Choosing the Match to Aim At

Which match to make your first target, and why a sanctioned one is worth aiming for.

The most expensive assumption a beginner makes is that the bigger events are something you work up to, that you clear the small ones first, post a score good enough to justify a place, and earn your way in. Open matches do not ask for a particular score, a classification or a ranking. Nothing stops a beginner entering a national-level match in their first season, and plenty do.

There is a reason to aim at the bigger event, and it is not ambition. It is what setting a bigger goal does to your rate of progress.

The distinction that matters is who organizes the match, not where it is held.

• Local matches. Organized by a club, a team, a school or an individual: a club match, a league night or a range event, drawing that range's own regulars. Usually around ten on the line, and run as a friendly get-together.
• Sanctioned matches. Run by an official body: the CMP, USA Shooting or the NRA (National Rifle Association). Attendance is larger, the range commands are the proper ones, the match is run to the rulebook or closely aligned with it, and you will probably shoot on electronic targets. Monthly matches are single-day events, drawing more like twenty to twenty-five. Championships, such as the Camp Perry Open or a national championship, run over several days and draw more than fifty from the whole country.

The figures above are for air pistol. Rifle fields usually run three or four times larger, because rifle is the more popular of the two in the US at the moment. At a recent national-level championship held over the winter, that meant roughly sixty-five air pistol competitors against over two hundred in air rifle.

You will also hear some matches called regional. That is an informal label for a larger match that draws from neighboring states: the CMP monthly matches at Camp Perry draw shooters from the northern and central states, for example, and those at Anniston from the South. It is not an official category.

Aim at a sanctioned match. That is where the benefit described above actually comes from, and it means your first real experience is a properly run one, with proper commands. A monthly match is the sweet spot: properly run, and cheaper and closer to home than the championships, which are clustered on the calendar, farther away, larger and more expensive. The CMP runs six monthly matches a year, each held at both of its competition centers, three from late winter to spring and three in the fall, and USA Shooting has a monthly match of its own. A championship is not out of reach either. The CMP's open championships welcome competitors of every level: the Camp Perry Open in January, the Air Pistol Nationals in July, and the Alabama Airgun and Smallbore Cup (formerly the Dixie Double) in October. For air rifle there is also the Walther Cup at West Virginia University in November. The big matches also draw equipment vendors, which is another reason to go. Find the nearest sanctioned match you can get into within the next three to six months, register, and make that the one you train toward.

Local matches still count, just not as a prerequisite. If a club match or a league night comes up before your target date, take it. Experience early is worth having and it costs you very little. But shoot those because they exist and they are convenient, not because you think you need to clear them before you are allowed at something bigger.

What You Need to Enter

The registrations you need before you can enter a CMP or USA Shooting match.

This is the boring but necessary part, and it is short. Two organizations run most of what you will want to enter, the CMP and USA Shooting, and before you can enter anything of theirs you need to be registered with them. The CMP part takes a few minutes and you do it once. The USA Shooting part can wait until you have chosen one of its events.

For the CMP, registration is free. There is no individual membership at all. What you need is a Competitor Number, which the CMP's own site calls a CT Number, a tracking number that keeps your scores attached to you. Get it at the CMP's Register for a CT Number page, which takes you to the same Competition Tracker you search for matches on. Do it now, as soon as you finish reading this. Every CMP match will ask for it, and every competitor needs their own, so a family registers separately. Adults also sign the CMP's affidavit and liability release, and competitors under 18 need a parental consent form. You can download them from the CMP site beforehand and sign at check-in.

USA Shooting is different. Membership is paid, offered in annual and longer terms, and it funds the development of the US national teams and the events they compete in. Its sanctioned events require it. SafeSport training and a background check are not required of every athlete. They are required of adults who shoot at USA Shooting's own range in Colorado Springs, where its monthly match is held, and some match programs require them of every athlete over 18. The match program will tell you. Because it costs money, do not take it out just in case. Take it out once you have chosen a USA Shooting event. Enroll at usashooting.org.

That is the paperwork. From here on it is about the events themselves.

Finding and Registering for Matches

Where matches are listed, how to find the ones that are not, and when to register.

The CMP and USA Shooting each publish their own calendar.

Start with the CMP Competition Tracker, ct.thecmp.org, and search for upcoming air gun matches near you. This is where the CMP's own sanctioned matches sit: the championships, and the monthly matches at its two competition centers. The Tracker also carries events run by the CMP's affiliated clubs and organizations. There are more than 2,000 of them (October 2026), but only a small fraction run air gun programs. Those run from state-level championships, mostly for juniors, down to ordinary club matches, so a single search covers sanctioned and local matches at once.

Then the USA Shooting event calendar, at usashooting.org/get-involved/events/. As the national governing body for Olympic shooting in the US, its calendar leans national: championships and selection matches. There is also a monthly match in Colorado Springs, the PTO (Preliminary Tryouts), run by the National Training Center Shooting Club at the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Center and open to USA Shooting members. For dates, check the events calendar or contact the club.

Many local matches are on neither calendar. Club leagues, junior programs and informal open matches exist that never reach a published listing anywhere. They are worth having once you are going, but nothing consolidates them, so finding them takes more digging than a search will do for you. When nothing turns up online, the shortcut is to call: match directors are almost always glad to hear from newcomers, and a phone call often surfaces a match that was never posted anywhere.

Read the match details before you commit. Every event posts its own. Do not assume you can simply show up and shoot. Most matches require advance registration, and the popular ones fill quickly.

Register as soon as registration opens. A confirmed entry is what starts the effect described in Why Compete, and Why Now (Part 1).

Part 3 covers what entry and travel cost for a first match, how to get a match gun to the line, how a match day runs from check-in to the final, the questions first-timers ask most, and equipment control. It follows in a few days.

Help Us Keep This Guide Current

We keep this guide up to date, and we would appreciate your help with that. Fees, facilities, calendar dates and rules all change. If you spot anything worthwhile that we missed, an error, or a change to the regulations or to anything else we reference, please contact us at sportshootingdepot.com/contact-us. Every note helps us keep the guide accurate and current.

Disclaimer

This guide shares what has worked for us and for other shooters. It is not legal or professional advice. Entry requirements, fees and rules are set by the organizations that run each match, not by us, and they change. You are responsible for following the laws and rules where you live, and for checking the current match program and rulebook before relying on any rule described here.