Steve Reiter, whose steady hand and steadier character made him one of the greatest bullseye pistol shooters ever to grace a firing line, passed away May 18, 2026. Across more than five decades of competition, the California marksman built a record that reads less like a career and more like a catalog of what’s possible with a pistol.
The numbers alone place him in rarefied company. Reiter collected 34 national championship titles, five of them overall National Championships, along with more than 40 regional crowns and seven Interservice Championships. He set 63 national records, none more remarkable than his .22 aggregate of 899—the highest score ever fired. He also earned membership in the 2670 Club, a distinction reserved for the tiniest fraction of bullseye competitors.
Yet the accomplishment that may best capture Reiter’s persistence came late in his career. He earned his Distinguished Pistol Badge in 1972, added the International Distinguished Badge a year later and completed his Distinguished Rifleman Badge in 1998. Then in 2016, at 74 years old, he claimed the .22 Rimfire Pistol Badge—a distinction that had existed for only a year—to become the first Quadruple Distinguished marksman in history. No one had ever done it. He was the one who proved it could be done.
A former member of the U.S. Army Reserve Team, Reiter earned a place on the 1980 U.S. Olympic Team in free pistol, joining the American squad that ultimately stayed home from Moscow. His international game never wavered—in June 1986 he won the men’s standard pistol national title at the 26th U.S. International Shooting Championships at Prado Tiro in Chino, California.
Age never seemed to slow the scores. Reiter claimed the Grand Senior title at the 2013 NRA National Pistol Championships, won the 2014 Mid-Winter Championship and set a new senior national record while taking third at the 2014 Indoor National Sectional Championship. In 2015 he was the lone Super Senior selected to the U.S. Mayleigh Cup Team, and in 2017 he topped the Super Senior standings at the NRA National Pistol Championships—more than four decades after earning his first Distinguished badge.
When Team Lapua USA formed in 2009, Reiter was among its original members, and after stepping away from active competition he stayed on as an emeritus member, mentoring the shooters coming up behind him.
“His achievements speak for themselves, but what truly set Steve apart was the way he carried himself and the impact he had on others,” said Adam Braverman of Capstone Precision Group, parent company of Lapua.
The sport made his name permanent in 2022, when the Civilian Marksmanship Program established the Reiter Cup National Champion Trophy. The award goes to the winner of the Match Pistol 2700 Any Sights National Championship at Camp Perry, recognizing the highest combined scores across the .22, .45 and Centerfire 900 Aggregate matches—a fitting tribute to a man who mastered all three.
The tributes that followed his passing spoke less about scores than about the man who fired them.
Jim Henderson of the CMP wrote of losing “my dear friend, mentor, teammate and a man I called my Father and he called me Son, because we always wished it had been that way.”
AccuracyX remembered him simply: “In the garden of memories, Steve will always bloom.”
Both tributes shared the same phrase—Steve Reiter has left the range. The records will stand for a long time. The example he set may stand longer.
He will be missed.
Legends: Steve Reiter
1941–2026
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