My son Logan has been shooting with the Cheyenne Legion Post 6 air gun shooting team for the past few years, and last week, he moved on to the highest level in the program – the Distinguished Expert level.
He still has quite a bit of work to do to earn the Distinguished Expert award, but he’s already well on his way. The NRA marksmanship program, which is what Post 6 participates in, has 15 levels, starting with Pro Marksman and ending with Distinguished Expert. Each level has a progressively higher score the kids have to achieve to move to the next level, and each level requires them to shoot from either prone, kneeling or standing positions. Once they get to the Expert level, though, they shoot all three positions and their scores from each position are added up. They have to get a combined score of 220, 230, and then 240 out of a possible 300 points to move up to Distinguished Expert. And then it gets even more difficult.
Logan will have to shoot 10 sets of two targets each from prone, kneeling and standing positions, and his combined score for each six-target group will have to add up to 500 points out of a possible 600.
That means in order to meet those requirements, he needs a near-perfect score in the most stable position, which is prone, and he can’t drop many points in kneeling, either. The better he does in prone and kneeling, the more leeway he’ll have when he shoots standing. But that hasn’t seemed to be much of a problem for him – he’s been shooting in the high 80s on standing, out of a possible 100 per target.
I wish I could still shoot like that – if I ever was able to. If you have a kid who likes to shoot, help him or her join a team like the Post 6 shooting team. Trust me, it’s even better watching your kid shoot well than doing it yourself.
