This month I want to highlight a few more major NRA National Championships occurring around the country in 2022, including one of my favorites, the National Silhouette Championships.
Silhouette is one of the most popular NRA competitive shooting disciplines. At the 2021 NRA National Silhouette Rifle Championships, conducted last summer at the Ridgway Rifle Club in Ridgway, Pennsylvania, shooters traveled from 23 states (along with a few from Mexico) to compete in both smallbore and high power rifle events. And with good reason—there’s nothing quite as satisfying as hearing that steel ding after successfully knocking down one of the four silhouette game animal targets—chickens, pigs, turkeys and rams.
In silhouette high power and smallbore rifle competition, shooting is at distances of 200, 300, 385 and 500 meters. The silhouettes are grouped by animal type in banks of five, with chickens up front, followed by rows of pigs, turkeys and rams. All targets are shot standing, without support in the offhand position—a true test of marksmanship skills.
Some silhouette championship aggregates will span multiple sub-aggregates, such as at last year’s Silhouette Lever-Action and Blackpowder Rifle Championships, also held at Ridgway Rifle Club. John Mullins, the winner of the Lever-Action Rifle 3-Gun Championship, had an aggregate score of 222 out of 240, drawn from eight different matches including pistol cartridge, smallbore and standard lever-action rifle events.
The NRA is thankful for its partnership with the Ridgway Rifle Club in administering the nationals. Last year’s High Power Rifle 2-Gun aggregate champ, Erich Mietenkorte, said about the venue: “The Ridgway Rifle Club is a great place to shoot silhouette. The passion that personnel have for the silhouette discipline is amazing and can be seen in the way they run a championship match. And the support they have for juniors is beyond reproach.”
For 2022, the Silhouette Lever-Action and Blackpowder Cartridge Rifle Championships will be held at the NRA Whittington Center in Raton, New Mexico. Below is the schedule and locations for the 2022 NRA National Silhouette Championships.
While dates aren’t available as of yet, this year NRA is conducting two more rifle championships that you won’t want to miss. The 2022 Fullbore Prone National Championship will be held at the NRA Whittington Center, while the National F-Class Rifle Championship will be at the Ben Avery Shooting Facility in Phoenix, Arizona. We’ll have more details available soon on the website.
For more information about the 2022 NRA National Championships and volunteer opportunities at the matches, visit competitions.nra.org.
National Silhouette Lever-Action Rifle Championship
July 21-24, 2022: Raton, New Mexico
National Silhouette Blackpowder Cartridge Rifle Championship
July 26-30, 2022: Raton, New Mexico
National Silhouette Smallbore Rifle Championship
August 7-9, 2022: Ridgway, Pennsylvania
National Silhouette High Power Rifle Championship
August 11-13, 2022: Ridgway, Pennsylvania
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