Courtesy Photo | Staff Sgt. Jacob Hetherington will compete at the 2025 International Practical...... read more read more
Two U.S. Army Soldiers will compete at the 2025 International Practical Shooting Confederation World Shoot Handgun Championships in South Africa September 22-27.
Sgt. Aaron Eddins and Staff Sgt. Jacob Hetherington, both instructors/competitive shooters with the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit out of Fort Benning, Georgia, are part of the U.S. Practical Shooting Association Team representing the United States at the 30-stage, 5-day handgun championships. More than 1700 marksmen from around the world qualified to represent their countries at this elite competition, making it an honor to be here, said Eddins.
“The IPSC World Shoot is the Olympics of practical shooting. It takes place every three years, but has recently changed to every four to match the Olympic schedule.”
The first World Shoot was in Zurich in 1975 where American marksman Ray Chapman won the Gold. As firearms developed and the number of competitors increased, changes were inevitable. In 1990, American Doug Koenig became the first marksmen to win the World Shoot using a red dot sight. In the following 1993 World Shoot, competitors were divided into divisions based on equipment. For example, marksmen competing with optical sights were in the Open/Modified Division, while competitors with iron sights were the Standard Division.
The 2025 IPSC World Shoot Handgun Championships has six divisions: Classic, Open, Production, Production Optics, Revolver and Standard. This year’s World Shoot has more than 1700 competitors from at least 50 individual countries. Some of the countries represented include Poland, Czech Republic, Italy, Brazil, Venezuela, Kenya, China, Serbia, Ukraine, Zimbabwe, New Zealand, Ecuador, Papua New Guinea, Republic South Africa, Sri Lanka, Germany, Paraguay, France, Canada, and Philippines.
To qualify for the 2025 World Shoot, athletes had to compete in four qualifying matches. From those four, the top three scores were combined, explained Eddins.
“The top four in each country [for each division] are selected to be on that country’s national team.”
Eddins will represent Team USA in the Open Division alongside civilian marksmen: Christian Sailer, Bryan Jones and John Vlieger. These four Americans will vie for the Gold against 358 other Open Division individual competitors. They will also compete as the Open Division Team for the United States against 35 other country teams.
Hetherington will represent Team USA in the Production Optics Division alongside civilian marksmen: JJ Racaza, Tom Castro and Jay Beal. These four Americans will seek the Gold against 447 other Production Optics individual marksmen and 40 other country teams.
Competing internationally is not new for the USAMU Action Shooting Team. Years ago, the team competed at IPSC Championships regularly. USAMU veterans such as Travis Tomasie, Max Michel, KC Eusebio, and Shane Coley have competed and medaled in several IPSC World Shoots over the years. In fact, in 2008, USAMU Action Shooting Team Soldiers swept the podium when Eusebio, Brad Balsley and Coley won the Gold, Silver and Bronze in the Junior Category.
Though the USAMU Action Shooting Team stepped away from international competitions for several years due to a variety of administrative challenges, there is a refocused effort on them. The ‘Home of Champions’ is well known for international shooting sports like in 10m air rifle, 50m smallbore, trap and skeet since they have had a strong presence at the Olympics in those sports.
Across the nation, the USAMU Action Shooting Team is well known in practical shooting, precision rifle series and multigun competitions, and since the IPSC World Shoot is similar in nature to the unit’s Olympic presence in other shooting disciplines, it’s in-line with the unit’s mission to win on a global stage, said Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Workman, USAMU Action Shooting Team Chief.
“It is important for these world-shooters to be able to represent the U.S. Army and the Army Marksmanship Unit on an international stage, not only matches within [the United States].”
To prepare for this competition, Eddins said he competed in seven international competitions over the last three years. Hetherington, who earned the highest qualifying points in the Production Optics Division, earned his spot on the World Shoot by competing at French Nationals, Extreme Euro in Czech Republic and the Viking Extreme in Denmark. However, this will not be his first World Shoot. He competed in the championships before joining the U.S. Army.
“The last World Shoot I shot was in 2014. I was on the U.S. Junior Production Team and earned a Silver Medal. The U.S. Team won the Gold Medal for Team Production,” said Hetherington.
Like the Olympics, the IPSC Championships will be intense, not only with competition but in course of fire as well. U.S. Practical Shooting Association competitions typically have between nine and 12 stages over two to three days. The international competition is more like a marathon with 30 stages over five days. Those stages are broken up into short (12 rounds or less), medium (13-24 rounds) and long courses (25-32 rounds), making each competitor prove their skills are fast and accurate with nearly 600 rounds.
Team USA will begin competing on Monday, September 22. With the 30 stages broken down into five areas, meaning they will complete six stages per day. GT3 Sports will cover the competition live on their official website (GT3Sports.com), livestream hub (Vimeo/ActionStreamingLIVE) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/actionstreaminglive/).
For more information about the competition, go to https://2025hws.worldshoot.org/general-information/.
For squadding/match schedule details go to https://2025hws.worldshoot.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2025/08/Schedule-MAIN-MATCH-WS-HG-RSA-2025-sub-Areas_v2_14aug2025.pdf. Team USA’s Open Division, which includes Eddins, is Squad 13. Team USA’s Production Optics Division, which includes Hetherington, is Squad 19.
| Date Taken: | 09.17.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 09.17.2025 14:11 |
| Story ID: | 548427 |
| Location: | GEORGIA, US |
| Web Views: | 18 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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