Meeting and Shooting Tournament continued the tradition of raising money for organizations dedicated to promoting the shooting sports. For the ninth consecutive year, SAAMI selected USA Shooting as the beneficiary

of the annual fundraising event. This year’s event raised over $24,000 and exceeded last year’s record effort of $18,000 which pushed SAAMI’s total amount of team funding over the $100,000 mark!

USA Shooting appreciates the fantastic support from the many companies in the shooting industry that donated items for the fundraiser and helped make this event so successful. Thank you for your generous contributions and support! USA Shooting looks forward to welcoming SAAMI to Colorado Springs for next year’s SAAMI Meeting with the SAAMI Shoot taking place at the Olympic Shooting Center and Ft. Carson facilities. For more information on SAAMI, please visit www.saami.org.

Pictured left to right: Rick Patterson, SAAMI Managing Director; Jeffrey Reh, SAAMI Chairman of the Board; Doug Painter, SAAMI Past President; Sean McLelland 2008 Olympian; Corrie West, USAS Marketing Manager; Buddy DuVall, USAS Marketing Director

USA Shooting is constantly looking for ways to improve services to our members. Two years ago we introduced online entry for our major com-petitions, last year we started publishing squadding in advance. This year we are introducing Twitter to our membership. Sure, you’ve heard about it, but what can it do for you?

Do you always have your eyes peeled to our website, waiting for the latest results to be posted? Are you wondering how our team has done at a World Cup or curious about squadding for one of our events? No longer do you need to be paranoid about missing the entry deadline for the Selection Matches or Nationals. Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows you to send and read messages known as “tweets”. USA Shooting joined Twitter as a way to enhance communi-

Tweet, Tweet!By Lindsay Brooke, Competitions Manager

cation with our members. Anytime we post newsworthy information to our website, we update our Twitter mini-feed. The message is instantly relayed to our followers via cell phone text message or e-mail alerts. These “tweets” keep you informed without the hassle and headache of locating information on our website.

In order to follow us on Twitter, you will have to create a simple profile for yourself at www.twitter.com. From there, you can follow us at www.twitter.com/usashooting and connect with other shooting enthusiasts, merchants and clubs. You’ve heard about it, now its time to try it for your-self! Follow us today and we’ll remind you when to sign up for the Winter Airgun Championship and when the 2010 calendar has been published. We love this free service and we know you will too!

Ruger Contributes $10,000 to USA Shooting TeamRuger presented USA Shooting with a $10,000 check at the Shooting Industry Masters following

the Academy of Excellence awards in Hartford, Conn. on July 24. Proceeds from the sales of a TALO Distributors exclusive limited edition Ruger Mark III .22 pistol generated this latest contribution to the shooting team. This is the fourth collaboration between TALO Distributors and Ruger on USA Shoot-ing Team projects. Since 2003, Ruger has produced two USA Shooting Team series Ruger 10/22 rifles and a Ruger Mark II pistol. Proceeds from these limited edition Ruger firearms have generated over $300,000 in funding for the USA Shooting Team.

For more information on TALO exclusives please visit www.taloinc.com.

Michel Fifer, CEO of Ruger presented the check to 2008 Olympic bronze medalist Corey Cogdell and was joined by Chris Killoy, Executive Director of Sales for Ruger and USA Shooting Team members Sean McLelland and Haley Dunn.


On The Complex

OperationsHer hat seemed to dance above Cheyenne Mountain; up then down, back and forth, twirling an enchanting little pirouette with every blast of the shotguns. I thought it might never hit the ground.

Skeet ace Haley Dunn had smashed 100 straight targets during the 2009 USA Shooting National Championships, a feat never-before ac-complished by an American woman in registered International Skeet competition. It was a huge achievement, and as pure and powerful as the Colorado thunderstorms that rolled over the range during the Championships. Talk about a lightning strike—the flash and roar that Haley caused was as awe-inspiring as any storm.

Of course, we celebrated with the traditional hat shooting; 20-plus fellow competitors doing their part to change the hat size and venti-lation qualities of Haley’s favorite visor. As that funny frisbee defied gravity for about 20 seconds, I could only think, “Hats off to you, Hal-ey!”

