The 2024 SIG Sauer USPSA Carry Optics Nationals presented by Vortex Optics returned to the Cardinal Shooting Center in Marengo, Ohio, June 26-30. There was a tremendous amount of expectation leading into the match; not only were there returning National Champions, but also several World Champions who would be battling it out in the bays on 20 challenging stages that would face the competitors.
The Cardinal Shooting Center was the host of not only the 2023 USPSA Carry Optics Nationals but also the Handgun Nationals last fall, as well as the Ohio State Buckeye Blast two years in a row. The owners at Cardinal have continued to improve the range with each match. In 2023, the addition of nine new dirt bays has made this a viable range to host large action-shooting events. With it being centrally located, competitors find it easy to access, whether driving or flying. The range is 25 minutes north of Columbus, Ohio, where there are ample hotels, restaurants and shopping centers. The range itself also has camping, RV and cabin accommodations onsite. Cardinal has been the host to large shotgun tournaments for many years, where more than 3,000 people attend.
There are 21 bays for use at the range, with plenty of parking. There is also a bullseye range with turning targets that was used in 2023. Additionally, the Red Feather Outfitters store on the property carries firearms, ammunition, and accessories. The building itself has offices and classroom areas for the use of USPSA staff while running the match. Off to the far left of the main ranges are additional bays that can be used for sight-in and warmup. The center bays of the range are referred to as Range 2 or the wood bays. There are 12 of these, which have some restrictions on shooting into the side wooden walls. However, the crew at Cardinal has continued to enhance the props at the range, including the addition of bullet traps that were mounted to the side walls, allowing these bays to be used in a more traditional way than in the past. This added to the creativity for the stage designers for this year’s match.
Match Director duties fell to USPSA President Yee-min Lin. Under his direction, a team was assembled to design the match and get it on the ground. Assistant Match Director Todd Holmes took the reins and led the charge, working with several different stage designers. In addition, Matt Hopkins joined the team to collect the stages and work through designs to select the ones that went on the ground. The team worked with the selected Range Masters to fine-tune the stages, as well as the written stage briefs, to put together a challenging event to test the best shooters in the world while having a fun and fair Nationals for all competitors.
Also, during the match, not only was the vendor area packed with sponsors, but SIG Sauer was back running the SHOOT SIG event during the match. Building on the success of the matches last year, the SHOOT SIG event has continued to gain popularity with its simple-to-understand stages, available SIG firearms for use and packed awards and challenge coins for those chasing their scores.
The staff hit the range to finalize the stages on June 24-25, with the Range Masters assigned to their zones and the Chief Range Officers making final adjustments to their stages before the staff would “Make Ready” on June 26-27, ahead of the main match that took place that Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The range was split into three zones, each with its own unique set of stages for the total of 514 competitors to test their skills on.
The Carry Optics division has continued to grow, being the most popular division in USPSA and attracting the most new competitors as well as retaining USPSA’s current membership. The guns are based off the approved Production firearm list and require a slide-mounted optic. Competitors can use magazines that have extended base pads as long as they measure less than 141.25 mm in length. This allows for most firearms magazines to hold 22 to 23 rounds, with some pushing it to 24.
The division's popularity is due to regular off-the-shelf firearms with basic modifications, regular gear and high-capacity magazines. CZs, SIGs, Walthers, Glocks and others that are readily available are the most popular firearms. Many of the companies have built ready-to-race competition guns set up and ready to hit the range with no real upgrades needed, like the SIG P320MAX, the CZ Shadow 2 and the Walther PDP Steel Frame models. The industry has seen the growth and popularity of competition and continues to respond.
The same can be said about the optics manufacturers who have also seen the demand for reliable red dots that can handle the abuse of competition. SIG Sauer, Holosun, Trijicon and presenting sponsor Vortex Optics have all stepped up with new models that are built for hard use over the last few years. It is no surprise that the USPSA Carry Optics division is as popular as it is, with the industry answering the call for the demand for guns, gear and accessories to match.
