SFC Brandon Green, a member of the Army Marksmanship Unit (AMU), made shooting history at Camp Perry this year when he shot a perfect 400-20X score in the President 100 rifle match.
Louisiana native SFC Brandon Green of the US Army Marksmanship Unit became the first competitor in history to clean the President’s Rifle Match course. He also won the NTI and Mountain Man aggregate this year using the same rifle he used at last year’s Matches.
With a long and decorated career, Green has accumulated a collection of repeat wins and records at the national level that continues to grow just about every time he steps up to the firing line. Though he’s quickly approaching two decades as an athlete with the military Unit, he shows no signs of slowing down.
At the 2018 Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) National Trophy Rifle Matches, Green not only overtook the prestigious President’s 100 match for the very first time in his career, but he also fired a new National Record as he cleared the course, something no other person has done in the century-plus history of the National Matches.
“I just wanted to do the best I could for the conditions. That was the main thing I was worried about, seeing the conditions and trying not to mess it up too bad,” he said with a smile in an interview with CMP writer Ashley Brugnone.
Unhappy with his technique the week before during the CMP Cup events, frustrated by missed shot calls and bad decisions, he entered the President’s 100 Match with a new game plan – knowing very well the mishaps that could occur on the notoriously unpredictable Camp Perry ranges.
“I was mainly just trying not to get caught for anything big. With the pick-ups and let-offs at Camp Perry, kind of the way this place is known for, trying not to make a huge mistake is the big thing and not get caught for too many points,” he said. “Normally, you’re going to lose a point or two for the wind, so just to get lucky enough to get them all in there is a pretty big thing for me. I’m proud to be lucky, for sure.”
He took that mentality into the President’s 100 Shootoff final, which places the Top 20 competitors of the match onto the firing line in a 600-yard, 10-shot prone match, where the winner takes all. He focused on taking clean, deep shots, concentrating hard on the sights and the trigger, trying desperately not to move.
After nine shots of doing just that, it came down to his last. He loaded the round into his rifle, the same rifle he used during his record-breaking performance at last year’s National Matches, fixated his gaze downrange, held and pulled the trigger.
“I knew it broke really well, it looked good during the shot process, so I figured it was going to come up pretty good. And then after the fact, I didn’t even realize it was going to be a record – that it was the first time anyone had shot it clean all the way across,” he said with surprise in his voice.
“Yeah, I didn’t know it, so, ignorance is bliss,” he added as he laughed.
At the National Matches in 2017, Green fired a new record score of 499-30x during the National Trophy Individual (NTI) event – one of the highest regarded competitions of the Matches. He went on to earn another Mountain Man title and a National Record score of 1293-69x.
After the President’s 100 Match, Green went on to win the NTI event – narrowly missing his record score that he set last year by firing a 498-34x. Green squeaked past AMU teammate SSG David Bahten, who fired a score of 498-23x for second place.
His aggregate scores from the President’s 100, NTI and Hearst Doubles individual results landed him with his third Mountain Man trophy, the highest honor of the Matches, and another National Record – blowing past the record he set at last year’s National Matches by three points with 1296-83x.
Mineola, Texas, native Justin Utley landed in second place in the event, with an extremely respectable score of 398-24x. A powerful force on the firing line, Utley also had his own record-setting performances during the 2018 National Matches as his combined scores in the President’s 100 and NTI events earned him the Alice Bull trophy as high overall civilian, with a new National Record score of 793-38x.