Typically, lightning like that only strikes once during a match, or even once during a season. But this is where the hat dance gets inter-esting: Haley’s thunder was just one of a satisfying chorus of rumbling blasts that resonated against our souls. In fact, Haley wasn’t even the high woman shooter in the match. That honor went to four-time Olympic medalist Kim Rhode, who lead all shooters—men and wom-en—up until the final qualification round. When the dust settled af-ter the qualification rounds, only three targets separated the top four shooters . . . both men and women. In fact, 2008 Olympic gold medal-ist Vinny Hancock also needed to hammer 100 straight to keep pace with Haley and Kim, and second place finisher Shawn Dulohery gut-ted out a strong 99 to stay in the race. Lots and lots of great shoot-ing!

Lots and lots of tough shooting

also. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to string together 100 straight? Only about five active International Skeet shooters have done it, and most of them have only done it once or twice. But talk about toughness and you have got to talk about Caitlin Connor, who three days prior to winning the Junior Women’s event spent an eve-ning in the emergency room battling severe migraines. Oh, she also managed to suppress the pain of a broken finger, but nothing a little ace bandage and pure grit wouldn’t fix. Just one target behind her was Amber English, who earlier this year had major surgery on her cranium. I keep joking with her that she can be great with just half a brain, and then she just goes out there and gives me twice the effort. Talk about tough—truth is, I couldn’t hold their hats . . . .

Of course there were many, many courageous stories of shooting achievement at the Nationals, and the valiant efforts of all the shooters impressed me at every turn. In my role as High Performance Direc-tor for USA Shooting, I could not be more pleased. The scores are up, morale is up, participation is up and I predict more and more hats will be . . . up.

Debbie Harry, the 1970’s pop icon and lead vocalist for the rock group Blondie, used to belt out a tune called “The Hardest Part.” It was a song about armored cars, “twenty-five tons of hardened steel.” My favorite line of her song: “The hardest part of the armored car/ Is the man of steel behind the steering wheel.” Re-minds me of our competitors. The hardest part of International shooting isn’t the tempered steel of the high-grade target guns; the hardest part is the steely resolve of the tough-minded athletes who hit their targets and wear their hats.

Hard hats, that is.

Hats Off to You, Haley!By Bill Roy, Director of Operations


For a complete schedule of events in your area visit

www.usashooting.orgGo to the competitions drop down and click on

theInteractive Map

Click on your state or surrounding states to find local competitions

1st Annual Mule Deer Foundation Banquet in GeorgiaMule Deer Foundation’s newest chapter – the Dixie Muley Chapter – held its first

chapter banquet in Dawsonville, Ga on June 20. Pete Ward and his wife Gabby, along with a small group of dedicated committee members made an impressive showing for this inaugural event generating $10,000 for Mule Deer conservation. Making the trip to Georgia from MDF headquarters in Salt Lake City for this 1st annual event was MDF’s Chief Operating Officer Eric Tycksen, Regional Director Mike Laughter, Utah State Chair Wayne Windsor and Utah Key Volunteer Jeremy Zumwalt. “

The excitement in the room was very contagious, the attendees were there for the right reasons, to raise money for the only declining big game species in North America,” said Tycksen. Laughter concluded, “It is refreshing and revitalizing to come to a new place that does not have Mule Deer and feel the excitement they have for what MDF is accomplishing.”

News & Events

Shooting Industry Masters and Academy of Excellence AwardsThe Shooting Industry Academy of Excellence presented its 2009 awards July 24th

in Windsor, Conn., with J.B Hodgdon receiving the Shooting Industry Award; Smith & Wesson, Manufacturer of the Year; Ellett Brothers, Distributor of the Year; and Kimber, the Citizenship Award. Top product awards were also presented in several categories. Produced by FMG Publications, the Academy of Excellence Awards were held in con-junction with the Shooting Industry Masters. The 7th annual Masters three-gun event attracted some 200 competitors from more than 30 companies to the Hartford Gun Club in East Granby, Conn. Representing USA Shooting at the 7th annual “Masters” event were USA Shooting Team members Sean McLelland, Corey Cogdell and Haley Dunn. More than just a competition, the event was an opportunity for industry leaders to come together in support of the NSSF’s First Shots program, the ultra-successful program-providing an introduction to shooting for first timers. The fundraiser coordinated by FMG generated a record $25,000 for the First Shots program. Congratulations to all of the 2009 Shooting Industry Award winners and winners of the Masters competition.

