CMP-Sanctioned Rifle Clinics are one of the most effective ways for shooting clubs to recruit and train new shooters. To do this successfully, clinics must provide high quality instruction and safe range firing experiences. A well-run rifle clinic will get new shooters off to a great start and increase the likelihood that they will return for more shooting and even become active club members.
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Gary Anderson, author of this article and senior instructor for the CMP Master Instructor Courses, teaches a group of students about one of the instructional presentations in the CMP Rifle Clinic.
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CMP trained Master Instructors play a lead role in conducting clinics and ensuring that they offer outstanding instructional experiences. Since this program began in April 2006, the CMP has trained and certified 458 Master Instructors through its Master Instructor Courses. The CMP has scheduled six new Master Instructor Courses in 2012. If you are interested in working with your club to train new shooters, either adults or juniors, the CMP invites you to attend one of these courses and become part of this great leadership team. This article explains the CMP Rifle Clinic Program, the Master Instructor Courses and how you can sign up to attend a course.
The CMP developed its comprehensive Rifle Clinic Program to
support shooting clubs in their efforts to organize new shooter
clinics. This CMP program includes:
1. 2-Day Master Instructor Courses to train rifle instructors
how to teach club new shooters clinics at their home clubs.
2. Teaching Curriculum in PowerPoint slide format that club instructors can use to teach new shooter clinics.
3. Student texts coordinated with the instructional slides that instructors can distribute to clinic students.
4. Reduced price .30-06 ammo that clubs can use in CMP-sanctioned military rifle clinics and matches.
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The CMP Rifle Clinic Program began as a series of “M1 Garand Clinics,” but today it provides training to teach new shooters how to shoot a whole range of as-issued military rifles, including Garands, Springfields, Carbines and many other military rifles from this era.
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The CMP Rifle Clinic instructional curriculum now is available for two different shooting disciplines, As-Issued Military Rifle and Rimfire Sporter. With the CMP selling large quantities of Garands, Springfields and Carbines, a key CMP Military Rifle Clinic objective was to get new owners of those historic rifles out to the range and participating in target shooting activities. Another primary Rifle Clinic objective is to fulfill the CMP’s statutory mandate, which is found in Federal law (36 U. S. Code, §40722), to “instruct citizens of the United States in marksmanship” and to “promote practice and safety in the use of firearms.”
CMP Rifle Clinics are directly linked to the growing popularity of As-Issued Military Rifle Matches that began with the first John C. Garand Match during the 1999 National Matches. That match quickly became one of the National Matches’ biggest events and led to the creation of three other Military Rifle Matches for Springfields, Vintage Military Rifles and Carbines. Today, the As-Issued Military Rifle shooting discipline has grown to the point where it is featured during four days of National Matches competitions, four days of matches at each of the Eastern and Western CMP Games Matches and over 600 sanctioned tournaments.
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The affordability and accessibility of Rimfire Sporter makes it an ideal shooting discipline for introducing new adult and junior shooters to the challenges and joys of target shooting.
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The CMP introduced Rimfire Sporter shooting in 2002 after four years of testing as a way to offer a low-cost alternative to prohibitively expensive traditional smallbore rifle shooting and to offer a pathway into target marksmanship to an entirely new group of shooters. In this discipline, competitors use smallbore sporter and plinking rifles that most already own. Clothing and gear are strictly limited so as many people as possible can participate. Rimfire Sporter attracts participation from many women and juniors; the whole family can shoot it. The National Rimfire Sporter Championship at Camp Perry has become the largest smallbore rifle championship in the country and the annual total of sanctioned Rimfire Sporter Matches has climbed to well over 100.
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In CMP Rifle Clinics, classroom instruction is followed by coached dry fire practice where new shooters practice dummy round loading and their new prone and standing positions before they proceed to actual range firing.
