From the vault: Former Managing Editor Chip Lohman’s 2009 NRA National High Power Rifle Championship match report. In a surprise ending that year, Norm Houle returned to the podium in first place as the 2009 NRA National High Power Rifle Champion. As published in the October 2009 issue of Shooting Sports USA.
Results: 2009 NRA National High Power Rifle Championship
Story and Photos by Chip Lohman
Like a patient race car driver running in the draft of the leaders for the first 400 laps, Rhode Island’s Norman Houle skillfully held his position while other champions cross fired, pulled an eight on the final shot or endured ammunition problems until he emerged the overall champion. With the top three winners separated by only one point each, Houle’s win, with an aggregate score of 2387-124X fired over four days, wasn’t known until the awards ceremony.
1. In what proved to be foretelling, the Creedmoor Sports Team posed for this group photo two days before the awards ceremony. From left to right are Army Spc. Sherri Gallagher, winner of eight awards and three new records; Norman Houle, our 2009 champion, team captain and High Civilian Service Rifle Champion Dennis DeMille, third place winner David Tubb and ninth place Ron Zerr, making them the team to beat. DeMille is the only competitor to have won both the National High Power Match Rifle Championship and the NRA High Power Service Rifle Championship (both as a civilian and service member). Tubb has won 11 High Power Match Rifle and five Long-Range Rifle Championships.
2. Norman Houle (center) receives his award as the 2009 NRA National High Power Rifle Champion, flanked by second place Carl Bernosky (left) and third place David Tubb. Watch to see who emerges from the pack or is the “walk-on” winner in 2010.
3. Unlike the shorter-range pistol matches where shooters replace their own targets, rifle shooters alternate between shooting and pulling targets. Even the champions take their turn in the “pits” to pull and mark where the bullets strike. So, even though your score may be somewhere in the middle, some lucky shooter can boast that the 2009 National Champion—Norman Houle, pulled their target.
4. Sherri Gallagher (left) and David Tubb chat to ease the tension before their shoot-off to break an unbreakable tie from the previous day. As spectators, linesmen and the press watched, both shooters fired a perfect score of 100—Sherri with 7X and David with 8X, in the 300-yard rapid-fire prone event.
NRA High Power Rifle shooters fire four stages “across-the-course”: the 200-yard standing, 200-yard rapid-fire sitting or kneeling, 300-yard rapid-fire prone and 600-yard prone. Each stage has it’s own name such as the “Members Trophy Match #441” for 200-yard standing or the “Marine Corps Cup Match #448” for 300-yard prone. Consequently, shooters compete for many more awards than just the overall aggregate, fired over four days with three stages each day. Over forty awards were distributed on the evening of the fourth day, in addition to the top three overall winners.
5. The 2009-second place winner and nine-time national champion (including 2007 and 2008) Carl Bernosky signs his scorecard after the 200-yard rapid-fire sitting event.
6. While a new match gun can cost $4,500, not everything on the range has to be expensive. Several shooters were seen with this latest “gun cart” from the Rubbermaid Company. While they deserve credit for their ingenuity, they will likely catch heat from home when the missing trashcans are discovered.
7. The son of a retired Marine who taught him how to shoot while stationed at the Pentagon, 16-year-old Tanner Mayberry of Fallon, Nevada, visualizes his next shot in the 200-yard standing stage with an AR-15.
8. The service rifle category allows shooters to use an M1, M14 or M16 (modified to be incapable of automatic fire), AR-10, AR-15 and some foreign military service rifles. Here, 85-year-old Richard Downs of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, shoots his M1 rifle from the 300-yard line.
By the end of the week, 1,043 rifle shooters had fired their service and match guns at the 2009 NRA National High Power Championship on a professionally run range that included near-perfect weather, help from the service team armorers, discussions and meetings with other experienced shooters, the latest products from “Commercial Row” vendors and the satisfaction of having participated in the “World Series” of rifle shooting.
2009 NRA National High Power Championship Leaderboard
Learn more about the NRA National High Power Rifle Championship at the NRA Competitive Shooting Division website at competitions.nra.org.
