At the Civilian Marksmanship Program's Talladega Marksmanship Park, every year, the organization commemorates the events of the D-Day landings with its D-Day Anniversary match. In 2025, the match is scheduled from June 5-8 and includes Garand, Springfield and Vintage Military matches, as well as a Vintage Sniper team matche, 1911 As-Issued Pistol match and other vintage-themed competitions.
"The D-Day match basically celebrates all the World War II guns, but it really focuses on the M1, to a large extent," said Steve Cooper, training, education and marketing manager for the Civilian Marksmanship Program. "But we want folks to come out and shoot these vintage guns, and we spend the whole week doing nothing but that."
It's one of several regular events held at the CMP's Talladega park, one of the most modern shooting facilities in the country. The 500-acre facility regularly hosts rifle, pistol and shotgun events, and the main firing line is loaded with modern electronics.
" It's a 50 firing point range with a covered firing point, and we got targets at 200, 300 and 600 yards," Cooper said. "It's all electronically scored. So you've got a monitor at your side, and so every shot that goes downrange is recorded by the target and sent back by fiber optics to the firing line. It shows up on your monitor in a split second."
Just off the firing line, CMP operates a 13,000-sq.-ft. clubhouse that offers a fully stocked Pro Shop, where visitors can purchase ammunition, accessories, CMP memorabilia and firearms, to include a selection of the M1 Garands for which the CMP is known.
"We have hundreds of thousands of competitors and customers that have either competed in our matches or purchased our products, our amazing M1 Garands and, and more recently in the past several years, the M1911 .45-caliber pistols," said Jerry O'Keefe, chairman and CEO of the Civilian Marksmanship Program. "And I think it's a big role in terms of the shooting sports competitions. I think our brand is trusted in America as being a quality brand."
CMP also offers training courses in pistol, rifle, shotgun and archery, along with LEOSA firearm qualification courses. The range is open to the public, and there are monthly events, such as the NSCA Shotgun Shoots, which are also open to the public.
" In these days, when there's so much concern about guns, I like to say, and we all like to say in the CMP, that we're the good guys on the side of the gun," Cooper said. "And we'd like the American public to realize that they can come out here, and enjoy a safe sport in a great environment and go home feeling really good about what they did and understand a little bit more about our world."
To watch complete segments of past episodes of American Rifleman TV, go to americanrifleman.org/artv. For all-new episodes of ARTV, tune in Wednesday nights to Outdoor Channel 8:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. EST.
