Team NRA captain John Bailey hammers the steel plates with a Smith & Wesson M&P 15-22.
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Team NRA
Team NRA got together just before the rifle matches. From left, Darren LaSorte, Randy Clark, Kyle Crew and team captain John Bailey.
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Shooting a Sharps
Another side match was shooting a genuine Sharps 1874 rifle, chambered in .45-70. This rifle, made by Christian Sharps in 1877, fired more than 400 full-house, blackpowder loads during the two-day event without a hitch.
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Airborne Archery
Using flu-flu arrows, contestants had five tries to hit an aerial target.
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More Than Guns
One of the 17 side matches was this tomahawk throwing contest sponsored by Benchmade Knives.
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Not Easy
Many contestants found the sporting clays leg of the match quite challenging.
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Starting it Off
Former NRA editor Tes Salb fired the first shots at the Shooting Industry Masters tournament with a rimfire semi-auto.
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It’s Western
Contestants were required to shoot a compressed version of a cowboy action match featuring two revolvers, a lever-action rifle and a double-barreled shotgun.
The micro red-dot (MRD) craze is in full-swing and, several years in, it shows no signs of slowing down—to the point that most new semi-automatic pistol introductions, and even some revolvers, now come from the factory ready to accept such an optic.
As multiple gunmakers hustled to produce 7 mm Backcountry prototypes in the weeks leading up to our hunt, it was lucky happenstance that Weatherby was first to the gate.
New for 2025, from Henry Repeating Arms is an entirely new division of the manufacturing company especially dedicated to advancing the design of firearms and technology to solve real-world problems. Enter the Special Products Division (SPD):
Designed for "any-range" big-game hunting, Federal’s new 7 mm Backcountry chambering relies on cutting-edge metallurgy and other advanced techniques in a surprising bid to change ammunition history.
Stoeger’s STR-9 series of striker-fired semi-automatic pistols have garnered much attention for its feature-rich designs and affordable price points. For 2025, the company is bringing an entirely new class of STR-9 to the U.S.