The Bunker Club is a fundraising group that was formed in 1998 to pay for new trap machines at the USA Shooting shotgun range in Colorado Springs. Presently, the Bunker Club continues to donate money to help Olympic shooting and gets together for social gatherings. Members of the Bunker Club posed for a picture in May at the 74 Ranch, which is an hour south of San Antonio, after shooting sporting clays and attending a banquet for the yearly Bunker Club get together. Bunker Club leader Col. Dennis Behrens said, “My vision is to have the money to allow the staff and coaches to provide funds to individual shooters who need help, such as team members, develop-ment team members, or other worthy shooters in rifle, pistol or shotgun.”

The Bunker Club has raised over half a million dollars and has a strong commitment to helping our athletes. There are currently approximately 40 members of the Bunker Club and they are in need of more members to help raise their goal of $3 million for an Athlete Endowment. The cost to join the Bunker Club is $3,000 and you get a lifetime

MDF will hold their 2009 board meeting September 11-12 in Colorado Springs, Colo. and USA Shooting will host the MDF directors and staff for a day of shooting with rifle, pistol and shotgun resident athletes at our Olympic training facilities. Look for USA Shooting to attend the MDF annual convention February 11-14, 2010 in Salt Lake City in support of our conservation partnership. For more information about MDF visit www.muledeer.org.

Pictured left to right: Wayne Windsor, Eric Tycksen, Buddy DuVall, Mike Laughter, Jeremy Zumwalt

Pictured left to right: Sean McLelland, Anne Hodg-don, J.B.Hodgdon, Corey Cogdell, CJ Buck (Buck Knives) and Haley Dunn

Next year’s Shooting Industry Masters will be at the Heartland Public Shooting Park in Grand Island, Neb., July 23-24, 2010. Visit www.shootingindustry.com for more information.

Bunker Club members pictured left to right: Dr Gene Bishop, Dr Rich Miles, Colonel Loretta Behrens, Judy Trick, Captain Carl Kilhoffer, Colonel Den-nis Behrens, Mike Sloan, Bob Ziegler, Tim McGill (in sling), Dr Larry Trick, Tom Holland, Mona Robinson, Bob Herold, Russ Arnold, Kinsey Robinson, Gail Jeffress, Steve Jeffress

membership to USA Shooting and get to be a part of the Bunker Club and their year’s social activities and get togethers to help fund USA Shoot-ing athletes in all three disciplines. You can also donate to the athlete endowment by sending a check for any amount that you are able to give to USA Shooting at 1 Olympic Plaza, Colorado Springs, CO 80909. Please make checks payable to USA Shooting.

One hundred percent of your donation goes to the Athletes’ Endowment. If you are interested in joining the Bunker Club, please contact Col. Dennis Behrens at 210-735-2373 or USA Shooting Executive Director Bob Mitchell at [email protected] or 719-866-4899.

Bunker Club Update


News & Events

2009 Poland/Czech Junior TripBy Marcus Raab

Before high school even finished classes for the year, a few of the country’s top junior shooters were on a plane out of Washington, D.C. heading to Europe for a training camp and competition. Some missed the last few days of classes and one even missed their gradua-tion ceremony to spend ten days learning more about rifle shooting.

As part of National Rifle Coach David Johnson’s long-range plan for junior shooters’ development, these training trips mirror the camp and competition planned for next years 50th World Shooting Championships in Munich, Germany.

Those making the trip included Dempster Christenson (Sioux Falls, S.D.), Thomas Kyanko (Wellsburg, West Virginia), Dustin Che-sebro (Laramie, Wyo.), Emily Quiner (Brooklyn Park, Minn.), Emily Holsopple (Wilcox, Pa.), Sandra Fong (New York, N.Y.) and coaches Janet and Marcus Raab of Fairfax, Va.

Long-distance travel to countries that do not speak English as a primary language is a fact of life for American shooters. In addition to performing well in the competitions, the primary goal of the pro-gram is getting the athletes more comfortable in these foreign sur-roundings where food and accommodations may not be what the athletes are accustomed to here in the United States.

