The Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) has been pretty heavily affected by this year’s nationwide events. As a result of canceled competitions, the rule changes that were applied to the 2020 competition season ended up not being tested and thus CMP decided not to publish new rulebooks for the 2021 season. However, they have released the new rules online for the 2020-2021 season and made it easy for competitors to see the new rules.

Rule Changes for 2020-2021 CMP Competitions Released

From the CMP Website:

CMP Competition Rulebooks that will govern CMP sponsored and sanctioned competitions in 2020 have now been approved by the CMP Board’s Rules Committee. All four rulebooks are posted below so you can download your copies.

2020 CMP Competition Rulebooks are effective immediately. Significant changes in this year’s rulebooks include an expansion of the CMP Pistol Rules to establish a new Match Pistol discipline and provide rules to support the sanctioning of Bulls-eye Pistol 2700 Three-Gun Aggregates. The 2020 CMP Smallbore Rifle Rules establish new Smallbore Rifle Distinguished Badges.

Check the rulebooks that govern the disciplines you shoot to see this year’s changes. All changes are displayed in red, underlined text.

One of the biggest rule changes involves a mandate that requires all High Power rifle and pistol competitors wear eye protection that consists of two complete lenses that must be worn in front of the eyes while firing. While this seems like it may be a no-brainer, some competitors have taken issue with the ruling and only wore the shooting glasses to the line and then lowered them to proceed with their course of fire. Other competitors went as far as to cut holes in part of the glasses and some outright refused to comply with the rule change.

Match officials have been given the authority to issue warnings to competitors who refuse to comply with the rule change and if competitors refuse to comply with the warning, they can be disqualified. CMP is putting heavy emphasis on this rule change in order to paint themselves as example to look up to for other shooting sports organizations.

If you are in need of a copy of the 2020-2021 Rulebooks they are available to download from the following link: thecmp.org/competitions/cmp-competitions-rulebooks/

All Photos acquired from the Civilian Marksmanship Program