June 14, 2024
One year ago, a small group of enthusiastic founders started the CMA sport with a match in Burgdorf, Switzerland. In the meantime, CMA has gained hundreds of members in numerous countries and a lot of matches, both handgun and 2-gun, have been successfully completed. From the concrete experiences during this first year came a number of optimization requests to make CMA even better.
Last weekend, we celebrated the 1-year anniversary, of course again with a match in Burgdorf. After the competition, the founders held a meeting to discuss and decide on the proposed optimization requests.
Some of the points were straight forward and others a bit more tricky or controversial to decide. We want to keep CMA unique but we also want to improve where possible.
Updates
The 3 documents "Rule Book", Divisions" and "Equipment" where updated to version 3.0 each. There is a complete list of the changes available here:
Let's point out some examples:
Rifle Safety Position (Rules 2.6.2)
The safety position is now defined (see also an earlier communications post about this topic). It has already been used in the 2-gun competitions but it wasn't clearly defined in the rules.
Ready Position (Rules 3.3.)
The ready position is now defined in more detail, explaining how to hold the firearm and the exact condition of DA/SA and SA handguns. The ready position is often used as a start position, for example in some strings of the skills tests.
Unload And Show Clear (Rules 3.4)
Originally, we didn't require the shooter to pull the trigger after unloading the firearm but instead required an explicit check of chamber and magazine well. While this makes sense when handling firearms outside of a shooting range, it was a concern with many sport shooters accustomed to pulling the trigger after unloading. For handguns, pull the trigger is now part of the unloading process.
Strong/Weak Hand/Shoulder (Rules 3.5.1)
The definition for strong/weak hand/shoulder was extended to include the correct application with rifles.
Engaging Targets Wrongly/Not As Required (Rules 5.7.1)
Penalties for engaging one or more targets in the wrong way (e.g. standing instead of kneeling and so on) are now stipulated.
Safety Fault Lines (Rules 6.1.1)
Safety fault lines are now defined. Thea are often used in open stages to indicate minimal distances to targets for safety reasons.
Modifications (Divisions 1.1)
Additional, non-safety relevant modifications and installation of aftermarket parts are now allowed.
Trigger Pull Weights (Divisions 2.2.4, 2.4.4, 3.1.1)
The minimum trigger pull weights have been adapted. For pistols, they follow the minimum weights used by the Swiss Shooting Federation for 50/25 m precision shooting.
Maximum Weight In Sports And Sport Optics (Divisions 2.4.2, 2.5.2)
The maximum weight for those divisions has been increased to 1400 g and 1500 g respectively. With this, additional handguns are allowed to be used.
Change Log
There are some more enhancements that have been done. We are convinced, that the sport will become better and even more mature with these optimizations but still remains unique. Not every idea has been adopted. But it is probably impossible to make everything perfect for everybody.
The new versions of the documents are available on the website in English and German. Please have a little patience for other translations to be updated as well.
Outlook
Some open points, especially around organizational topics, have been postponed to a later date. Some examples:
Transition To Sports Association
This is expected to be quite an administrative effort. While surely important and even necessary to do sometime in the future, it's not a top-urgent priority at the moment. Therefore, this remains on the task list but has been postponed.
Membership Fees
At some point in time, we need to start covering the cost of the infrastructure and the efforts done to run the sport. It is planned to introduce a reasonable fee in 2025 but details have to be worked out.
Shooter Certification/Licence
For new shooters, it will become mandatory to attend a standardized introductory class comprising of rules, techniques, skills test and example stages to obtain the shooters certification and CMA license. Those courses are held by certified instructors. For new countries and new clubs there will be special solutions to facilitate starting with the sport.
The renewal of the certification can be done by shooting the skills test. This can be supervised and the results uploaded by any certified safety officer.
In this way, the certification and licence is of real added value and can be accepted outside of the sport as well in the future.
Safety Officer and Instructor Renewals
The standard Safety Officer Certification Course will be ready for use by instructors from beginning of July 2024. All new SOs will have to attend and pass this class in order to get certified.
For the renewal of the SO certification, the favored idea is to base it on actual match work experience by the SO. An SO has to work a minimum number of matches in a given period of time. For example 4 matches within 2 years or similar. We will work on a mechanism and an easy implementation on the website and database. The goal is to have a solution ready by January 2025.
A similar principle will probably be used for instructor certification renewal: a minimum number of standard classes held in a given period of time. Details to follow.
That's all from the administrative side of things. We hope you continue to enjoy and support our sport! Help the CMA community to grow and be successful serving shooters and offering entertaining, challenging and fun matches!
For the founding team, with best regards
Andy