UPDATE - 2026 WESTERN & NRA NATIONAL LEVER GUN CHAMPIONSHIP

[thauglor]

CLA - Mark West of Gawler S. Australia won HOA with scores of 36 & 37 = 73. John Mullins won 1st Master with 72. 1st AAA Blaine Plummer 68. 1st AA Lezlie Camren 56. 1st A Ryan Bain 48.

PC CLA - Joe Atwood of Texas Won HOA with a 53; 1st Master John Mullins 51

Smallbore Rifle - Mark West won HOA again with a 57 after a 5-shot tiebreaker with John Mullins.

Aggregate-
John Mullins won HOA with 180 of 200 targets. Followed by Mark West with 176, then Wayne Byers 169.

I don’t have images of all the boards and am unable to provide more details.

There will be an article in Shooting Sports magazine.

Thank you so much!

[thauglor]

Is there any reason the pistol and smallbore matches were 1 60 shot instead of 2 40 shot matches?

[375Short]

The Western National Match has been a 60 round match for PC and SB since its inception. 60 rounds suits the needs of match length well. The way the range is situated some chicken banks have unfairly poor lighting until about 0900’ish. Lightning and predictable late afternoon thunderstorms are common, both add predictable delays of unpredictable amounts of time. The evening of the PC match is the Match banquet and the end of the SB match is the final match awards presentation. All of these things factor into a 60 round match being a better fit for this event. More often than not a second 40 round match would have significant delays by later in the afternoon pushing the schedule of the other events into an unreasonable late hour. This would negatively affect the timing of food preparation by a contracted food vendor on the PC banquet night. On the final SB match day it stands to lengthen the day significantly for an already tired group, many of whom are waiting to begin the journey home.

Every other year the Administrator and founder of the Western National Match has graciously allowed the NRA National Match to piggyback into the Western National Match. On the years the Western National is host to the NRA National the traditional format of the Western National is followed. I have not had the opportunity to fire the NRA National when held in Pennsylvania so I can’t make a direct comparison to the format of that event.