Smith & Wesson’s Norris Crowned Steel Master At U.S. Steel National Championships

­­Smith & Wesson’s Norris Crowned Steel Master At U.S. Steel National Championships

Steel Challenge World Speed Shooting Championships
Steel Challenge World Speed Shooting Championships

SEDRO-WOOLLEY, Wash. — -(AmmoLand.com)- Team Smith & Wesson shooter BJ Norris of Tyler, Texas, won the Limited division National Championship and was crowned the Steel Master at the Smith & Wesson U.S. Steel Nationals in Titusville, Fla.

Norris captured the coveted Steel Master title, which is based on the combined scores of three events, by winning Limited and finishing second in both the Rimfire and the Open pistol divisions.

On Thursday Norris barely missed taking the Rimfire title when Team Glock’s Dave Sevigny won by a margin of just 0.06 seconds. Then on Friday Norris bounced back to win the Limited title over Sevigny, the defending champion, by over 3 seconds.

“It was another great battle between me and Dave. It was close all the way until the final stage and Dave had to really go for it to overtake me. Luckily I came out on top and by a strong enough margin that I felt comfortable about the Steel Master title going into the Open event,” said Norris.

Norris is one of the fastest shooters in the world and holder of three of the eight world speed shooting records. He has been one of the dominating competitors in the Steel Challenge Shooting Association but has ye­t to win one of the two major events in the sport coming in second in each of the last three Open championships.

On Saturday Norris made if four in a row as he ended up only 0.08 seconds behind defending National Champion and two-time World Champion Max Michel of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit.

“I’m obviously frustrated,” said Norris. “This is the fourth time in a row I’ve ended up second in either the Nationals or the World Championship. I bombed the stage Smoke & Hope shooting a raw score of 9.58 and that’s over a second slower than I’m used to shooting that stage. That’s where I lost the match.”

Despite the obvious disappointment in losing the overall title of the Nation’s Fastest, Norris is upbeat and optimistic about the Steel Challenge World Speed Shooting Championships in August.­

“I know what I need to do this summer. I’ve got the right equipment and factory support from Smith & Wesson so it’s just a matter of putting it all together when the buzzer sounds. And I know I can do it,” explained Norris.

About SCSA:
The Steel Challenge Shooting Association (SCSA) is the governing body of the sport of Speed Shooting and organizer of the Steel Challenge World Speed Shooting Championships. To learn more about the Steel Challenge Shooting Association and the Steel Challenge visit the Web site at www.steelchallenge.com. There you will find diagrams of the stages of fire, complete listing of past results, a list of past champions, world record times and more.­