Cunningham Punked

August 28, 2008
4:20 AM CST

Seems like Grant Cunningham, whom I quoted here, has been discredited. Here’s the original article, and here are two comments to that article, the first from Olympic shooter John McNally:

I was there at the OTC, Olympic Training Center, during the Action/Rapid Fire camp. I’m not sure who your source was but I never heard any comments from USA Shooting stating that great shooters assembled were not of Olympic Class. Bruce Piatt was an outstanding standout. But I can say there was an IPSC guy that I can’t remember, a kid of 20yrs at the time, that jumped up in the middle of a briefing just to describe the course of fire and he addressed everyone there that “We’re the best and we don’t have to listen to these guys”. That same kid, I wish I could remember his name, shook so bad holding the gun in one hand during what is considered the slowest run of 8 sec, that he had several on target misses.
So I’m saying there was some attitude problems but only from that kid. The real champions, Bruce Piatt, Micky Fowler, John Pride, Jerry [Miculek], Don Golebbieski, Bruce Grey, Mike Dalton, Todd Jarrett all contributed greatly to the project. Doug Koenig and Rob Leatham were not there as was mentioned in the article.

At the next match in Ft Benning GA, Todd Jarrett, Bruce Piatt, and Don Golembieski participated. Bruce as I remember shot well on one of the 3 days and was 2nd or third. He later said that there was no way he could continue because of commitments to his sponsors for other shooting sports.

To quote Jerry Miculek, “No wonder no one shoots Rapid Fire, it’s too damn hard!”

5 targets, 25 meters, about 27 yards, one hand with the starting position of 45 degees, 100mm ten ring, in stages of 8, 6, and 4 seconds. Now the pistols are 22LR, no comps, standard grips, 2.2lb trigger, iron sights.

So bring out your Ruger MK IV and give it a try.

John McNally
1984,1988,1992,1996,2000 Olympics

Okay Grant, let’s see you put your money where your mouth is and write a check to USA Shooting because your story is ALL WRONG.

First, in Bejing in the pistol event of Rapid Fire the US Team did extremely well. Keith Sanderson went into the final in first place, had a rough final and finished 5th. This is the closest the US has come to a RF medal in 40 years! The US team had numerous other 4th, 5th place and 6th place finishes in other non-shotgun events.

Next, the whole Action pistol slant you described is false. The issue was the “action pistol” shooters did not do well and did not want to take time to improve because it did not pay. An article from the event shows these scores from the July 2002 Guns & Ammo

Bruce Piatt 551
Jerry Miculek 551
John Pride 518
Bruce Gray 502
Richard Young 449

At the time, John McNally held the national record with a 594. John shot on five Olympic Teams in this event and never got close to a final. The best action shooter score of 560 was by Eric Weeldreye who had been shooting RF for sometime already. A good score but a long way to being world class where some perfect 600 scores were not unknown. The action guys did not want to take the time to practice in a sport that there was no money in. Pure and simple

To further illustrate the point, I ran an event for 6 years at the Bianchi Cup using the semi-auto Steyr airpistol with a 1911 grip. This was called the Pilkgun’s AirStrike event. It basically used provisional Olympic Rapid Fire Air Pistol rules on a falling plate system. I found out very quickly that the average Bianchi competitor could not hold the white on a 10m AP target. We changed the rules to let this guys shoot two handed on a 1911 grip. Two handed, most of these guys COULD NOT HOLD THE BLACK ! and this was in the sight-in stage where there was no time pressure. Yep, they can yank a pistol out of fancy holster real fast and go bang bang bang, but being able to hit a precision target? Most of them can only dream.

So about the check to USA Shooting, I expect you are writing it now.

Scott Pilkington

So, as I suggested in my own Comments section, the reason that the hotshot “practical” competition shooters don’t participate in the USAS/Olympic events is that a.) there’s no money in it, b.) they’re unwilling to dedicate their time to becoming good at Rapid-Fire, Air Pistol or the other Olympic disciplines, and c.) most of them probably couldn’t cut it anyway. That’s not a knock, by the way: I bet that most championship rodeo riders couldn’t compete in Olympic Dressage, either—it’s a different skill set, as is one-handed shooting at small bullseyes on distant targets different to, say, the IPSC run-and-gun stuff.

The reason I posted Cunningham’s original piece was that I didn’t know the facts of the situation, and hence my request for people to enlighten me. Now I’m enlightened.

Turns out that his piece was mostly bullshit—it either didn’t happen at all, or didn’t happen as he described it—and that’s my reason for posting this one today.

Also, considering that the Son & Heir is competing in the USAS system, aiming to represent America at the Olympics of 2012, 2016, 2020 and 2024, it should be a given that I had not intended this to degenerate into a slagfest of the USAS’s position.

Here’s the thing: if we Americans want Americans to do better at the Olympic events, we need to support the USAS. They are horribly short of funds—it’s almost impossible for them to travel overseas to compete in the Olympic disciplines’ various World Championships, which is where we can size up the likely competition in the Olympics.

Most of the support comes from seriously-dedicated coaches like John McNally, Ed Wong and Brooks Brinson, who volunteer their services, unpaid, to get America to be competitive in these demanding Olympic disciplines. (I’m not interested in hearing how “interesting”, “relevant” or “popular” these disciplines are to the average American, because that’s not the issue here.)

All that’s required for anyone to compete in USAS events is the $20 membership fee and the entry fees: 10-meter Air Pistol, 50-meter Free Pistol, 25-meter Rapid-Fire, and 25-meter Standard.

That’s to compete. In order to be competitive, what’s necessary (as opposed to required) are countless hours of practice, expert coaching and extreme humility.

I’ve tried all the above, informally, and they are unbelievably difficult (forget the 50-meter thing: I can’t even see the target). Olympic shooting is incredibly demanding, but there’s no shortage of commitment, at least on the part of the contestants and their coaches.

The problem is that outside the Army Marksmanship Unit, there are no professional Olympic shooters in America—no sponsorships, no funding from any source—so therefore people cannot afford to train for 8-10 hours a day, 6-7 days a week, which is what’s required to win the Olympics, in any sport (ask Michael Phelps about the training required to win Olympic Gold).

So when we say that we “should” be winning Olympic gold medals in the shooting sports, because we are by golly the Land of the Second Amendment and the Nation of Riflemen, we forget that winning Olympic medals is not just raw talent, but dedication—and dedication not just from the participants, but from We The People.

If there is no public support for Olympic shooting, though, then we have no right to complain when our amateur shooters can’t compete against the professionals of other countries.

And that’s the beginning and the end of it.

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By the way: here’s a decent report about how Team USA Shooting performed at Beijing.