- 1980s Moved from Massachusetts to Montana
- 1986 – 1990 shot professionally at events & competitions around the country
- 1990 professional shooter and instructor for Smith & Wesson
- 1990 & 1991 world female speed shooting champion
- first professional woman shooter since the great Annie Oakley
- Two World Speed Shooting Championships
- Chevy Truck Shooter of the Year Award, inaugural year
- first woman ever allowed to compete at the Buckmasters Invitational in Alabama
– took second overall - 1996 – 1999 Smith and Wesson Academy shooting instructor
- travels to Arizona for Babes with Bullets, shooting camps for women
- use their Montana land as a tree farm
About Judy Woolley
Judy Woolley is an American competitive pistol shooter best known for winning back-to-back women’s titles at the Steel Challenge, the World Speed Shooting Championships. According to published lists of overall Steel Challenge world champions, Woolley was the top woman at the championship in both 1990 and 1991, during an era when the match was held each year in Piru, California. She followed earlier women’s champions such as Melba Pruitt and Lee Cole and came before Valerie Levanza, Kay Clark-Miculek and Jessie Duff, placing her in an important line of women who helped prove that speed shooting at the highest level was not a men-only sport.
The Steel Challenge was founded in 1981 by Mike Dalton and Mike Fichman and became one of the largest professional pistol competitions in America. Competitors fire five runs on each of eight standardized stages of steel plates, and the winner is the shooter with the lowest total time, which makes it a pure test of speed and accuracy. The match was sold to the United States Practical Shooting Association in 2007 and still crowns world champions today. For gun owners, champions like Woolley helped bring women into action shooting and showed what disciplined practice with a handgun can achieve.
Key Facts
- 1981: The Steel Challenge is founded by Mike Dalton and Mike Fichman.
- 1990: Woolley is the top woman at the Steel Challenge World Speed Shooting Championships.
- 1991: Woolley repeats as top woman at the Steel Challenge.
- 2007: The Steel Challenge is sold to the United States Practical Shooting Association, which continues to run the championship.
Sources
Profiles on Minuteman University.com are editorial content compiled from public sources. Inclusion does not imply endorsement of, sponsorship by, or affiliation with this site or the Gun Websites Firearms Network. Corrections and removal requests are welcome through Contact Us.