Last year saw Christian Sailer edge out the defending champ Nils Jonasson and leave the rest of the field in his wake. Sailer went on to win the Open division at the IPSC World Championship as well. The top contenders like Sailer, Jonasson, Hetherington, Michel, Lane and Vlieger were going to face a new challenge this year. Eric Grauffel and the CZ team were coming to try and crash the party this year. Grauffel has won just about everything he has participated in since, well, forever. Along for the ride were his teammates Edcel Gino and Martin Kamenicek, as well as his son Robin Grauffel. Like I said, the anticipation for this year’s event was set and primed to put the world’s top shooters together and battle it out over three days in Ohio. On the ladies’ side, Justine Williams was back to defend her 2023 title against Morgan Leonhardt, Ashley Robertson and Jalise Williams. Justine has held the top spot since 2022.
Over the three days, the match would be split into the three zones with a.m. and p.m. squads. Each squad would compete in a zone each day over the three days, alternating either a morning start or afternoon start. Zone 1 was made up of six total stages worth 740 points, the least amount of available points for the match. However, the mix of these six stages provided some of the more interesting challenges to start the match for the Super Squads that were split up into three different squads of 12. The top returning 12 shooters would start on Stage 1, with the ladies on Stage 2 and the other top contenders and the CZ team on Stage 3 to rotate through the zone.
Stage 1 was worth 155 points and featured a mix of 13 cardboard targets with five steel. A start to the far right of the stage with a group of targets to the far left and then moving downrange and over to the left as targets opened up from right to left. There was a port in the middle section that required a hard stop for the targets and then a sprint to the last two sections. Jared Clanton took the stage win.
Stage 2 had 120 points up for grabs with a start in the center of the shooting area. There were two ports, center and left side, opening towards the right. Left to right or right to left just depended on how the stage flowed for the shooters. Team CZ Shooter Edcel Gino grabbed a stage win here.
Stage 3 had an uprange start to the far right and was worth 125 points. There were three more shooting positions, and most competitors started at the front right, sprinted to the far back left corner, and then worked their way back up and to the right to finish in the center front area with two cardboard to engage. Jacob Hetherington’s time of 16.70 seconds took the win—his first of the match.
Only halfway through this zone, Justine Williams had already taken three stage wins to start her match. The Stage 4 win went to John Martello with the second fastest time of 13.84 with 98 points shot of the available 110. The eight cardboard and six steel were laid out where you had to decide how to engage the activated bobber. The popper that activated it would require you to come back to the left to get the bobber or, like Justine Williams and some others, you took off all the way to the far right and worked your way back to the left position.
Stage 5 was a loaded table start with the table centered. You would have to work up to either the front right or left first and then back around. Sailer won the available 110 points, his first, just beating out Grauffel, who had the faster time, but Sailer had more points.
Edcel Gino would grab his second stage win on Stage 6, finishing day one leading the pack. Stage 6 was worth 120 points with an unloaded start and eight cardboard and eight steel targets. Justine Williams won five of the six stages on day one, with Leonhardt grabbing the other.
Day 2 saw some rain come through and make the stages in Zone 2 a little more difficult with the bags on to protect the targets. There were longer shots in this zone compared to the first zone, with 805 points available in Zone 2. Stage 7 would start the competitors outside of the swaying bridge. On the start, they would have to move across it to get the eight cardboard and four steel, one activating a bobber on the left side. The 100 points here went to Gino, who was increasing his lead already on Day 2.
Stage 8 would have competitors going prone in order to engage the downrange targets in the center after some right-to-left transitions on the start. The available 95 points went to Jared Clanton for his second stage win of the match with a 0.09-second faster run than Grauffel shooting the same points (something to get framed and hung on the wall).
Hetherington would get another stage win on Stage 9, worth 130 points, with 11 cardboard and four steel, one that activated a mover.
The next four stages that would finish out Zone 2 moved to the new “dirt berms” at Cardinal. These are the traditional style of bays, but here they are quite deep, which would play a factor in the longer shots that were coming for the competitors. Stage 10 was a 31-round stage worth 155 points, with 13 cardboard targets and five steel. There was an activated swinger that was at 15 yards from the center downrange position. The start was anywhere and left this one to lots of different plans. Williams won another here, as did Jacob Hetherington, making the race a lot more interesting coming into the final stages of Day 2.
Stages 11 and 12 shared a bay. Stage 11 was an 80-point fixed time stage with eight cardboard targets. Fixed Time is a math problem; do you have enough time to push and get all the shots off, but maybe dropping points, or rack up as many points as you can, not pushing to get all the shots off? Brian Diaz won with 70 points shot over JJ Racaza with 69.