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The CMP instructional curriculum that is used to teach clinics in either Military Rifle or Rimfire Sporter offers a sequence of topics designed to take individuals with no previous shooting experience and give them the basic knowledge and starter skills they need to shoot a complete course of fire in an instructional competition. The recommended classroom phase in most clinics lasts three to four hours. Coached dry firing follows and is done before actual range firing where shooters conclude the clinic by completing their first course of fire. Classroom instruction covers these topics:
1. Introduction to the Course
2. Rifles and Rifle Handling
3. Safety and Range Procedures
4. Equipment, Targets and Courses of Fire
5. Shot Technique, Using the Sling and the Prone Position
6. Firing Slow and Rapid-Fire, Sight Adjustment and Zeroes
7. Standing and Sitting Positions
8. Shooting a Competition
9. After the Competition
 
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The clinic notebook and instructional CDs issued to all Master Instructor students include complete course material for both As-Issued Military Rifle and Rimfire Sporter new shooter clinics.
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The CMP Master Instructor Course is a two-day course where in-person instruction in each of these topics is presented in full detail so that new instructors will have a higher level of expertise in each topic. Many students at these courses have already taught Military Rifle clinics and are encouraged to share their experiences with other course members.
In preparing the clinic curriculum, a lot of experimental work was done over the course of several years to develop the best methods of instruction for teaching fundamental rifleman skills. New methods of instruction were devised to teach people who have never fired before how to use a sling and how to assume good prone, standing and sitting positions. CMP Rifle Clinic teaching methods are distinguished by their simplicity and how easily new shooters can assume excellent firing positions. Master Instructor Course students practice these instructional methods in dry fire sessions. In addition, students in the courses at Camp Perry and Anniston also have opportunities to practice clinic teaching points while firing air rifles on CMP Competition Center electronic targets.
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The CMP Rifle Clinic instructional material includes 128 slides like this one on M1 Garand loading, each with extended notes.
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Master Instructor Courses begin on the morning of the first day, usually Saturday, and end shortly after lunch on the second day. In addition to classroom presentations and discussions, the course schedule gives students networking opportunities during breaks, meals and a reception at the end of the first day. Saturday evening receptions for the Camp Perry courses take place at the Gary Anderson home where course participants can see his personal collection of Olympic and shooting sports memorabilia.
Students who come to the Master Instructor Courses are now about evenly split between those wanting to go back to their clubs to teach Military Rifle Clinics and those wanting to teach Rimfire Sporter Clinics for either adults or juniors. Rimfire Sporter is especially suited for juniors and women. Many clubs that do not have established traditional smallbore junior programs are turning to Rimfire Sporter as the best and most affordable way to get juniors started.
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Many students who attend CMP Master Instructor Courses now report that teaching new junior shooters is their primary objective. The Rimfire Sporter Clinic is well suited for that purpose.
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Everyone who completes these two-day courses is certified as a CMP Master Instructor and receives a CMP Master Instructor certificate, a complete course notebook, a CD with all of the clinic presentations as well as access to subsequent course updates. When rifle clinics are sanctioned by the CMP, online listings for those clinics now designate the clinics that are taught by Master Instructors. This designation is becoming a guarantee of clinic quality.
If you belong to a shooting club that wants to train more new shooters and you want to improve your instructional knowledge and skills so you can be a more effective leader in that endeavor, you should consider attending a CMP Master Instructor Training Course. 2012 course dates and locations that have already been established are:
• 28-29 January, CMP Competition Center, Camp Perry, Ohio, taught by Gary Anderson
• 10-11 March, CMP Competition Center, Anniston, Alabama, taught by Gary Anderson and John McLean
• 11 April, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, taught by John McLean
• 4-5 May, Camp Butner, North Carolina, taught by Gary Anderson, students will act as coaches for the New Shooter Clinic in the Eastern CMP Games
• 8-9 September, CMP Competition Center, Anniston Alabama, taught by Gary Anderson and John McLean
• 22-23 September, Camp Perry Competition Center, Camp Perry, Ohio, taught by Gary Anderson
To sign up for a Master Instructor Course, open the CMP website at
www.thecmp.org and then click on “CMP Master Instructor Courses.” This will open the Master Instructor home page where you will find detailed information about these courses plus an application form where you can register.
If you have questions or want additional information, contact Shannon Hand at
shand@odcmp.com or 419-635-2141, ext. 1101. Shannon is the CMP staff member who administers course arrangements, the Master Instructor roster and clinic sanctioning.
If you are not already teaching CMP Rifle Clinics as a certified Master Instructor, the CMP invites you to participate in an upcoming Master Instructor Course and then to work with your shooting club in helping build the future of shooting by getting more new shooters off to a great start through the CMP Rifle Clinic Program.
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