One of the highest honors in competitive shooting is earning the Distinguished Rifleman Badge. This Badge was created by the War Department in 1884 to recognize members of the U.S. Army for Excellence-in-Competition (EIC) with the Army’s service rifle. Other U.S. Armed Forces soon adopted a similar program and in 1926 civilians were authorized to participate. This story is about William “Tom” Collins, 50, of Maumee, Ohio, who earned his badge in July 2020. His achievement was a landmark — Civilian Distinguished Rifleman Badge number 2500.

Collins Earns Distinguished Rifleman Badge Number 2500

Story based on Report by Ashley Brugnone, CMP Staff Writer
For over 20 years, the Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) has issued Distinguished Badges to competitors who collect at least 30 Excellence-In-Competition (EIC) “leg” points — earned by placing in the top 10% of an EIC match. This story is about Ohio shooter William “Tom” Collins, who recently earned Distinguished Rifleman Badge number 2500. [Editor: To learn more about the history of the Distinguished Rifleman Badge and what is takes to earn it, read Distinguished Rifleman — the Chase for Excellence by Jonathan Ocab.]

For Collins, this fulfilled a dream to join generations of elite marksmen before him. “The Distinguished Rifleman Badge has been a goal of mine since I learned about it,” Collins said. “I like to think back on the history of the badge … It makes me proud to be a part of that.”

Collins earned Distinguished Rifleman Badge #2500 in July. “Shooting is almost like meditation to me”, Collins said. “You really can’t think about anything other than the current shot. It’s very relaxing.”

He gives simple advice to other competitors hoping to one day earn a Distinguished Badge of their own: “Anyone working on it – quit thinking about it. Just shoot.”

Collins is congratulated by his friend Jamie Root after “going Distinguished”.

Collins has been shooting most of his life. Growing up in rural Ohio, he received his first BB gun around seven years old and his first .22 at age 11. It wasn’t until he joined the Army Reserves in 1987 that he received any formal marksmanship training. After he left the Reserves nine years later, he started looking toward organized shooting sports.

One day, back in 2014, he picked up his rifle and took the 45-minute drive to Fremont, Ohio, to fire in his first GSM (Garand-Springfield-Modern/Vintage Military) Match at the Sandusky County Sportsmen’s Club. It was there that he met Jesse Bragg, who was running the event.

Jesse Bragg, a retired staff sergeant from the Marine Corps Reserve Rifle Team, took Collins under his wing and showed him the ropes. Collins says Bragg seemed to want to teach more than run the match. In fact, Bragg was the one who introduced Collins to the idea of pursuing a Distinguished Badge. Collins admits that he had no clue what “going distinguished” meant. Bragg went over the terms – legging out, finishing “first leather” and other related expressions.

Photo courtesy photographer Jonathan Ocab, who himself earned the Distinguished Rifleman Badge.

In 2015, Collins went to the National Matches at nearby Camp Perry, Ohio, and fired in his first President’s Rifle Match. Watching the elite shooters take their final shots inspired Collins: “Learning about the Distinguished Badge, learning about the President’s Match — I just knew that I had to get this Distinguished Badge on my way to, hopefully, getting into the President’s 100 or even the Top 20.” So Collins began traveling to GSMM competitions with his match rifle in tow, just to get in a little extra practice. It became his main focus. In June 2019, he earned his first set of six leg points at the CMP Viale Range 800 Aggregate and EIC Service Rifle Match at Camp Perry. It was a breakthrough.

When I first started, I was shooting the Garand and the M1A. [But] once I realized I wanted to get my Distinguished Badge, I said, “None of the wood guns. It’s all my match rifle until I go Distinguished”.

He went on to earn eight points at his next match in July, followed by eight more in August. With one more match left in 2019 and only seven points away from the required 30 to earn a badge, his goal was within sight. But it wasn’t until the EIC match at the Washtenaw Sportsman’s Club in Ypsilanti, Michigan, in July 2020 that he was able to conquer his nerves and earn his final points: “The most rewarding thing – it’s when you get there. When you finally earn it, everybody knows it. Everybody at the range celebrates with you. All of your friends are there with you. It’s just rewarding in itself. You’re part of that tradition that spans three centuries.”

