All photos courtesy of The Tactical Games @thetacticalgames / Recon Photography @recon_ro
"I see the vehicle. About 400 yards; coming at us. Aim for the roofline." Semi-auto rifle fire cracks the air in rapid succession. Two shooters send precise rounds into the tan truck's windshield and engine cowling, disabling the driver within seconds. The truck rolls to a stop.
"Time!" calls the RO. The second stage of the long movement is over quickly for this two-man team. They hurry to pack up their gear and rifles and jump down from the concrete structure in the rear equipment storage area of Government Training Institute. The team is still on the clock, so they need to move on with their ruck to the next stage. They don't know it yet, but their next task is to climb the stairwell to the roof of the 10-story NEST building and engage steel targets out to 800 yards. At the end of their course of fire today, the team will have covered about 4 miles over 2 to 3 hours across the industrial landscape of GTI, shooting from inside structures and winding through the dark labyrinth of this decommissioned nuclear facility.
Teams worked together to disable moving targets.
The long movement is the second day of The Tactical Games Sniper Challenge, a fitness-oriented precision rifle match that tests a rifleman's skills beyond just the shooting. For the 2024 event, the match was designed for a two-person team format and held at the infamous Government Training Institute in Barnwell, South Carolina. GTI occupies the property previously operated as the Barnwell Nuclear Fuel Plant, a facility constructed in the 1970s to process spent nuclear fuel from commercial power reactors. While the facility was never activated, testing with natural uranium did occur in the late 70s and early 80s¹. The site was decommissioned in the late 1990s, and in 2003, it was reopened as Government Training Institute², where the vast industrial complex is used to train law enforcement and military personnel in one of the most unique training sites in the country.
While competitions open to civilians are rare at GTI, The Tactical Games is no stranger to the facility. The organization has hosted events there several times since 2019, where competitors were given the opportunity to explore the main building, tunnels, and 10-story sniper tower known as the NEST. However, this marked the first time The Tactical Games utilized the facility for the Sniper Challenge, a much different style of competition.
Shooters engaged from the rooftops and within GTI's mega structures.
Regular Tactical Games regional events draw large crowds of athletes looking to test their physical fitness and shooting stamina, where heavy lifts, runs, rope climbs, and other fitness measures build muscle fatigue before shooting a course of fire with carbine and pistol. The regionals can be tough and competition is high. While the Sniper Challenge does incorporate fitness and shooting, this specialized event is oriented more toward moving the body and equipment as fast as possible to shooting positions, where unknown targets and distances must then be ranged and engaged with precision fire. Smaller and more isolated shooting positions could be used for the Sniper Challenge due to the competition's format.
The 2024 Tactical Games Sniper Challenge³ was a two-day, team-only match with three divisions: Heavy, Lite, and Slick, The most populated division was Heavy, where both competitors required a plate carrier weighing 15-lbs. The Lite division required an 8-lb plate carrier for both teammates. Slick division had no requirement for a weighed plate carrier, but all divisions had to carry their gear and ammunition for the full weekend at every course of fire. Additionally, all divisions require one shooter to use a rifle chambered in 5.56 or 7.62, and one shooter must use an optic with a maximum magnification of 10x. The team could split these rifle requirements any way they wished. A pistol was required for both shooters, and equipment like laser rangefinders, support bags, tripods, ballistic solvers, and other precision rifle equipment were highly encouraged or outright necessary.
Teamwork was the way to victory at the 2024 Sniper Challenge.
All stages of the weekend were shot blind. Athletes were given a brief stage description in order to understand the basic requirements, scoring, and loadout, but the squads were kept away from viewing the shooting positions and targets until it was their time to shoot. Once the shooters came up to the start line, they were given some additional information on the shooting location and specifics, and then were started off by the timer to get into position, find and range their targets, and engage the course of fire. Half of the weekend's stages were points-based, rewarding accuracy, while the other half of the stages were time-based, rewarding speed.
The first day had 6 stages spread throughout the complex. Most stages had a 4 to 5 minute par time for all of the work to be completed. Targets were capped at 600 yards max for the secondary shooter and 800 yards max for the primary shooter. Most targets were sized appropriately for gas guns, although there were some smaller targets that provided an option for more points on at least one stage. The targets were not purposely hidden, but occasionally needed some effort to find. Marathon Targets brought out their moving mannequin targets that were engaged in two different stages on day 1, giving shooters a more unique opportunity to test their skills on movers. One of the stages on the first day timed shooters getting up seven stories of the NEST building before shooting their course of fire. The team's time to climb up the stairs was used to set the run order for the long movement on day 2, with the fastest time getting to go first on the ruck.
