MARENGO, Ohio — Mike O’Connor didn’t win the prone championship this year, and he didn’t win three-position either. He finished high enough in both to put his name on the NRA Lones Wigger Iron Man Trophy for a second straight year on Tuesday, which no shooter had done since the award was first presented in 2014.
His combined 8683-537X came out of 880 record shots over six days at the Cardinal Shooting Center: 6379-445X across the four days of Conventional Prone, 2304-92X across the two days of Three-Position.
Eleven shooters have had their names engraved on the trophy since 2014. O’Connor is the only one on it twice. Cameron Zwart, who took it in 2023, noted something else about the recent run—O’Connor’s win is the “fourth occurrence in the past five years that a Michigan resident has won.”
Michelle Bohren shot better in prone than O’Connor did. Her 6385-477X was the best prone aggregate anybody in this year’s Iron Man field managed, six points up on him. Ruby Harris shot better in three-position, and not by a little—her 2350-111X beat him by 46 points and stood as the second-highest score in the entire Three-Position Championship.
Bohren finished third in the Iron Man standings, while Harris finished fifth.
O’Connor placed third in prone among the Iron Man entries and fifth in three-position, and that was enough, because the shooters who beat him on one gave too much back on the other. Wesley Shumaker makes the case even more plainly. His 6381-466X was the second-best prone score in the field. His 2248-78X was the weakest three-position aggregate in the top eight. He finished eighth.
The Field Behind Him
O’Connor’s margin over James Eu was 17 points, and after that the leaderboard tightened to almost nothing. Eu closed on 8666-504X, Bohren seven back at 8659-568X, Denise Loring three behind her at 8656-487X. Harris took fifth on 8646-429X, Avery Hines sixth on 8643-329X and Joe Graf seventh on 8641-480X, six points covering those three after 880 shots apiece. Second through eighth fit inside 37 points.
X-count settled a great deal at this championship: the metallic prone title, both F-Class team placings and a good stretch of the three-position leaderboard. It had nothing to do with the Iron Man. O’Connor’s 537 center shots ranked only third in the top 10; Bohren finished on 568 and Shumaker on 544, and both of them finished behind him.
The NRA Lones Wigger Iron Man Trophy goes to whoever posts the highest combined aggregate across the NRA’s two national outdoor smallbore rifle championships, prone and three-position. Entering both is the only requirement.
Wigger is generally regarded as the finest competitive rifle shooter this country has produced. At the Tokyo 1964 Olympics he won gold in 50-meter free rifle three-position with a world record, then silver in 50-meter prone. Munich came eight years later, where he took the 300-meter free rifle. No other athlete has medaled in all three Olympic rifle disciplines.
The rest of it: 16 major U.S. international teams, 22 world championships, seven Pan-American titles, 18 Championship of the Americas titles, 16 wins in the Conseil International du Sport Militaire match and more than 100 international medals.
Dieter Anschütz gave Wigger a gold-plated Anschütz Model 1813 in 1987. Wigger turned it over to the NRA in 2013, and it’s the rifle that smallbore competitors are shooting for now.
Asked by Sports Illustrated in 1987 how he got where he was, Wigger gave the credit to stubbornness rather than gift—practice, week after week, all year long. He figured anyone willing to put in the work for long enough could become a champion marksman.
| 2026 NRA Lones Wigger Iron Man Trophy Leaderboard | ||||
| COMPETITOR | PRONE | 3-POSITION | TOTAL | |
| 1 | Mike O’Connor | 6379-445X | 2304-92X | 8683-537X |
| 2 | James Eu | 6352-414X | 2314-90X | 8666-504X |
| 3 | Michelle Bohren | 6385-477X | 2274-91X | 8659-568X |
| 4 | Denise Loring | 6345-400X | 2311-87X | 8656-487X |
| 5 | Ruby Harris | 6296-318X | 2350-111X | 8646-429X |
| 6 | Avery Hines | 6312-346X | 2331-83X | 8643-329X |
| 7 | Joe Graf | 6358-393X | 2283-87X | 8641-480X |
| 8 | Wesley Shumaker | 6381-466X | 2248-78X | 8629-544X |
| 9 | Tori Cornett | 6187-267X | 2209-49X | 8396-316X |
| 10 | Leia Lin | 5868-95X | 2206-30X | 8074-125X |
| NRA Lones Wigger Iron Man Trophy Winners 2014–2026 | ||
| YEAR | CHAMPION | SCORE |
| 2026 | Mike O’Connor | 8683-537X |
| 2025 | Mike O’Connor | 8734-564X |
| 2024 | Capt. Sarah Beard | 8788-735X |
| 2023 | Cameron Zwart | 13027-677X |
| 2022 | Richard Clark | 13387-840X |
| 2021 | John Hamilton | 13187-603X |
| 2020 | No award — championship canceled due to covid | |
| 2019 | Malori Brown | 11746-608X |
| 2018 | Elizabeth Gratz | 11799-698X |
| 2017 | Sgt. 1st Class Mike McPhail | 9504-711X |
| 2016 | Spc. Patrick Sunderman | 11049-666X |
| 2015 | William Marcinak | 11747-635X |
| 2014 | Staff Sgt. George Norton | 11799-706X |
| Changes to the course of fire and scoring format over the years account for the variation in aggregate totals. | ||
Learn more about NRA National Championships at competitions.nra.org.
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