Category Archives: XTC

A new tradition? NRA Championships at Camp Atterbury

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Guest post submitted by Marty Dabney about his experiences at the NRA National Championships . 

It’s no secret that High Power shooters are what most would call “salt of the earth” people. We will lend a helping hand, loan you gear and give you bad wind calls with the greatest of intentions. We are also traditionalist. We compete for the same trophies our grandparents competed for. The Daniel Boone, Nathan Hale and Alice Bull just to name a few. But no trophy is greater than the place where you go to win them, Camp Perry.

There is no doubt when you ask someone if they are going to “The Nationals”, they  are really asking if they are going to Perry. This is the where thousands of shooter from all walks of life and skill level from all across the world come together once a year to partake in the tradition of staying in little white huts, cooking out, walking commercial row and occasionally compete in a rifle match. You can be a brand new shooter and by the grace of random squadding, end up shooting with past National Champions. It’s also a place of unpredictable weather, high winds and is prone to having a boat drift into the impact area and shut down the range. The Nationals have been held at Camp Perry long before anyone reading this was born.  It seemed this would go on forever, but one day, it didn’t.

In 2017, the NRA made the decision to leave Camp Perry and move their National Championships to Camp Atterbury. It was no surprise that many shooters were upset about the move. How could they do this? What was the reasoning? Many people felt that all tradition was lost, but was it? The NRA still has the same trophies they’ve always had, the Wimbledon, the Sierra and the trophy that most intrigues me, the Erdman trophy. So why did competitors scoff at the idea of a change in venue? Because we are traditionalist. We now have to come to the realization that our Nationals won’t be held on hallowed ground,  but some National Guard base in the middle of Indiana. When i think of Indiana, I think of Steers and ……corn, lots and lots of corn. Is this the end of our National Championship as we know it, or is this the beginning of something great?

On July 18th, 2017, I walked off the line of the NTI match as a newly Distinguished Rifleman. I had also earned 3 President 100 medals as well as various other State and Regional championships. The Service rifle treated me well so in good fashion and questionable judgment, I abandon the very rifle that treated me so well and switch to a match rifle, a stupid, stupid match rifle. I could now use an unlimited power optic, a lighter trigger, more adjustable stock and just about any caliber i wanted. The only issue is I now had to abandon Camp Perry and go to Camp Atterbury if I wanted to compete in a National Championship. So I packed up my gear and a suitcase that may or may not have had enough extra  pants and headed west to Indiana.

After a short 9 hour ride, I pulled in the front gate. I was greeted by a guard who checked my license. Being an active training instillation, this was needed each time i entered the gates. I was staying  on base so i checked in at the housing office and headed to my room. The rooms were very nice. We had our own individual rooms similar to a motel. They were furnished with a bed, microwave, mini refrigerator, full bathroom and air conditioning.

The following day, I met up with my team to compete in the 4 man team match. We had a break from the extreme heat and humidity that we had the prior week so we were already off to a good start. while hauling my gear to the 200 yard line, I noticed how well the range was maintained. The grass on the firing lines had been mowed, and for those who have competed on other Military bases, knows this can be hit or miss sometimes. One of the concerns from the year before was the number boards were too small. The NRA worked to correct this issue and installed larger boards. After my firing was complete, it was my turn to work the pits for the rest of the team. Another concern from the previous year were the target carriers were hard to operate. This issue had also been resolved as well. The carriers worked well. We finished up the team match in good time and I headed back to my room. The evening was spent sitting outside grilling with my friends that i hadn’t seen in a year. Hmm, this feels oddly familiar.

On Sunday morning, we made our way back down range for the first day of the 2400 Aggregate individual match. This is a four day match firing 60 shots per day. After the four days, the total scores are added up to determine an overall winner. Once I finished shooting, I made my way back to the pits. This is where we encountered several problems. There were communication issues, both with the portable speakers and with the radios that were used by the pit and firing line officials. This caused confusion with pit changes, alibis and the commands to start. Needless to say, this caused frustration but we made due.

On Tuesday, the heat had started to build . By mid day, it became apparent that this would be as much of an endurance match as it was  a shooting match. Thankfully, Bartlein Barrels provided us with a good supply of Gatorade and water. None of us were too proud to turn it down. After we finished with the 600 yard slow fire match, we were provided with air conditioned vans to transport us to the pits. This gave a welcome relief if only for a short time. Once again, we experienced communication issues and at one point, range control put us in a “check fire”. This is where the National Guard  stops us for various reasons like people in the impact area or incoming aircraft. This is a very active facility so it happens. It would almost be like having a boat go where it wasn’t supposed to and cause delays.

