NRA's Distinguished and Open Semi-Auto pistol matches draws hundreds

Albuquerque, New Mexico - The first round of NRA's National Police Shooting Championships (NPSC) is complete. All we await now is for the challenge period to expire before posting the results of this morning's Open Class Semi-automatic Pistol 1500 Championships (whew — that was a mouthful).

Currently the Distinguished Semi-Auto matches, almost four hundred strong, are underway. So what's the difference between Open and Distinguished? After all, both matches call for pistol with a six inch barrel with an 8.5 inch sight radius and 3.5 pounds of trigger pull. Well, a couple of things.

First and foremost is the caliber. Open calls for either hand loaded or factory loaded ammo. Distinguished mandates that only new issue ammo from a licensed manufacturer is allowed. The rule book goes further to approve ammunition from the manufacturer in full metal jacket, semi-wadcutter, jacket soft point, hollow point or round nose.

Distinguished also disallows adjustable front sights, thumb rests, tape on the grip/stock and a few other things. Guess that's why they call the Open the Open.