Team Vihtavuori’s Doug Koenig delivered another standout performance at the 2025 Bianchi Cup National Action Pistol Championship, conducted by CMP at the Green Valley Rifle and Pistol Club in Hallsville, Missouri, from May 20-23. A 20-time Bianchi Cup champion, Koenig secured second place with a grand aggregate score of 1918-182X.
The Bianchi Cup, now in its fourth decade, remains one of the most prestigious tournaments in action pistol shooting. Competitors face four demanding stages: Practical, Barricade, Falling Plates and the Moving Target.
Koenig, using Vihtavuori N320 powder, posted strong scores across all events:
- Practical: 480-43X
- Barricade: 480-47X
- Moving Target: 478-44X
- Falling Plates: 483-48X
His performance in the Falling Plates event was particularly impressive, winning the aggregate by a three-point margin after a shoot-off. Koenig’s only major slip came with a single dropped eight on the Moving Target event.
Bruce Piatt emerged as the individual champion, posting the only perfect score of the match—1920-174X—edging out Koenig by just two points. Joey De Leon rounded out the top three with 1918-166X.
In the team competition, Koenig joined Mark Itzstein, Joey De Leon and Bruce Piatt to win the Four-Person Team Championship with a combined score of 1918-175X.
Reflecting on the 2025 Bianchi Cup, Koenig said, “It wasn’t the performance I had prepared for, but that’s competition.” He also celebrated his son Brad’s Roger E. Hawkins Memorial Junior National Championship title and 11th-place overall finish with 1912-147X, calling it “a great score in just his second Bianchi Cup.”
Koenig’s runner-up finish marks his 25th top two placement at the Bianchi Cup since 1990—an enduring legacy of excellence in competitive shooting.
The Bianchi Cup has been under the stewardship of the Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) since 2023, continuing its tradition as one of the world’s premier action pistol competitions. For nearly four decades prior, from 1984 to 2022, the event was organized by the National Rifle Association of America (NRA), an organization that played a pivotal role in shaping the Bianchi Cup into a globally respected championship and a cornerstone of competition pistol shooting.
The 2025 CMP Bianchi Cup International Pistol Tournament attracted 104 entries in the Overall National Championship.
See the full results of the 2025 Bianchi Cup at the CMP website.
