PrecisionRifleBlog.com A DATA-DRIVEN Approach to Precision Rifles, Optics & Gear
When the PRS Skills Stage was updated in early 2024, it didn’t just add variety – it reset expectations. Before the changes, there was a single, well-known version of the PRS Barricade stage, and shooters had a solid benchmark for what qualified as a “good” time. Top competitors chased the crown of fastest clean, and many knew exactly where they stood. As far as I know, the fastest clean on the “old skills stage” in a pro PRS match was 25.92 seconds by Francis Colon. (Note: That is the format where there was a 10” target and 8 shots from 4 positions.)
But with three new standard stage options now in rotation, the slate was wiped clean. The rules say, “Every PRS Two Day Major Competition will have at least one PRS Skills Stage that will be run the same way at all matches.” Here is a breakdown of the different PRS skills stage options match directors can choose from, and all of them are 8 shots from 5 positions:
Option #1 seems to be the most popular option. More match directors seem to opt for the big/small target setup for the PRS Skills stage than the near/far or wide-pan options.
What’s fast on Option 1? Is a 65-second clean on Option 2 competitive, or just average? The truth is, until recently, there hasn’t been much context.
So I pulled stage data from four of the biggest PRS pro matches over the past several months – each with 175+ shooters – and crunched the numbers. I looked at clean runs, one-miss runs, and overall distributions. Here’s what I found.
Fastest Clean Times – A Look at the Data
The chart below shows the top 20 fastest clean runs from each match and stage option:
From this, a few things become clear:
- Option 1 is the fastest (Big-Small) – Both at the 2025 K&M PRC and 2025 Best of Texas matches, shooters were completing Option 1 in sub-45 second times. It’s the most forgiving and fastest option. Nearly half the field at the 2025 Best of Texas match cleaned it, with 75% of the cleans under 70 seconds. The 2025 K&M match had the fastest clean overall: just 37.24 seconds by Ben Gossett, the 2024 PRS Overall Season Champion!
- Option 2 is the slowest (Near-Far) – The statistics say this is the toughest version. At the 2024 PRS Finale, the fastest clean time on Option 2 was 68.53 seconds, and the average clean run was just over 90 seconds. This is the only version with targets at different distances, so you have to hold or dial your elevation between targets – which clearly slows you down. I shot in the 2024 Finale, and the conditions in Idaho were breezy at times, which is probably why over half of the shooters missed 2 or more shots. I will say that shooters are likely more conservative on speed on the PRS Skills Stage at the Season Finale because the hits matter so much towards your overall season score. I’d expect that in a regular-season pro match, we might see times that are a few seconds faster.
- Option 3 falls in the middle (Left-Right) – Times on Option 3 across all shooters at the 2025 Best of Texas were consistently slower than Option 1. However, among the fastest and most elite shooters, there isn’t much difference in times between Option 1 and Option 3.
I reached out to Ben Gossett to see if anyone had caught his 37-second run last weekend at K&M on video. Fortunately, Austin Buschman was nearby and must’ve had a feeling it was going to be a quick run. Here’s the video he captured:
Wow! That is impressive! Extremely efficient movement, Ben’s eyes never left the target between shots, and his rifle didn’t move as he ran the bolt. That is a pro shooter right there!
Here is a more complete breakdown of statistics I thought were interesting from these PRS Skills stages:
Based on the stats from those flagship Pro-Series PRS matches, here are some benchmark times in seconds that are typical for different classes of shooters:
| Skills Stage | Top Stage Runner | Average Pro Shooter | Amateur Shooter |
| Option 1 | 35-45 | 55-70 | 80-100 |
| Option 2 | 60-70 | 70-85 | 100-120 |
| Option 3 | 40-50 | 60-70 | 85-105 |
Keep in mind that those are times when the fastest shooter and average pro would CLEAN the stage, meaning they hit all 10 shots!
These benchmarks help reset the narrative around what “good” means for each stage option. If you cleaned Option 1 in under 60 seconds, you were solidly in the top 25%. Clean it in under 45 seconds? That’s elite.
I will add that as I analyzed times from these different matches, a handful of names always seemed to be within a few seconds of the fastest time. If you see one of these guys at a match, you might want to get your phone out and take a video when they step up to the PRS barricade! You could be about to witness the next record. 😉
- Ben Gossett
- Keith Rudasill
- Francis Colon
- Matt Caruso
- Ken Sanoski
- Corey Voges
- Mike Burns
- Dillion Lapoma
The Record Time To Beat
I only pulled data from those three flagship pro matches because I actually competed in all of those and knew the format of the stages. While those stats are representative of the fastest times on these stages, I’m not sure if they hold the “official record” or not.
If you’ve seen a faster clean run on one of the Skills Stage options at a pro PRS match that followed the standardized stage design and target sizes, please drop it in the comments. (Practice runs or local matches don’t count!) It’ll be interesting to track how much lower these times go over the season.
Why Shooters Push Hard on the Skills Stage
The PRS Skills Stage isn’t just another stage. It often turns into a drag race because it’s typically the only stage in a 2-day match where time is officially tracked and used as a tiebreaker. If Shooter A and Shooter B both hit 160 targets over 2 days, then the one with the fastest time on the skills stage will place above the other.
Ties aren’t only a concern for the mid-pack shooters – last season, seven PRS pro matches ended in a tie after more than 200 rounds were fired. In each of those cases, the match winner was decided by skills stage time.
And if that wasn’t enough motivation, there’s also a serious prize on the line. Nightforce donates a Nightforce ATACR 7-35×56 scope to every PRS pro match that is awarded to the shooter with the fastest clean run on the skills stage. That scope retails for about $3,600, and the winner still gets to walk the prize table based on their overall match finish.
So it’s no surprise that competitors are trying to push these times lower and lower – but they have to do it without missing.
Tips from One of the Fastest
Francis Colon knows how to fly through the PRS Skills Stage – and clean it! In this video, he breaks down the techniques that helped him become one of the fastest in the game:
The video above was recorded before the Skills Stage was revised. Francis is referring to the older format with 8 shots from 4 positions. The updated version is 10 shots from 5 positions, so the times don’t directly compare – but the tips he shares are still 100% applicable!
Help Support PRB
If you’ve found my content helpful, here are ways you could help support PRB:
Shop Using My Amazon Associates Link
If you buy stuff off Amazon, use the link below, and I get credit regardless of what you get or from what country you order – and you pay not a penny more! Amazon has an affiliate program that pays a small commission when readers use links from my website to buy stuff. You still get your stuff at Amazon’s great prices, and you can help support PRB at the same time.
Donate to PRB
