What Is the Sniper Team Series?
The Sniper Team Series (STS) is a national framework that brings together some of the country’s most demanding and respected two-person team sniper competitions under a single season-long structure. These matches are independently run and regionally distinct, yet unified by a shared commitment to realistic field challenges, uncertainty, and competitive integrity.
STS-recognized events emphasize terrain-driven problem solving, target detection, communication, and decision-making under stress. While inspired by military sniper training principles, all matches are fully open to civilian competitors seeking an authentic test of skill beyond standardized performance shooting.
Competitors may participate in any number of sanctioned matches throughout the season. Teams that complete the required minimum events become eligible for The Cup, STS’s culminating championship that rewards consistent performance across varied environments, match styles, and terrain.
How the Series works
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The Sniper Team Series is a national competition framework that connects independently run team sniper matches into a single, season-long series. STS recognizes and supports events that meet established standards for realism, difficulty, and competitive integrity, while allowing each match to retain its own identity, terrain, and match design.
There is no single standardized match format or universal rule set imposed across the series. This deliberate lack of uniformity gives match directors maximum creative freedom to design stages, problems, and courses of fire that fully exploit their terrain and vision.
The result is a series defined not by repetition, but by variety—producing experiences that are consistently demanding yet fundamentally different from one event to the next.
While formats vary by location and director, STS-recognized matches share a common operating philosophy. Courses of fire are intentionally difficult and designed to test more than raw marksmanship. Competitors should expect low-information problem sets, terrain-driven engagements, and cumulative stress that rewards disciplined execution rather than memorized solutions. At many events, even top-placing teams do not achieve “clean” runs; hit percentages for winning teams commonly fall below 80%, reflecting the intended level of difficulty and realism.
Season standings are based on individual performance within two-person teams, ensuring accountability while still rewarding effective teamwork. Competitors may enter as many sanctioned matches as they choose during the season, with a minimum participation requirement to qualify for The Cup. Points are awarded based on overall placement at each event, scaled to field size, and accumulated across the season to rank competitors nationally.
The season culminates in The Cup, an elite-level finale developed collaboratively by participating match directors and hosted at a rotating location each year. By combining varied terrain, match styles, and leadership perspectives, The Cup serves as a comprehensive test of adaptability, communication, and sustained performance under pressure—not just a single weekend of execution.
Leadership Ethos and Purpose
STS exists to elevate field-style team sniper competition on a national scale while supporting the match directors who make these events possible. Leadership within STS is grounded in experience as competitors, organizers, and professionals who understand the realities of running and competing in demanding field matches.
The series is guided by a commitment to:
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Supporting match directors rather than controlling them
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Preserving autonomy while maintaining shared standards
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Ensuring fairness, transparency, and consistency in scoring
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Highlighting the capability of the nation’s top rifle teams through real-world conditions
STS leadership prioritizes long-term credibility over short-term growth. The goal is not to make competition easier or more predictable, but to create a platform where adaptability, discipline, and performance under uncertainty are recognized and rewarded at the highest level.