Bill Poole's National Match Course Page
At the AZ Highpower rifle championships jan 2000,
Larry W. on rt, Bill Poole center, Tom A. scoring.
a view from
300 yds a few years ago.
This page and the attached
links
try to describe a type of participatory sporting event known as High
Power
Rifle Shooting. Specifically, the National Match and Regional Match
Course
disciplines, including Service Rifle.
There are four shooting stages to this match:
200 yards, 10 shots, (plus 2 sighters) slow fire, standing,
12 minutes.
200 yards, 10 shots, (after 2 slow fire sighter
shots, 2
minutes) rapid fire, sitting, 60
seconds.
300 yards, 10 shots, (after 2 slow fire sighter
shots, 2
minutes) rapid fire, prone, 70
seconds.
600 yards, 20 shots, (plus 2 sighters) slow fire,
prone,
22 minutes.
For your information, a
"National
Match Course" is 50 shots. A "Regional Match Course" is 80 shots. (The
slow standing is 20 shots instead of 10, and there are two strings of
10
shots for each rapid stage instead of one string each.)
The distance are listed above, although
many ranges use reduced targets and shoot only out to 100, 200, 300 or
500 yards.
Basically, the match is shot
with
a US military type rifle, or commercial equivilent, or a "target"
rifle.
It is derived from the US military's turn of the century marksmanship
training
with the 1903 Springfield rifle.
Some time ago, I wrote a brief
introduction
to National Match Course Shooting specifically to hand out at our
monthly
match at the Ojai Valley Gun Club. Most
of
the information is applicable to any club's NMC.
You can probably find a club
shooting
high power rifle within 2 hours drive almost anywhere in the US. This
is
the internet, however, if you are Dhahran, Dakar, Dakka or Djakarta,
well,
you're on your own! You will find all registered matches in the US
listed
in Shooting Sports USA magazine, one of the publications of the NRA,
they should have subscription info at their site, or write: 11250
Waples
Mill Rd, Fairfax, VA 22030-9400.
This might help (if
you're in AZ):
Some useful stuff:
- Here is a list
of items useful in shooting NMC. This also includes addresses of
manufacturers
and mail-order vendors of gear and reloading supplies.
- Rifles
we often use:
- Often, no actually its
almost
exclusively,
the rifles used by the serious competitors have been accurized by
gunsmiths.
- Here are some thoughts I
have
about
acquiring a rifle if you plan to get
serious
in high-power rifle competition.
- Here are some thoughts I
have
about
"acquiring" ammo for serious use in
high-power
rifle competition.
- Here is another good
article
by Robert
Gibson
- Years ago, a friend and I
taught a
class introducing National Match type shooting to beginning competitors
at our club, and I started writing a book based on the course notes
specifically
directed towards beginners. A partial draft of that book exists,
evetually
I will make enough progress on it that it could be of use, and when
that
time comes, it will quite possibly be available via the internet, with
a hyper-text link, right here on this very page, check back!
- The CMP,
or the Civilian Marksmanship Program
formerly the Army's Director of Civilian Marksmanship. They have a
program
to encourage rifle practice and it is funded by selling WWII surplus US
M1 Garand rifles (under very strict conditions), which are quite will
suited
for use as a target rifle in this type of match. Fulton
Armory has a pretty decent page on the Civilian
Marksmanship Program too.
- Here's my page on another
type of match
called the Palma Match,
this is long range, 800, 900 1000 yard slow fire, prone shooting.
- Camp
Perry is where the Actual National Matches are held, and
some
info from NRA
too.
- Here's another write
up
from
me
- and here's one from Dave Gowan describing
the reduced
match at smaller clubs.
last modified by Bill
Poole on 18-Dec-08, 17-jan-05, 1-Feb-00, 6-Sep-01, 4-Nov-01, ©.
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Tom K, Typical match at Rio
Salado in Mesa, AZ.
I had heard that only US citizens could shoot LEG or CMP team
matches.
So I asked CMP:
"The CMP has and does allow people from other countries to participate
in our matches. During the Nationals we have had people from
Canada
and Austraila come to shoot (probably other countries too). At one time
it was written in our rules that only US Citizens could
participate.
This is no longer the case." - C.P. CMP competitions.