Category Archives: Competition Shooter

Bruce Nelson

Posted on by

1948 – 1995

  • born on Jan 3. 1948 in Duluth Minnesota
  • became an NRA member when he was seven years old
  • 1954 worked for John Bianchi in Monrovia Ca
  • shot in the Southwest Pistol League
  • 1969, he became the fourth member of the Fillmore (California) Police Department
  • California Department of Justice, Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement
  • 1975 created the CDOJ Advanced Training Officer Survival Program
  • 1976 one of the 40 founding members of the International Practical Shooting Confederation
    – holster committee w/ Michael Harries
  • 1976 second place in the I.P.S.C. Columbia Conference Match
  • 1977 I.P.S.C. Southwest United States Champion
  • 1984 wife Sandra Froman, “Sandy”
    – NRA president 2005 – 2007
  • 1985 Bruce Nelson Combat Leather stated in Tucson, AZ
  • February 15th 1995 Bruce passed

http://brucenelson.com/

Ken Hackathorn

Posted on by

8/31/1946

  • 1966-1971  US Army 19th SFG – Staff Sergeant Weapons Specialist
  • US Army Special Forces Small Arms Instructor
  • Deputy Sheriff – Washington County SO, Ohio
  • 1975 Met Jeff Cooper
  • Gunsite Instructor
  • One of the FIrst Traveling Firearms Instuctors
  • NRA Police Firearms Instructor.
  • FBI Certified Firearms Instructor
  • 1975 wrote a column for Soldier of Fortune magazine
  • Writer for: Guns & Ammo, Combat Handguns, Soldier Of Fortune, American Handgunner
  • 1976 – Founding member of IPSC
  • 1996 – Founding member of IDPA.
  • 2016 – AZTEC Training Services

Thell Reed

Posted on by

1943

  • Downey, California
  • competed in Jeff Cooper’s Big Bear “Leatherslaps” shooting competitions
  • one of the six “Combat Masters”
  • Gene Autry’s Wild West tour
  • trained actors for acting roles involving use pistols
    – Russell Crowe
    – Brad Pitt

Margaret Thompson Murdock

Posted on by

First markswoman in history to win an Olympic medal
(men and women competed against her)

August 25, 1942

  • She learned how to shoot by following her father to the rifle range
  • Attended Kansas State University
  • competed on the Kansas State University men’s rifle team
    – winning two Big Eight Conference championships
    – the university’s first female student to earn a varsity letter
  • four-years in the U.S. Army,  assigned as a shooting instructor at Fort Benning, achieved the rank of major
  • 1966 World Champion in Women’s Standard Rifle
  • first woman to win an individual open World Shooting Championship
  • 1967 she won two gold medals in small-bore rifle at the Pan American Games and set a world record, for men or women, in the kneeling rifle shooting
  • 1976 first woman ever on the U.S. Olympic shooting team
  • 1976 silver medal at the 1976 Summer Olympics
  • first woman to win a medal in Shooting at the Summer Olympics
  • 1977 retired from competitive shooting at age 35 and become a registered nurse
  • 1992 named to the U.S. International Shooting Hall of Fame
  • In international competition Murdock set four individual world records and nine team world records
  • She is a member of five halls of fame, including
    USA Shooting Hall of Fame and Kansas Sports Hall of Fame

My first year at K-State, I couldn’t shoot on the team because I was a female. I could practice with the K-State team but I couldn’t be on the team. They got a new coach and he thought it would be a good idea for me to be on the team since I was shooting better than everyone else. ”
— Murdock, reminiscing in 2011

Tom Givens

Posted on by
  • 25-year career in law enforcement 
  • 1996 Rangemaster
  • Rangemaster Firearms Training Services
  • Author of over 100 magazine articles in S.W.A.T. Magazine, Combat Handguns Magazine, Concealed Carry Magazine, Soldier of Fortune, Peterson Handguns Magazine, and others
  • 1998 Tennessee IDPA State Champion
  • 1999 Mississippi IDPA State Champion
  • Former Member IDPA Board of Directors
  • Armed Citizens’ Legal Defense Network, Inc.

Bob Munden

Posted on by

1941

Fastest Man with a Gun Who Ever Lived
– Guinness World Records

  • born in Kansas City, Missouri
  • started shooting career at age 11
  • 1950s in high school, Bob competed in Jeff Cooper’s Big Bear “Leatherslaps” shooting competitions at Big Bear Lake, California
  • won over 3,500 fast draw trophies
  • custom gunsmith
  • exhibition shooting:
    – “Super Humans” on the History Channel
    – American Shooter
    – Shooting USA’s Impossible Shots
    – Ripley’s Believe it or Not

Michael Harries

Posted on by

1938

  • May 30, 1938 – November 25, 2000
  • 1957 to 1961 USMC
  • 1960s seek out and join the Southwest Combat Pistol League SWPL
    – based on articles in Guns & Ammo magazine
  • 1969 joined the Southwest Pistol League (SWPL)
    – coached five different shooters to SWPL class championships
    – taught private students
  • 1970 met Jeff Cooper
    – participated in Cooper’s “Mountain Man” program
  • staff with  Mel Tappan  “Seminars-On-Survival”
  • 1976 founding member of IPSC (the International Practical Shooting Confederation)
    – holster committee w/ Bruce Nelson
  • 1981 founded Southern California Tactical Combat Program
  • 1982 adjunct staff at American Pistol Institute (Gunsite)
  • 1970s invented Harries Flashlight Technique

Ray Chapman

Posted on by

1928 – February 2, 2008

– Chapman Acadamy – Columbia, MO
– Friend of Jeff Cooper
 the man the late, great Jeff Cooper called “the maestro” 
of practical handgun shooting according to Massad Ayoo

  • United States Marine Corps, Pacific Ocean theater, World War II
  • Marine during early stages of the Korean Conflict
  • fireman in Oregon as he completed his Degree in Civil Engineering
  • worked as a policeman in California
  • 1950s worked at California Highway Department
  • 1950s – Central to the development of practical shooting
  • 1950s pioneer of the Southwest Pistol League
  • 1975 won the first IPSC Handgun World Shoot
  • 1975 Opened the world-renowned Chapman Academy of Practical Shooting in Columbia Missouri
  • 1976 – Founder of the International Practical Shooting Confederation
  • 1979 retired from competition
  • 1979 His training facility became the home of the Bianchi Cup
  • retired from the Academy in 1995
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Champan_Sign.jpg
  • 2012 is a banner year in that Chapman Academy is now open for teaching again

Jeff Cooper

Posted on by

May 10, 1920 – September 25, 2006

  • Created the Safety Rules
  • Created the Shooting School
  • 1941 Marines
  • 1957 Shooting Compititons in California
  • Southwest Combat Pistol League (Southwest Pistol League)
    Bigbear, California
  • 1966 coined the term Hoplophobia
  • 1975 Became International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC)
  • first IPSC President
  • 1977 American Handgunner Magazine
  • 1989 Principles of Personal Defense (Revised Edition, red cover)
  • 2006 Principles of Personal Defense (blue cover)
    – Foreword by Louis Awerbuck

Hoplophobia, the morbid fear of guns, is a real, extremely dangerous, widespread and clinically recognizable complex specific phobia – Jeff Cooper 1966