Shooting sports is a group of competitive and recreational sporting activities involving proficiency tests of accuracy, precision and speed in shooting — the art of using ranged firearms, mainly referring to man-portable guns and bows/crossbows.
In the United States (U.S.), a marksmanship badge is a U.S. military badge or a civilian badge which is awarded to personnel upon successful completion of a weapons qualification course or high achievement in an official marksmanship competition. The U.S. Army and the U.S. Marine Corps are the only military services that award marksmanship qualification badges. However, marksmanship medals and/or marksmanship ribbons are awarded by the U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, and U.S. Air Force for weapons qualifications. For non-military personnel, different U.S. law enforcement organizations and the National Rifle Association (NRA) award marksmanship qualification badges to those involved in law enforcement. Additionally, the Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) and the NRA award marksmanship qualification badges to U.S. civilians. Most of these organizations and the U.S. National Guard award marksmanship competition badges to the people they support who succeed in official competitions.
Practical shooting, also known as dynamic shooting or action shooting, is a set of shooting sports where the competitors try to unite the three principles of precision, power, and speed, by using a firearm of a certain minimum power factor to score as many points as possible during the shortest amount of time. While scoring systems vary between organizations, each measures the time of which the course is completed, with penalties for inaccurate shooting. The courses are called "stages", and are shot individually by the shooters. Usually the shooter must move and shoot from several positions, fire under or over obstacles and in other unfamiliar positions. There are no standard exercises or set arrangement of the targets, and the courses are often designed so that the shooter must be inventive, and therefore the solutions of exercises sometimes varies between shooters.
Springfield Armory, Inc., is an American commercial firearms manufacturer and importer based in Geneseo, Illinois. Founded in 1974 by Bob Reese and family, the company produces rifles such as the M1A and imports handguns such as the XD series and Hellcat. The company is unrelated to the like-named former manufacturer of US military firearms in Massachusetts, Springfield Armory.
Jerry Charles Miculek Jr. is an American professional speed and competition shooter. Miculek has emptied a five-shot revolver in 0.57 seconds in a group the size of a playing card, thus being dubbed "The Greatest Shooter of all Time". Miculek holds five officially sanctioned world records in revolver shooting and over 15 unsanctioned records with firearms ranging from rapid firing pistols to the Barrett M107 .50 BMG rifle. Additional accomplishments include six shots in .98 seconds with a Barrett M107 .50 BMG rifle and a 1000-yard shot off hand with his 9mm Smith & Wesson revolver.
Metallic silhouette shooting is a group of target shooting disciplines that involves shooting at steel targets representing game animals at varying distances, seeking to knock the metal target over. Metallic silhouette is shot with large bore rifles fired freehand without support out to 500 meters, and with large bore handguns from the prone position with only body support out to 200 meters. Competitions are also held with airguns and black-powder firearms. A related genre is shot with bow and arrow, the metal targets being replaced with cardboard or foam. The targets used are rams, turkeys, pigs, and chickens, which are cut to different scales and set at certain distances from the shooter depending on the specific discipline.
NRA Precision Pistol, formerly known as NRA Conventional Pistol, is a national bullseye shooting discipline organized in the United States by NRA. Emphasis is on accuracy and precision, and participants shoot handguns at paper targets at fixed distances and time limits. Other organizations in the United States and Canada have established rules and keep records of similar disciplines, including the Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) in the United States,.
The 10 meter air pistol is an Olympic shooting event governed by the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF). It is similar to 10 meter air rifle in that it is shot with 4.5 mm caliber air guns at a distance of 10 metres (11 yards), and that the match consists of a qualification round of 60 competition shots within 75 minutes. If an Electronic Scoring System (EST) is not available, 15 minutes are added to the time limit. Competitors are allowed to shoot an unlimited amount of shots during the 15 minutes preparation and sighting time. Along with the 50 meter pistol, it is considered a precision shooting event. Thus, numerous shooters compete in both events.
A racegun or race gun is a firearm that has been modified for accuracy, speed, and reliability. Often a semi-automatic pistol, raceguns are used primarily in practical shooting competitions and are modified to function best within a certain set of rules, such as weight, size, and capacity requirements.
Robert Jennings Leatham is a professional shooter who is a 24-time USPSA National champion and 7-time International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC) World Champion.
Guernsey participates in its own right in the Commonwealth Games.
The Steel Challenge is a speed shooting competition governed by the Steel Challenge Shooting Association (SCSA) that consists of eight standardized stages with steel targets in three sizes; small circular, large circular and rectangular targets. Competitors are scored solely by the time it takes them to complete each stage, and the match winner is the competitor with the lowest overall time.
The Bianchi Cup is the NRA National Action Pistol Championship, a major action pistol tournament usually held over three days in late May, in Columbia, Missouri, at the Green Valley Rifle & Pistol Club. It has the largest purse of any tournament on the action pistol calendar and is the premier action pistol championship tournament in the world. The Bianchi Cup is the only major shooting tournament that has retained its original course of fire since its inception.
The Southern Boys - also known as The Wild-Eyed Southern Boys and The Young Pistols - were a professional wrestling tag team active between 1987 and 1991 in Championship Wrestling from Florida, Southeastern Championship Wrestling, and World Championship Wrestling. The tag team was composed of Steve Armstrong and Tracy Smothers.
The Canadian Armed Forces Small Arms Concentration (CAFSAC) and the Canadian Army Skill At Arms Meeting (CASAM) are a series of shooting matches conducted annually by the Canadian Forces at the Connaught Ranges and Primary Training Centre, located near Shirley's Bay in Ottawa, Ontario. The matches are preceded by the Dominion of Canada Rifle Association (DCRA) National Service Arms Competition, also conducted annually at Connaught Ranges, and are the latest iteration of a series of Canadian shooting competitions dating back to 1869.
Hezekiah Leonard Clark Jr. is an American citizen and a retired veteran of the United States Marine Corps and the United States Army who served during the Korean War and Vietnam War eras. He is a champion marksman, and as of 2014, one of only thirty-four triple-distinguished shooters: Distinguished Rifleman, Distinguished Pistol Shot, and Distinguished International Shooter.
Jessie Harrison, formerly known as Jessie Duff, is an American sport shooter from McDonough, Georgia who took silver in the Open division Lady category at the 2017 IPSC Handgun World Shoot in Châteauroux, France and bronze at the 2011 IPSC Handgun World Shoot at Rhodes, Greece. In the IPSC US Handgun Championship she took gold in the Open division Lady category in 2015 and silver in 2013. She also has 16 USPSA Handgun Championship Lady category gold medals.
The IPSC Handgun World Shoot is the highest level handgun match within the International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC) which consists of several days and at least 30 separate courses of fire. The Handgun World Shoots are held triennially on a rotational cycle with the other two main IPSC disciplines Rifle and Shotgun.
Tim Yackley is an American sport shooter who won the 2018 NRA World Shooting Championship, becoming the youngest person to ever win the event. He took bronze in the Standard division Junior category at the 2015 IPSC Shotgun World Shoot in Italy. At the 2017 IPSC Rifle World Shoot he placed 10th overall in the Open division. In June 2018, Yackley competed at the 2018 IPSC Shotgun World Shoot in France, finishing seventh overall in standard and helping Team USA win a team silver medal. Tim was also the Bianchi Cup Junior National Champion for 4 years in a row (2015-2018) and the NRA Action Pistol Junior World Champion in 2018.
The 2021 European Shooting Championships were held from 22 May to 5 June 2021 in Osijek, Croatia. 1,473 athletes from 52 countries competed.
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