Friendships Made on the Road to Distinguished
More so than the time, effort, and skill it took to earn the badge, the journey to become Distinguished was almost as rewarding as the badge itself for Collins, given the relationships he’s made along the way:

“These guys I’ve met and hung out with — we’ve given jobs to each other, we celebrate each other’s birthdays, we know each other’s families. It’s just been a great group of guys. You always are rooting for your friends, regardless of how well you’re doing. If you’re doing bad, you root for them even more.”

Distinguished Badge-Earning Marksmen Will Be Honored in 2021 at Camp Perry
Part of the tradition of earning a Distinguished Badge is walking across the stage at Camp Perry during the National Matches award ceremony. There, badge winners are formally pinned by their peers on a stage that has felt the footsteps of prominent marksmen for over a century.

“Last year, when I got the first points, I told myself, ‘I’m going to walk this stage at Perry next year'”. Collins and all others who earned a Distinguished Badge in 2019 or 2020 will still have the opportunity to take the stage next year at the 2021 National Matches — and that’s just what Collins plans to do.

Basics of the Distinguished Rifleman Program and Requirements

WHAT ARE DISTINGUISHED BADGES?
Distinguished Badges are the highest individual awards authorized by the U.S. government for excellence in marksmanship competition. They are awarded by the CMP in accordance with 36 USC §40722 [3] and by the respective services in accordance with service regulations. The CMP and the military commands responsible for the awarding of Distinguished Badges coordinate their respective badge regulations and the establishment of a master file of Distinguished Badge winners.

Distinguished Badge programs for military personnel are administered by the respective services in accordance with applicable service regulations. Badge programs for civilians are administered by the CMP. The CMP issues Distinguished Badges only to competitors who earn them according to CMP Competition Rules. All Distinguished Badges issued by the CMP are serial numbered and are, without exception, accounted for on an individual badge basis. The name of the recipient, the year the badge was earned, and the badge serial number are engraved on the badge.

EXCELLENCE IN COMPETITION (EIC) POINTS
EIC “leg” points are awarded to any eligible non-distinguished competitors who places in the top 10% of nondistinguished competitors, provided the score fired by the competitor equals or exceeds the EIC Minimum Credit Score.

To receive EIC credit points, the score fired by the competitor must fulfill the requirements of Rule 10.2.6 (top 10%) and equal or exceed the EIC Minimum Credit Score (MCS) for that discipline (see CMP Rule 10.2.7). EIC “leg” points are awarded based on the number of non-distinguished competitors.

Gold, Silver, and Bronze Achievement Pins will be presented to competitors in CMP-Sanctioned EIC Matches, that equal or exceed Achievement Award Scores (Rule 3.11.3).

CLICK HERE for more information on Distinguished Badges

By Steve Cooper, CMP North General Manager & Ashley Brugnone, CMP Writer
In disappointing fashion to all involved, the CMP [cancelled] its June 17 Excellence-In-Competition match when significant damage was done to the target system following the successful completion of standing and rapid-fire sitting stages at 200 yards by nearly 100 competitors.

Nearly 100 competitors took to the firing line on Viale Range for Saturday’s EIC Rifle Match.

The CMP EIC match was the historic debut of the latest in scoring technology on the “big” ranges at the 101-year-old Ohio National Guard training site near Port Clinton. The match fired on Viale Range was a fill-in for a previously cancelled Ohio Rifle & Pistol Association event. CMP is in its second year of operating 10 electronic target lanes at 100 yards for rifle and five lanes for pistol at Camp Perry’s Petrarca Range. CMP also operates two 80-point electronic indoor airgun ranges at Camp Perry and Anniston, AL, respectively.

During the changeover from 200 to 300 yards at the Saturday event, multiple targets were damaged when newly-trained CMP target workers accidentally strained or tore several interconnecting cables on the target line while raising and lowering target carriers. Diagnostics showed several targets were showing errors, but CMP technicians believed many targets could be salvaged and some were repaired.

The loss cut the range from 35 to 19 serviceable targets. CMP staff and competitors agreed to shrink the size of the range, re-squadding shooters into more relays on the remaining working targets. After repairs were made, firing continued with the prone rapid-fire stage at 300 yards. When firing was complete, a handful of shooters received inconsistent information on their monitors. A re-fire was conducted for that group and many of the re-fire group still reported target errors.