Stage 12 was only 85 points with seven cardboard and three steel. It was a fast course of fire with Garran Singleton going full throttle in 7.62 seconds, shooting 81 points for a stage win.
Stage 13, worth 160 points, would wrap up Zone 2. Team Walther’s Jay Beal took the stage win here on this difficult stage with some tough positioning to engage all the targets.
Going into the final day of competition, Justine Williams was on fire, but for the men, the race was tight; there were 830 points on the line, with the toughest stages of the match ahead of them. Stage 14 started Zone 3 with 140 available points; with a downrange start and two ports, competitors worked back uprange, with most going to the back left and then right to get the far outside targets and move forward to finish. Justine Williams started with another win on day three over her sister Jalise. Joon Kim’s 16.93-second time with 136 points shot took the stage win from Edcel Gino.
Kim would back up his win on Stage 14 with another on Stage 15, a fast 70-pointer with only six cardboard targets, but the last one was deep at 20 yards downrange. Stage 16 shared the bay here and was another fast 60-point stage with five cardboard, one a swinger activated by one of the two poppers, two outside targets and then a door to swing open to finish. This stage win went to Isaac Lockwood over Grauffel.
Stage 17, worth 135 points, had a unique shooting area and a center-of-the-bay start outside of the somewhat X-shaped fault lines. All four corners and the center would have to be hit to get the 11 cardboard and five steel. Tyler Meisenheimer’s fast 17.88-second run got him the win here over Gino. Sailer was battling back on Day 3 after having equipment issues on Day 2. He took the stage win on Stage 18, which was worth 120 points. He followed that up with another win on Stage 19, taking the available 155 points with a fast 16.56-second run. It was coming down to the 150 points available on probably the hardest long shots of the match. Grauffel’s squad had already shot this stage in the rotation. Fifteen cardboard targets were out there to decide how everyone was going to stack up this year. There were three targets out to 35 yards, two with no-shoots on them. Sailer had two misses on this stage, knocking him back, and the stage win went to Billy Barton.
At the end of the match, the guy that had no stage wins and was 11 seconds slower than the fastest total time won the match. Eric Grauffel took the 2024 USPSA Carry Optics Nationals after shooting 92.64% of the available points with a consistent match performance. He shot 413 As and 60 Cs. His CZ teammates grabbed second and third, with Edcel Gino right behind in second place and Martin Kamenicek in third. Jacob Hetherington had the fastest overall time of 297.48 seconds, with 89.84% of the points shot. This earned him fourth and the U.S. National Champion title for 2024. As for Justine Williams, she racked up her third USPSA Ladies National Champion in a row with an impressive performance over the other top ladies.
There were 475 rounds scored over the five days of competition between the amazing staff that worked and shot the match and the competitors who battled over the last three days. The Cardinal Shooting Center was again an excellent host of this year’s match.
Todd Holmes and the collective crew of stage designers, Range Masters, Chief Range Officers, Range Officerss, Stats and range staff spent weeks planning out the match on calls and emails leading up to putting on this event. It was a well-received and challenging match to test all the skills required to be successful in this sport. Thanks to all the crew and to all the competitors who continue to make this a safe, fun and fair competitive shooting sport for everyone.
2024 USPSA CARRY OPTICS NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP LEADERBOARD
Overall
- Eric Grauffel, 2200.1384
- Edcel Gino, 2167.1791
- Martin Kamenicek, 2153.5423
U.S. National Champion
- Jacob Hetherington, 2133.6623
Lady
- Justine Williams (also U.S. National Lady Champion), 1862.2075
- Ashley Robertson, 1654.1226
- Morgan Leonhardt, 1582.0263
Senior
- Henning Wallgren, 1842.1571
- Roy Stedman, 1705.3404
- Zuoming Zheng, 1698.4063
Junior
- Robin Grauffel, 1772.9304
Law Enforcement
- Erik Schall, 1976.6402
- Jeremy Story, 1958.4231
- Wesley Cronin, 1898.6664
Military
- Jacob Hetherington, 2133.6623
- Payton Garcia, 1867.7101
- Christian Magaling, 1852.0507
You can see the full results of the 2024 USPSA Carry Optics Nationals at the Practiscore website.
Article from the September/October 2024 issue of USPSA’s magazine.
