Pre-2022 shooting
A concise history of my shooting 'career' up to this point:
I shot air and free pistol for USMA from 2012-2015, my sophomore-senior years, going to nationals twice and making All-American in both air and free. My personal best was 553, I think, for air. After graduating in 2015, I didn't do any competitive shooting for a few years.
2022
I picked up shooting again in February 2022, finding one C. Eddie Grove's bullseye league at Associated Gun Clubs of Baltimore through Garrision Rifle and Revolver Club. Eddie became my shooting mentor and I devoted myself to the discipline like I do when I'm passionate about anything. 2022's shooting culminated with a trip to Camp Perry, Ohio. I had a pretty mediocre (bad) first few days, mostly from unfamiliar conditions. On Saturday, I really pulled it together and won 6 service pistol distinguished points and a President's 100 tab, which really made up for it all.
2023
In 2023, I decided that I would have a lot more fun at Camp Perry if I focused on the things I was doing the best at. I was shooting .22 really competitively, and sometime in early 2023 I started consistinently shooting mid-870s / 900 in Bullseye matches. I even broke 880 a couple of times. I looked at historic winning scores for the last couple of years for the .22 category, and saw that usually scores of 855 or so were enough to win. On the other hand, my service pistol and .45 scores still left a lot to be desired. My personal best with the .45, even with a red dot, was still in the 530s, which is really not very competitive. So, I entered the .22 only category. My plan worked: I had a ton of fun, and I won the category.
I also bought an air pistol and shot the air gun matches while I was at Camp Perry. That was an awesome time, and I can't wait to do it again next year. In the process, I made a new personal best of 558/600. Also I entered each of the random 30 shot and 40 shot re-entry matches, and won one of those, which was pretty neat.
My shooting achievements in 2023:
- Achieved CMP Distinguished status in Rimfire Pistol. I got my last couple of points at the Lobster Match in Scarborough, Maine in September.
- Won the Camp Perry .22 "2700" aggregate match.
- 5th place at the 60 shot national matches air gun championships
Other notable achievements:
- Shot another new personal best in air pistol, 560/600 at a local match
- Shot some personal bests with the .45, using a red dot
My failed ones in 2023 were:
- Make the President's 100 again
- Achieve distinguished service pistol (ended the year with 12/30 points still)
2024
It's a new year and a new season of shooting. What are my goals for this year?
- Finally polish off distinguished service pistol
- Get some more distinguished air pistol points at Camp Perry, and maybe travel to one other EIC air pistol match somewhat nearby.
- Get my air pistol best to 565 from 560
- Go to a big match I haven't been to before. I'm thinking either Camp Atterbury or the CMP Eastern Games.
And longer term...
What are my longer-term pistol goals that aren't really realistic to complete this year, but I can work on anyway?
- Finish among the top 3 at a Camp Perry service pistol event, including President's 100, the National Trophy Individual match, or the individual category of the National Trophy Team match.