Members of CMP staff convene to discuss abnormalities during the 300-yard prone rapid-fire stage of the EIC Rifle Match. Moments later, the match was called off after it was determined too many targets were compromised by damaged cables in the Viale Range pits.

It became clear that the initial damage to the target communication system was worse than originally thought. Christie Sewell, CMP Programs Chief, explained to competitors that it was impractical to go any further and had no choice but to cancel the match. CMP offered refunds to all competitors or the option of crediting their entry fees to a future match. The match did not count toward the competitors’ EIC match total for 2017.

The Takeaway from this Experience – CMP is a Pioneer in the Electronic Target World
They say it’s easy to recognize pioneers — they’re the ones with arrows in their backs. It feels that way sometimes at the Civilian Marksmanship Program as we roll out the most sophisticated electronically-scored targets in the world to America’s bullseye rifle and pistol shooters. Sometimes we make mistakes and they cost us time, money and aggravation.

Cables carry power + communications from target to target the length of the line. Many places between targets can trap and catch cables. The loss of 1 cable can take out 5 adjacent targets.

But we press on. And the competitors who understand our goals press on with us. We pull the arrows out of each other’s backs, cover shot holes with thick-skin pasters, learn from our mistakes and press on with our mission. That mission includes safety instruction, youth marksmanship fundamentals, growing the sport of bullseye target shooting and providing our competitors the best opportunity to maximize participation in this sport.

What Actually Went Wrong on Saturday
Those familiar with the KTS targets at the CMP Talladega Marksmanship Park know they are hard-wired and mounted to actuators that tilt the targets up and down for use on three different target lines. Shooters fire from a common covered firing line and fire distances of 200, 300 or 600 yards during open public sessions and matches without moving. Those targets are semi-permanent and fit into frames that are bolted to iron brackets mounted on a concrete deck.

In fact, the Kongsberg Target System targets at Talladega were not designed to be laid horizontally when not in use. They were also not made to fit into pit-served target carriers like those at Camp Perry. These targets were originally designed to stand upright 100 percent of the time. Conventional thinking is, if you want multiple distance targets, build multiple ranges.

Cable connectors screw into a cable base and wire continues to the bottom center of each target to a circuit board.

But CMP has pushed KTS into “Americanizing” their target systems – making them more robust and more flexible. We have taken these same static targets on the road and reassembled them onsite in Arizona, Oklahoma, N. Carolina, Vermont and other demonstration sites. The targets we just fired on at Camp Perry were used at Oklahoma and Camp Butner with wireless monitors and WIFI communication for the first time. With every road trip, we find ways to expand the limitations of the system and KTS is with us in stride, updating and upgrading hardware and software to accommodate our needs.

This traveling set of targets and WIFI communications system with wireless color monitors worked flawlessly at CMP’s Eastern Games at Camp Butner, N. Carolina.

For the first time, and in anticipation of installing KTS electronic targets across the spectrum of ranges at Camp Perry in 2019, CMP installed a set of electronic targets to fit into the target carriers on Viale Range. The wood 2×4 uprights which normally hold cardboard target backers were removed to make room for the KTS target frames. The e-targets were locked in and pinned in place to limit movement and to protect vulnerable electronics below the berm wall. We knew the connecting cables would need considerable care during transitions and we shared that with the young and exuberant range crew. Unfortunately in their minds speed and efficiency was a priority over care for the cables and the obvious occurred.

The circuit board handles all the calculations of shot location, XY coordinates on the target, temperature of the sound chamber, shot value and much more.

Each target contains a circuit board at its base and four acoustic sensors in the target’s four corners. Multi-conductor cables carry low voltage and communications information from target to target. All the bullet impact information sensed by the targets is communicated wirelessly via WIFI to monitors on the firing line. The targets are wired in clusters of five – “daisy-chained” the length of the target line.

On June 17, at 300 yards our freshly-oriented summer range crew, some of whom are accustomed to speedily pasting and putting paper targets back into the air, got a wake-up call. Because the targets are heavy, they must be mounted in the “up” position, which takes away the normally easy servicing of pit-pulled targets.

Some of the cables that experience damage during the match. In most cases the entire cable and pins were pulled out of the screw-in connectors.

