Kate Estes Wins 2026 IPRF Ladies World Title

Kate Estes had 200 rounds to fire across 20 stages at Gravestone Precision Shooting and put 175 of them on target. The closest woman behind her finished nine impacts back.

That margin made Estes, of Huffman, Texas, the Ladies Division world champion at the 2026 IPRF Centerfire World Championship. The championship was held Sept. 22-28 at the Lipan, Texas, range. Her 87.5% hit rate also ranked 27th overall in a field of roughly 250 shooters from 24 countries.

Estes came into the match as the top qualifier on the four-woman U.S. Ladies roster after an 18-month selection process, and she shot like it. Her title was one of seven individual division titles won by Team USA.

Proof Research teammates Kate Estes (right) and Grace Vaughn finished first and fourth in the Ladies Division at the 2026 IPRF Centerfire World Championship. Both shot .243-caliber Proof steel barrels, Estes chambered in 6 mm Dasher and Vaughn in 6 mm Creedmoor.

Norway’s Solveig Engvoll took silver with 166 impacts. Two Americans fought for bronze, and only a single hit separated them. Lauryl Akenhead’s 163 beat Grace Vaughn of Oviedo, Florida, by one. The latter is also a Team Proof Research competitor. In addition, Tereza T. Helstynova of the Czech Republic finished fifth with 154, which left Team USA with three of the top four places.

The same three scores made up the U.S. team total. Each nation could enter a four-woman Ladies team with its top three scores counting, and Estes, Akenhead and Vaughn combined for 500 of a possible 600 impacts (83.33%). The United Kingdom was second at 417, a full 83 impacts back. South Africa (400), Canada (391) and Australia (335) finished third through fifth.

Estes and Vaughn both shot .243-cal. steel barrels from Proof Research, each rifle chambered for a different cartridge. Estes ran a Competition contour barrel with Proof Exponential Twist (PXT) rifling, chambered in 6 mm Dasher. Vaughn used a Heavy Competition contour barrel chambered in 6 mm Creedmoor. Proof added steel competition blanks to its PXT line in July.

“My PXT barrel performed great throughout the match, and gives me confidence in my rifle, which is exactly what you want when you’re focused on shooting your best,” Estes said.

The highest score of the entire match came from the Factory Division, with Keith Rudasill posting 192 impacts—one more than Open champion Austin Buschman, whose 191 gave him a third IPRF world title after wins in 2022 and 2024. Rudasill was shooting a MasterPiece Arms Vanquish PMR Rifle. Additionally, Chad Heckler (Limited), Dylan Bailey (Junior), Kahl Harmon (Military/Law Enforcement) and Lee Pettross (Senior) won the remaining divisions to complete the American sweep.

Estes summed her 2026 IPRF World Championship experience on Instagram. “It was a long, hot weekend with plenty of challenging stages, but every second was worth it,” she wrote.

Check out the full results of the match at impactscoring.net.