Wednesday and Thursday ran very well. The heat and humidity slowly made its way out and nicer weather took its place. The communication issues were addressed and we were off of the range by early afternoon.

The awards ceremony was held on Thursday evening at the Camp Atterbury conference center. I showered and threw on my cleanest dirty pants and headed over.  Walking into the building gave a feel of walking into a large hunting lodge. It was a place that seemed worthy of a Championship awards ceremony. The NRA had the ceremony catered with chicken, barbeque and the works. We all fixed a plate and for the next hour, sat and watched as our friends were called up to receive their awards. Those same, time honored awards that were given at Camp Perry.

The final evening was spent sitting outside our rooms congratulating our friends who did well, giving a hard time to those who didn’t, but laughing the entire time. Right before we turned in for the evening, a sort of sad silence came over our group. Our time together had come to an end. For many of us, we knew we wouldn’t see each other for another year, possibly ever. Sometimes life gets in the way and we move on from things that we once held dear. Priorities change and in the worse case, we lose someone forever. In that moment, we weren’t worried about where the Nationals were going to be held. We all left with a smile thinking about doing it all over next year.

So, another National Championship is in the books. Was this the “Perry experience” that we’ve grown accustomed to? Maybe not, but could this be the start of a new tradition? Definitely, but it’s up to us to support it. I plan on returning in 2019 to give the Erdman another go and I encourage anyone on the fence to give it a chance. We have the opportunity to make it something great for our future generation.

Some notable accomplishments –

SFC Brandon Greene overall winner 2394-147X

SGT Ben Cleland overall Service rifle winner 2386-128X. SGT Cleland also won the Erdman trophy with an impressive 599-28X only dropping 1 point on his last day.

Konrad Powers overall civilian Service Rifle winner 2372-109X

SSG Amanda Elsenboss high woman 2382-113X

Hugo Adelson high senior 2362-100X

Marty Dabney fired 10 9’s in offhand and didn’t win the Erdman

Editors note: Marty’s views on Camp Atterberry may not reflect those of “Garand Thumb Blog” who is still a little grumpy about the split but prefers NRA format matches.

Leg points at Fleet!

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This was my third trip the the spring fleet matches At MCB Quantico this year I managed to come home with 6 more leg points! Bringing me to 16 out of the 30 needed to become a Distinguished Riflemen.

This year didn’t entirely go as planned. It started off a little odd as due to a range issue at the Pacific fleet matches they invoked the “shoot slow prone at 500 on a standard MR” rule. Which was neat.

We shot two matches over two days the first being a practice match following CMP National Match course rules except with sighters. The second day we shot an EIC match.

The first day started out ok. But 3 rounds into off hand range control called a ceasefire. After some confusion it was determined that there were “VIPs hunting in the impact area”

So after awhile it was determined we would move to range 4 and send the 30 cal guys home… for some reason.

Anyway the rest of the match and the EIC the next day were otherwise business as usual. I shot my personal best XTC score the first day with a 485 and went on to shoot a 479 in the leg match on Sunday which was good enough for 6th of the non-distinguished shooters. They gave out 8 legs that day.

It was a great weekend I really like shooting these matches… even with the disruptions.

Posted in XTC

2018 CMP Eastern Cup: KTS Redemption

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After the June 2017 KTS/EIC  fiasco at Camp Perry I swore i’d never shoot on KTS targets again. At the Western Creedmoor cup Denis announced Creedmoor was giving up the cup and CMP would be taking over both eastern and western cups and using KTS targets. So after arguing with myself for awhile I decided to give the CMP KTS targets another shot. (Pun intended).

The KTS targets worked great and CMP worked hard to put on what turned out to be one of the best matches I’ve ever attended. CMP operated like a well oiled match running machine. They had representatives from KTS Norway there to work out any of the technical issues.

From what I heard, and trust me I asked around, the targets worked great. I challenged a shot and so did one of the shooters on my firing point. Since there were 3 relays challenges were a straight forward case. They just pulled the target insert and compared what the computer said to the holes in the target. We both lost our challenges.

I have renewed faith in KTS targets and CMP for that matter. It was clear at these matches that CMP had heard us and was doing everything they could to make this system work.

As far as my shooting. Well it was a bit of a train wreck, but my shooting buddy found some leg points!