The crew planned to use ladders to change target faces on transitions from 200 to 300 and 300 to 600 yards during the match. However, when the ladders proved to be cumbersome and too slow, the crew opted to un-pin, lower and re-face the targets and send them back up. During that maintenance period, many of the cables got caught on frames and other obstacles and were either torn from connectors or the connectors and wiring were pulled from the circuit boards.

It was a truly catastrophic failure, but not a failure of the target system itself. The targets and WIFI functioned flawlessly during the 200-yard stage, where nearly 100 competitors fired three relays of standing slow-fire and three relays of sitting rapid-fire with no errors in just over 45 minutes.

Targets in place in the Viale Range pits without cables connected.

It was a difficult learning lesson for the crew and CMP management. In a post-match review, it was determined that 1) the crew was a bit overzealous in its desire to quickly raise and lower the targets to get them ready for the 300-yard stage, 2) had the cables been longer and/or handled with care, damage could have been completely avoided, 3) a better procedure needs to be developed to gain access to the target replacement centers without putting the crew or target equipment in harm’s way, and lastly, there was too little preparation time on an active rifle range to setup and practice target maintenance.

CMP management and staff completely empathize with our competitors. Many traveled and spent money to shoot a match that was not successfully completed. It was heartening to hear many competitors tell us not to refund their match fees, but to instead invest it in making the process better. In the process of showcasing electronic targets, it was lack of preparation and human error and NOT the performance of the target system that stopped this EIC match in its tracks.

As pioneers in this sport, the CMP has learned from these mistakes and we will repair and reinstall this same set of targets at Camp Perry. The time savings, decrease in competitor fatigue, efficiencies of processing large amounts of data and moving large numbers of people effectively during our matches all make the KTS system the model that makes sense for our sport’s future in our opinion. It’s clear the vast majority of competitors like the system and want it to succeed.

We thank those who see the big picture and look forward to sharing our successes with our competitors in 2017. We fully intend to fire the 2019 matches on KTS targets on Viale and Rodriguez Ranges at Camp Perry with great success.

In response to the NRA’s just-revealed plans to move NRA High Power Rifle Matches away from Camp Perry starting in 2017, the Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) has announced that it will offer MORE matches at the storied Camp Perry facility in 2018. CMP is demonstrating its commitment to Camp Perry, which has been the site of the National Matches since 1907.

CMP Announces New Programs for 2018 National Matches

The Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) is pleased to announce planning is underway for a number of new and exciting programs for the 2018 National Matches at Camp Perry, Ohio.

“In an effort to continue to attract new competitors and to reward the thousands who annually participate in our matches, the CMP will add new pistol, smallbore, high power rifle, and long range rifle matches in 2018,” said Mark Johnson, CMP Chief Operating Officer.

“A major part of our mission is to conduct competitions, provide marksmanship training and recognize competitors for their progress and achievements as has been done at the National Matches since 1903. Accordingly, we enthusiastically look forward to the opportunity to expand our role at the National Matches at Camp Perry. We are committed to Camp Perry and our published dates for events in 2017 remain set. We have invested in Camp Perry with electronic targets on Petrarca Range, the Bataan Armory, our headquarters building, the CMP North Store, and the Gary Anderson Competition Center.”

Planned enhancements include a new CMP High Power Ranking System which will provide a fair and accountable method of rewarding success on the firing line at every level of experience, above and beyond our current awards. New, challenging pistol and rifle matches will be added to the schedule. Greater shooting opportunities for women and junior competitors are being developed. Increased use of electronic targets is being considered for many events. A CMP Range Officer Certification and Licensing Program has been developed for pistol, rifle and airgun disciplines and will be introduced by year-end.

“The CMP will not waver in its mission of promoting firearm safety and marksmanship training with an emphasis on youth,” Johnson said. “The tradition of the National Matches at Camp Perry will continue, supported by the CMP and the Ohio National Guard, with or without the participation of other organizations.”

Get 2017 National Match Calendar Online
To get more info on the National Matches or to download a 2017 National Match Calendar, visit the CMP website at: http://thecmp.org/competitions/cmp-national-matches/.

One of the important events at Camp Perry every summer is the Small Arms Firing School.

Shown is the CMP’s Camp Perry Competition Center with its 80-point electronic target air gun range.