Rusty Newton Goes 5-for-5 at 3,119 Yards to Win King of 2 Miles

RATON, N.M. — The steel at 3,119 yards sat in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, nearly 1.8 miles from the firing line at the NRA Whittington Center. Rusty Newton fired five rounds at it, and all five hit.

“Five shots. Five impacts!” Newton said.

That string sealed the 2026 King of 2 Miles Global Finals, held Sept. 25-27. It also capped a comeback season for a shooter who had spent more than three years away from extreme long-range (ELR) competition. Newton finished with 63,593 points, 6,774 ahead of runner-up Justin Linenbach. David Park took third, 60 points behind Linenbach, and Ryan Carney, Linenbach’s spotter, placed fourth. Naomi Congdon rounded out the top five in a field of 84 competitors.

Early on, Newton did not look like a champion after missing the one-round cold-bore shot at 1,952 yards. Then he worked through a preliminary course that ran out to 2,984 yards, where each shooter had to hit each target before moving on. By his own account, he barely made the 20-shooter final.

The final moved everything farther back. Shooters faced steel at 2,729, 3,119 and 3,524 yards. The last target sat just past the 2-mile mark. Each target required at least five rounds and a hit before the shooter could advance, and all three sat 5 to 6 degrees uphill from the line. Both Linenbach and Congdon hit the 2-mile target, but that couldn’t make up for Newton’s five-for-five at 3,119.

Newton said that, to his knowledge, no shooter had ever cleaned a target beyond 3,000 yards in an ELR match, and no one had cleaned one in Ko2M Global Finals history. He named the two closest marks he knew of—Alex Marr cleaned a target at roughly 2,800 yards at Ko2M South Africa, and Randy Ofstad cleaned one at 2,911 yards at Spearpoint in Kansas several years ago.

Finals targets at the 2026 King of 2 Miles ran from 2,729 to 3,524 yards, with a five-round minimum per target. Rusty Newton’s clean string at the NRA Whittington Center won the 2026 King of 2 Miles Global Finals and capped his return to ELR competition after more than three years away. (Photos courtesy of King of 2 Miles)

Stuart Tylee traveled from New Zealand to spot for Newton. Tylee also shot the match himself and finished 31st.

“Having someone beside you, whom you trust, matters in this sport, especially when the distances start getting serious,” Newton said on his Facebook page.

Few places in the country can host this kind of shooting. The NRA Whittington Center covers 33,300 acres of foothill and prairie outside Raton, New Mexico, and only a small fraction of that land has been developed. The center dates to 1973. King of 2 Miles organizers first brought the match here in 2015, and it now runs on the center’s Spring Canyon ELR range. This year, the King’s Gambit side match ran alongside the Global Finals, with its farthest target at 3,366 yards.

Newton’s return started in Europe. At Extreme Shot Italia V in October 2025, run by Rod Formosa and Rifletalks, he finished second in the heavy gun division with Ryan Cheney spotting. Newton described it as the largest ELR match ever held. He then spotted for Cheney, who also finished second, in light gun. Cheney placed eighth in Raton.

Newton took another second place at Battle at 66 Mountain. At Hawks Double Mountain Ranch in Texas, his .416 Hellfire rifle was still giving him problems, so he shot his 33XC, a cartridge designed by the late David Tubb. With it he hit a 2,958-yard cold-bore shot. Newton said he was told it was the longest cold-bore hit in a match this year, and possibly ever. During the same season he launched X Ring Precision, a company built on what he has learned behind the rifle.

At the NRA Whittington Center, Newton was shooting his .416 Hellfire rifle, built on a Pierce Engineering 10X action in an Accurate Rifle Systems chassis with a 36-inch Bartlein barrel chambered by Alamo Precision Rifles and Bix’n Andy two-stage competition trigger set at 20 grams. For optics, he was running a Nightforce ATACR 7-35X 56 mm riflescope with REACH-R Prism for added elevation, and a Swarovski Outdoor BTX 95 mm spotting scope. Besides an Accu-Tac bipod, additional stability came from an Accuracy Solutions ELR Max BipodeXt. His load: 550-grain Cutting Edge Lazer bullets over Vihtavuori N568 powder, with Bertram brass and Federal 215M primers. For data, Newton’s pick is the Kestrel Ballistics 5700X with Applied Ballistics.

“Records are special, but they aren’t what I’ll remember most about this year,” Newton said. “I’ll remember the people.”

He summed up the season in one line: “What a way to finish 2026.”

The Victrix Crown is presented to the winner of the King of 2 Miles Global Finals. (Photo courtesy of King of 2 Miles)

Learn more about the NRA Whittington Center and King of 2 Miles.