What We Have Here Is A Failure to Communicate: Aborted EIC At Camp Perry

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Update 7/11/17:

I didn’t post this on Facebook after the June EIC at Perry where the e-targets failed. In service rifle we often talk about owning your bad shot then forgetting about it and moving on. I decided, for the sake of not stirring up drama, it’s best to move on.

However, it has been brought to my attention that the CEO of Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) has read my comments on the forum (which I later duplicated into this post) and was downplaying the problems to groups of shooters at the CMP cup. Telling them “oh its just some [a-hole] posting [crap] on the internet”.

I’ll own it, I can be an a-hole sometimes.

But, to paraphrase some of the music from my youth, “I don’t talk shit I state facts,” by sharing my experiences. If I wanted to “talk shit” I’d make jokes about his truck, but that’s not what this blog is for. If Mark thinks me sharing my experiences is the issue, well, we are in for a bumpy ride.

As far as I’m concerned this issue is closed. The targets worked for the CMP cup and the issue has been addressed. Continuing to poke at doesn’t help.

Own it and move on.

Original post:

There’s a couple of things I want to state right off the bat. First, I’m a supporter of e-targets, they help increase participation and when deployed properly work great. Secondly, appreciate all of the support CMP has given to the sport of High Power, I’ve come to know some of the staff over the years and they are all good hard working people who genuinely want to see this sport grow.


Let’s start with the positives, This match was a lot of firsts, it really was historic. It was the first use of e-targets on old Viale range, and first use of CMPs travel targets for an EIC. They had used them before at the Games matches,  most recently at Camp Butner for the Garand and Vintage Sniper Matches.  As an aside back in 2015 at the Western Games I got to see the etargets being piloted.


The match started just a bit late due to some “minor” damage to the targets when they were run up. This took out 5 or so targets on the big end. I don’t mind a little delay especially running on less than a full nights sleep. After that 200 went smoothly, quick relay changes and the targets worked well, I heard no reports of failures.

I was feeling good moving back to 300. Two hundred has historically been make or break for me and felt good about my score. The etargets are nice in rapid especially with an untested zero, the shots pop up right away for quick verification during the mag change.


End of the road at 300

After the line change it became apparent there was a problem. CMP did a nice job keeping us informed. Again the pit crew had ripped the cables out of some of the targets. The targets apparently use some sort of token ring network so they are wired in a series, one goes out the whole block goes out.

We had a vote on if we would stop at 300 or shoot 300 and try to shoot 10 at 600. The vote was keep going in a landslide.

With the remaining 19 targets we soldiered on. Most of the shooters on relay one completed their 300 string. There were a handful of missing shots from where I stood I heard of three shooters getting refires. Relay two wasn’t so lucky, it seemed like most of the shooters had missing shots.

Even after the second time the pit crew ripped the wires out of the targets they were apparently still down there unsupervised as I was told there was no CMP staff in the pits to check the backers for these missing shots.

The rest is history, $10,000 in damage to the targets, no paper targets to finish the match so the match was cancelled. CMP offered refunds or credits to a future match and since we did not complete 300 it did not count against our five EICs. A lot of people left disappointed that day, competitors that had driven hours to shoot there, but also the CMP staff who i’m sure did not want to end the day like that.

See the announcement from CMP Live streamed from the line here.

Steve from CMP made a Mea Culpa here explaining the technical details of what happened.

While CMP’s statement addresses much of this, in 20/20 Hindsight, there were several breakdowns that day.

1. An EIC match shouldn’t be treated as a “dry run” for the new matches. Shooting a match on etargets and being done by noon wasn’t the goal, the goal was to complete match. A goal we failed to meet.

2. CMP openly admits the issue was the training and supervision of the new pit crew. After the crew broke the first set of targets in the morning someone from staff should have been down there supervising the switch over.

3. Always have a back up plan. This was Viale range at Camp Perry, the largest rifle range in the world. A stack of paper targets in the pits ready to go would have let us finish out the match. This is service rifle, No one would have minded pit duty.

Shoulda woulda coulda…. I know.

To be clear I don’t blame the CMP ladies, the folks running the line, the teenagers on the pit crew, or the CMP KTS tech who was working hard to keep us going. This was a leadership failure.  An agenda was being pushed with no regards to the consequences of failure. Frankly, I think it’s time for a change of management.

They are going to try it again for the CMP cup next week. I hope it goes well.