Shooting Skill Classifications Explained (for fun)
Every good shooting organization has a Classification system to stratify shooters by skill level. Here is an explanation of some of the most common.
Shooting Skill Classifications Explained
Different shooting organizations maintain a system of Classification to help shooters compete most fairly in a skill bracket with others relative to their current level of ability. Here’s an explanation of what these Classification brackets mean.
#Humor #LightenUpFrancis
NRA/CMP Classifications Explained
Marksman
A Marksman Classification is “earned” by merely showing up to a match and failing to be disqualified due to flagrant safety violations. You can’t shoot worse than this. Scratch that - according to the NRA Competitive Shooting Division, only 2% of the NRA membership ever bothers to show up, making 98% of the herd less involved and probably worse than even your terrible level of non-skill.
Sharpshooter
The worst you can shoot while meeting a minimally-low cut-off score. You’re one step up from the bottom. Good job!
Expert
You’re actually invested and have practiced to become this bad. A complete layperson (which describes nearly every gun owner that has never attended a match) might be fooled into believing an “Expert” Classification denotes actual skill, the same way many don’t realize a military “Expert” qualification is the shooting equivalent of getting an “A” on an elementary school child’s arithmetic quiz. You might be shooting just well enough to eventually stumble into enough leg points to earn a Distinguished Rifleman/Pistol Shot badge if you keep at it, the marksmanship equivalent of the infinite monkey theorem.
Master
Possibly good enough to be a contender for a win at local or small state/regional matches. You consider a trip to a drained swamp on the southwest side of Lake Erie to stay in a hutment that deployed Marines would complain about to be a vacation, all while spending enough money on travel, lodging, match fees, and ammunition to have instead gone to a nice place in Europe.
High Master
You’ve reached the Classification pinnacle of a century-old sport sponsored by a political organization that not even the directors and card-carrying members know or care anything about. And it only took an investment in time and money that could have instead paid for early retirement. If you’re good enough to take the stage at Camp Perry (or Camp Atterbury) you just might win a Visa gift card worth less than the cost of match fees spent to compete at said Nationals, never mind all the other expenses. After giving your paycheck to Chump’s Choice, avoid considering this fact by having beer and pizza at Bell Mell or ice cream at Andy’s, because ya can’t go to Nick’s no more…
USPSA Classifications Explained
D Class
Awful. You are functioning at a level of intellectual disability that must truly tax your mother’s faith in the Almighty to not seek a retroactive abortion. You’ve been lucky enough to escape the porous net of an overtaxed social services system that would certainly have you committed, where you would eventually be heavily medicated and moved to a secret government compound to be studied as a backwater evolutionary waystation between modern humanity and distant echoes of our primordial ancestors who struggled for existence armed only with instinctual reactions to environmental cues and a pointless but very real desire to survive.
C Class
You are looking up the wrong side of the bell curve; it’s an Everest-like climb for you to think about summiting on average. Likely you will die in the attempt, frozen and alone, existing as a reminder that not everyone who dreams should dare.
B Class
Not terrible. You’ve reached a place where you can assign your lack of any singular achievements in any facet of your life as the admirable result of a focus on work/life balance. It’s not fooling anyone else, but it gets you through the day.
A Class
You are a constant threat to break into the top five at a local, maybe even a win, depending on attendance. You rest assured that people unfamiliar with USPSA who hear you are an A Class shooter might think you are good since the class labeling system bizarrely puts the highest grade letter in the middle of the actual class rankings.
M Class
You are a walking embodiment of Ben Stoeger’s maxim that anybody who puts in enough effort can be good at shooting (or something like that). You have won some locals and you are almost good enough to be considered match heat. Almost. That means not good enough. Your finest moment and key to M-Class glory was finding a range that let you put up classifiers that you could practice incessantly after Facebook-stalking matches and match directors to divine the upcoming Classifiers.
GM Class
You’ve made it to the top; there is nowhere dumber to go. You are capable of regularly winning local matches, with all of the accompanying glory similar to that achieved by being on the winning team of a pick-up basketball game in a suburban park. All it cost you was thousands of dollars on an income stream that would have Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman lining up to kick you in the crotch if they only knew that a major portion of your free time and disposable income could have instead been used to invest, strengthen relationships, and learn marketable skills, not to mention the tendons that will now be chronically inflamed for the rest of your life, which is, by the way, downhill from here.
IDPA Classifications Explained
Master
You are shooting IDPA. Kill yourself.
Expert
You’re shooting IDPA and you’re not even top-tier at it. Kill yourself.
Sharpshooter
You’re shooting IDPA but might not be good enough with a gat to kill yourself. Have a backup method.
Marksman
You’re shooting IDPA, definitely not good enough to end it yourself, and probably can’t figure out a backup method on your own. Beg for someone to Kevorkian you.
Novice
You’re holding a firearm while performing random, spastic movements that can not be rightfully called “shooting.” Your ability with a firearm is on par with the majority of law enforcement and military personnel, which should terrify everyone but somehow doesn’t. Frankly, we’re all amazed you haven’t ND’d yourself to death already. You’re basically a vegetable. Someone will be along to disconnect the ventilator shortly.