How To: NRA Tournament Reports and Bulletins

One of our jobs here in the Competitive Shooting Division is to review NRA Tournament Reports and Final Tournament Bulletins submitted after completed tournaments. We review about 4,000 reports annually in just the smallbore and air rifle community, while the other disciplines look at many more reports from NRA high power and pistol tournaments. We use tournament reports to identify trends and problems. Final Tournament Bulletins provide specific information to help validate national records. To show you what we mean, below are a few tips:

• In a smallbore rifle approved or registered tournament, selecting a jury in the absence of an NRA referee is not an option. The NRA smallbore rifle rulebook, Rule 11.2.1, mentions that a 3-member jury will be formed by the match director and documented in the tournament report.

• All competitors who shoot in an approved or registered tournament are required to be reported. NRA smallbore rifle Rule 19.13 requires that the sponsor report all individual and team match scores fired over the course-of-fire, as stated in Rule 19.4. Additionally, check out the General Regulations, Rule 5, Courses-of-Fire in Approved Tournaments Use: The number of competitors is identified next to the referee/jury chairman’s name in the tournament report.

• The definition of a “match” is a complete event, as indicated in the program, for the awarding of certain prizes. A match may consist of one or more stages. In some aggregate matches, the match may include scores in subsidiary matches. The General Regulations for Registered Tournaments, Reg. 6-Awards, requires that an award be given for the high scoring competitor in each class and in each match. (By the way, remember that national records are only accepted for completed match scores. The Final Tournament Bulletin must identify that a score was fired in a completed match. Otherwise, we are not allowed to accept the score for a national record.)

• According to Rule 11.1, the match director may change the match and firing conditions from those shown in the program. But, according to the General Regulations, Rule 2, all changes and information provided in the approved draft program must appear in the final printed program. No major changes in courses-of-fire, number of matches, etc. may be made unless NRA is notified. (Don’t forget that any changes should also be reported in the NRA Tournament Report.)

For more information, go to compete.nra.org or email comphelp@nrahq.org.