Rules Version 4.0: Update!
- Andy Pfenninger
- May 15
- 3 min read
Updated: May 16
May 15, 2025
Dear CMA members,
We will soon celebrate the 2-year anniversary of CMA! Of course, there will be an anniversary match at our founding location at Wyss Waffen in Burgdorf, Switzerland to celebrate this milestone.
This year we did our founders meeting before the anniversary match, in order to have enough time to discuss and decide on the proposed change requests.
At the meeting, we went through the list of proposed enhancements that had been collected during the last year. The decisions on all of the points were taken based on our experience in the many matches that had been successfully done since the last update. The objective was to improve, fill gaps and correct errors.
The result are the new rules version 4.0 that will be in effect from June 1, 2025.
Updates
The two documents "Rule Book" and "Divisions" were changed accordingly, the document "Equipment" remained the same and the documents "Membership Concept" and "Sponsorship Concept" were added as new appendices. The membership and sponsorship concepts had already been introduced beginning of this year and they are now formally part of the rules.
Let's have a look at some examples of the changes made:
Disabled Shooters (Rule 5.10.)
Permanently or temporarily physically disabled shooters are now allowed to use customized equipment and perform elements of a stage procedure differently than required in the stage description. The stage SOs and the MD have to approve any deviations and they can add penalties as appropriate to maintain overall fairness and sportsmanship.
Moving with a rifle during a stage (Rule 2.6.10.)
For added overall safety, shooters will have to engage the manual safety of their rifle while moving. Shooting while moving and making just a couple of steps to be able to see the next target are excluded, of course.
As it may be difficult for the SO to check and enforce this rule in all cases, we therefore introduced the new warning command "Safety!" in rule 3.4. Related to warnings, we defined what happens when a shooter fails to react correctly to warning commands, be it "Finger!", Muzzle!" or, newly, "Safety!" in rule 2.6.11.
Crossing the stage boundary (Rule 2.6.8.)
If a shooter leaves the stage by crossing the stage boundary he or she will be stopped and given a DNF score for that stage.
Invalidating a stage (Rule 2.6.9.)
If a shooter invalidates a stage without external influence and he or she cannot finish the stage correctly, the shooter will be given a DNF score for that stage.
Did Not Finish (DNF) and Re-Shoot (Rules 5.8. and 5.9.)
The terms and actions around Did Not Finish (DNF) and Re-Shoot (Rules 5.8. and 5.9.) are now defined.
Some Other Points
For rifles, the usage of blast deflectors and linear/forward compensators is now allowed (Divisions 3.4.1.). Those devices direct the gases and the noise forward, which makes a lot of sense, especially when shooting indoors.
In the Small Rifle division, shooters can now carry an extra spare magazine, called an emergency magazine, that can be used in case of an extended malfunction. This is to take the higher probability of malfunctions with .22lr guns into account (Rule 3.3.).
Change Log
There are some more points, please check them out in the change log. Here's the complete list:
The new document versions are available for download on the website in English and German. Please have a little patience for the other translations to be updated as well.
We are convinced to further improve CMA shooting with these well considered changes.
Outlook
Of course, there's still a lot of work ahead of us to develop and promote our sport. We are constantly training new shooters and are expanding our experience with the vast possibilities for challenging and diverse stages that CMA offers. We have always prioritized the organization and execution of challenging competitions and will keep true to the motto "Made for shooters by shooters".
Please continue to enjoy CMA and as Jeff Cooper said: "Shoot straight and speak the truth!"
For the founding team, with best regards
Andy