One of the athletes on the trip, Sandra Fong, is no stranger to in-ternational travel having been a veteran of multiple trips, most re-cently representing the United States at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games in the Women’s 50m 3 Position Rifle event. Having a highly experienced athlete, even at the young age of 19, was a distinct asset for the other shooters.

The team arrived in Wroclaw, Poland (pronounced Vrets-wav) on May 28 and went directly to the Polish National Shooting Center on the outskirts of the city. This was the first time an American shooting team had been to Poland in many years. Coordination for the trip began last November at a visit to the range complex during a family trip by the Raab coaches.

The weather was unusually cold and rainy for most of the camp and like most places in Europe, they turn the heating system off around the first of May. The rooms were quite chilly at night, but that did not stop the shooters from working hard on the ranges during the day. Utilizing the facilities electronic ranges, we had the opportunity to work on problem areas and do detail work on sights and grips.

It was a real honor to be the first to shoot air rifle on their brand new indoor finals hall which had been converted from the no longer used 50 meter running target ranges into a two bay fully electronic finals hall that looked remarkably like the finals hall in Munich. The range staff had just completed installing the target systems, so they needed to test them and the display equipment, and the American shooters were more than happy to oblige.

It was not all work on the range. Part of becoming comfortable in

their surrounding is learning how to get around, so on Sunday after-noon we took trip to the city by bus. That required learning where and how to purchase bus tickets as well as how to read the sched-ule and route maps. After a lunch of, what else, pizza, we wandered around the city center square shopping and seeing the most famous of the city attractions. One of the unique features of Wroc_aw is the famous collection of gnomes, small bronze figures scattered in vari-ous and sometimes unusual locations throughout the square. It be-came a challenge to find as many as possible.

After the six-day camp, we traveled to Pilsen, in the Czech Re-public by bus with the Polish junior squad. It was a great opportunity to meet new friends on the seven-hour journey. Once in Pilsen for the 19th Meeting of the Shooting Hopes, it was all business on the ranges with training on Thursday and competitions in 10, Air Rifle and 50m Prone and 3 Position Rifle for both men and women over the next three days.

In the men’s prone match, Thomas Kyanko tied for eighth spot in the final. Using the new ISSF rules for determining final participants, he had to fire a 5-shot shoulder-to-shoulder shoot-off with Sebastian Rabalski of Poland. Kyanko ended up on the short end of that shoot-off 51.0 to 51.5 finishing in ninth place but we all learned valuable lessons that transferred to the rest of the team and coaches. Team USA finished in third behind the Czech B and A squads.

In the men’s 3-position match Kyanko also was the high scoring American firing an 1154 in the qualification round, this time easily qualifying in fifth place. After final shots were recorded, he finished in eighth. Thomas Mathis of Austria earned the gold medal with an 1168 and 95.9 in the final.

Dustin Chesebro was also involved in a three-way 5-shot shoot-off for the eighth position in the men’s air rifle final. He ended up in tenth firing a 50.0 vs. a 51.2 by Nikola Pudev of Russia and 52.1 by the eventual finalist from India, Chain Singh, but again learned valu-able lessons for the future.

The highlight of the competition came on the last day when Fong (581) and Holsopple (579) started the final for the women’s 3-posi-tion event in first and second respectively. Fong had trouble early and that let the consistently strong shooting of Holsopple overtake her. Fong fought back in the end holding off the third place Russian, Alina Ivacheva, but it was not enough to regain first. It was a 1-2 fin-ish for the United States, continuing a string of success in this event for the past three years. The U.S. women’s team also took home a silver medal behind the Czech A team.

After a successful competition, the team had to get on the road early (3:00 a.m.) the next morning to make a 7:00 a.m. flight from Prague back to the United States. After a catnap on the overseas leg of the flight, most were making their final notes on their report to National Rifle Coach Dave Johnson on what they learned on the trip and how it will help them in the future.


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Shooters from the 2009 California State Qualifier posed for a picture before the match on April 25 at Coon Creek Trap & Skeet in Lincoln, Calif. Over 30 trap and skeet competitors shot the weekend match and the Golden State turned on perfect weather with warm days, clear skies and light winds.

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