Endless ladders and stairs led teams to elevated shooting positions.
Other shooting positions on day 1 included a hike up the spiraling stairs of the facility's huge water tanks to shoot from a railing at moving targets, climbing a caged ladder into a small crow's nest tower on the NEST structure, engaging 10+ targets through a small loophole knocked into the side of GTI's main building, and firing from deep concealment within the 4th story of the NEST. A fear of heights may have popped up a time or two, but after the buzzer sounded, teams settled those butterflies to focus on the task at hand. Shooters had a blast on day 1 and were excited to explore even more of the facility on the second day.
The long movement on day 2 launched individual teams on their ruck in 10-minute intervals throughout the morning and early afternoon. The ruck was a timed event, so it was important for the shooters to move quickly to stay ahead of their competitors. As teams arrived at their stages, entry and exit times were recorded in order to give the stage briefs and allow a minute or two to restow gear before moving on to the next stage.
Movers at 600 yards from the top of a water tank at a nuclear facility? Teams got to play Call of Duty in real life.
Teams started their movement by visiting an observation post, where they were required to find and identify particular targets that would build a code to unlock a bonus shot later in the day. They then hustled to their first stage, which was a short range bay designed to test speed with pistol and carbine for the secondary shooter, as well as pistol and tight precision, height over bore shots at 40 yards on paper for the primary shooter.
Next, athletes visited a second observation post to find another key to the bonus shot, and then headed for the second course of fire. The secondary shooter had some tough pistol shots to complete before a moving vehicle from Marathon Targets appeared from the woods. Both shooters engaged the vehicle's driver until the truck was disabled. Teams then dismounted from the concrete structure used as the shooting position and made their way from the ground floor up to the top of the NEST's 10-story roof, where they needed to find and engage an array of targets scattered about the field and woods of the facility.
Marathon Targets provided their T50 and T100 moving targets, which added incredible value to the experience.
Bounding back down the stairs, teams were then led into a third observation post within the covered shoot house at GTI, where targets and decoys were hidden throughout the structure. Teams had to find and memorize the final piece of their code for the bonus shot before moving into the depths of GTI's main building.
Upon entering the main building, teams followed the open doorways and caution tape through tunnels, up stairwells, across catwalks, outside and up or down caged ladders, and then through the heavy blast doors of the facility's control room, a breathtaking spectacle of nuclear technology and the central nervous system of the plant's intriguing history. Rifles and equipment clanked on the ladders leading up to the final main stage on the roof of the main building, where handfuls of steel targets were scattered among shot up vehicles and 500 yards out into fields and wood lines.
Ropes were provided to hoist gear to and from the shooting positions.
Upon completion of the final stage, a series of ladders led the teams to the bonus shot position, where a coded pad lock allowed entry into an ammo box that designated the correct target in an array for each shooter. Getting the combo correct and placing a good shot on the target yielded a reduction of 3 minutes on the team's ruck time. Shooters then hustled down a staircase and back out onto open ground, where they sprinted to the finish of the weekend.
If you asked the shooters which was their favorite stage of the weekend, many of them would reply that the vehicle stage on day 2 was their pick just due to the surprise of the vehicle and sheer uniqueness of shooting at an approaching truck. However, many shooters were quick to say that the entire weekend was one hell of an experience, except maybe for the 7 and 10-story stair climbs (there were a few comments that we can leave those out next year).
The Tactical Games has said that the Sniper Challenge will be an annual event going forward, but the word is still out on whether the match will return to GTI in 2025. It's possible that the organization may choose from another of the nation's premier ranges, where an opportunity to shoot a new and unique match like this can take place. We'll find out soon where the 2025 event will be, and you should be sure not to miss out on the next Tactical Games Sniper Challenge!
Engaging far targets from deep within a structure. One of many challenges at the Sniper Challenge!
References:
"The Decommissioning of the Barnwell Nuclear Fuel Plant." J. McNeil. Life Cycle Engineering. https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/30/060/30060347.pdf
"About GTI." GTI Training. https://gtitraining.org/about-gti/
"The Tactical Games Sniper Challenge." The Tactical Games. https://www.thetacticalgames.com/sniper-challenge/
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