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This month marked the end of the 2025 PRS Season, and we crowned a new PRS Season Champ: Morgun King!
Each season, the top-ranked marksmen from around the world are invited to the PRS Pro Series Season Finale match. This year, the match was hosted by Drew Walter at the Geissele Automatics range near Tremont, Pennsylvania. Drew created a great course of fire featuring many stages with 60-90° pans and targets out to 1,118 yards!
Day 1 featured very challenging, swirling winds. You can see the real data I recorded at the match in the chart, which shows gusts from 3 mph to 15+ mph, while continually changing direction by almost 100°! That snapshot is just a 10-minute window during the day. The tricky winds caused most shooters to drop 20+ points on Day 1, but somehow Austin Buschman only missed 5 shots all day!😮
“I’m going to say that is in the top 3 days of shooting that I’ve ever had.” – Austin Buschman
Day 2 was beautiful, in comparison, with much lighter winds. Competitors were ringing steel! Ryan Beck led Day 2 with only 2 dropped shots, which is some clutch shooting!
Morgun King only dropped 3 shots on Day 2, which helped him catch Austin Buschman in score. But Austin had a faster time on the timebreaker stage, so he took 1st for the match, and Morgun took 2nd. But, while Buschman may have taken home the 1st place trophy for the match, Morgun King entered the PRS Finale with a perfect season score of 300, which means he took home the Golden Bullet and was crowned the 2025 PRS Champ.
Here’s a look at the final 2025 season standings for the top 25 shooters in the Open Division:
Morgun was one of only 3 PRS Champions to ever finish a PRS Season with a perfect score, meaning they came into the PRS Finale having won 3 regular-season matches and then either won or tied the Finale.
Morgun won the season by just over 4 points! Behind Morgun were golden bullet winners from previous seasons, with Austin Bushman taking 2nd for the season and Clay Blackketter right on his heels to take 3rd. Ryan Beck and Nathan Toungate were not far behind to round out the top 5.
In 2025, a few international shooters broke into the top 25: #15 Anthony Collie of New Zealand and #16 Josef Sixt of Germany. There were many other serious competitors from around the globe at the 2025 PRS Finale, which shows how this sport is growing rapidly in other countries.
Congratulations to all of the shooters who earned a spot to compete at the 2025 PRS Finale! Here is what Morgun King and Austin Buschman said in a recent podcast about all of the shooters at the finale:
Morgun King: “The cutoff to qualify to shoot the PRS Finale is usually around 270 season points, which means you had to get 90 points at a pro match three times. And that is not an easy thing to do! That means that Squad 1 is not separated that far from the guy in 150th place, really. They are all good shooters.”
Austin Buschman: “Yeah, everybody at the finale is amazing. Even if someone had a really bad match at the finale or doesn’t feel like they had a great season, if you were at the finale, it means you are amazing with a rifle.”
Here is a look at the top 25 on the season, along with their total points and rank before and after the finale. It’s always interesting to see how much change can come from the finale.
You can see that Austin Buschman went into the PRS Finale in 18th place but climbed all the way to 2nd! What a clutch performance. Buschman told me that he had never won a PRS Finale, so this was a big deal to him. In previous season standings, he had finished 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th. So Austin told me he was really going for the 2 trophies that were missing on his shelf: 1st at the Finale and 2nd on the season. He said it was tough for him to constantly calculate his score and everyone else’s to know how many shots he needed to drop at the finale to pick up both trophies and finally fill those blank spots in his trophy case! 🤣 (If you’ve never squadded with him, Buschman gives out sarcasm like he’s sponsored by it. Assume 90% of what he says is creative fiction, even when delivered with a straight face.)
A guy everyone likes to root for, Gage Caples, is a junior shooter who climbed from 34th entering the finale to finish 9th overall! Squads are organized by rank at the finale, with the top 12 ranked shooters in Squad 1, the next 12 in Squad 2, and so on. Gage shot in Squad 3 at the finale and is one of the only guys to ever win a bullet for the season from Squad 3. Gage is also one of the very few junior shooters to ever win a top 10 bullet in the PRS Open Division. At the PRS awards banquet, it seemed like Gage took home half the awards! 😉 Congrats, Gage!
Here is a look at where the top 10 bullets were awarded based on squads at the Finale.
Just reading through those lists of names in the top few squads shows you how stacked this sport has become. There are guys in Squad 4 that I wouldn’t have been shocked if they had ended up in the top 10. The level of competition in this sport has just skyrocketed! (See stats on how the PRS has grown.)
The 2025 PRS Season featured many amazing performances, but the most noteworthy was Jeff Guerry winning 7 regular-season Pro Series matches! That kind of dominant performance has never happened before. Jeff was skull-dragging guys at virtually every match he shot. Unfortunately, you only get credit for your top 3 match scores from the regular season, so Jeff didn’t get to leverage all of those wins in his season finish. However, Jeff still won a bullet for 7th place on the season to add to his pile of 2025 trophies. Killer season, Jeff!
Here are the 2025 PRS season winners for other divisions and classifications:
- Top Tactical: Nicholas Gebhardt
- Top Production: Keith Rudasill
- Top Sportsman: Robert Mahaffey
- Top Suppressor: Ben Gossett
- Top Gas Gun: Chris Garcia
- Top Junior: Gage Caples
- Top Lady: Kate Estes
- Top Senior: Rusty Ulmer
- Top Military/Law Enforcement: Ben Gossett
- Top International: Anthony Collie
- Top Semi-Pro: Zach Yeager
- Top Marksman: Chett Winkler
- Top Amateur: Kris Haughian
In 2025, the PRS introduced the Sportsman Division, which limits rifles to 13.0 pounds, including optic, muzzle device, bipod, empty magazine, and all detachable accessories. They must also be chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor, which means the recoil of those rifles will be dramatically more than the typical 23-pound 6mm Dasher most of these competitors are using. Robert Mahaffey took 1st in the new Sportsman Division, and he received as much or more in prizes than Morgun! Many sponsors came together to build him an amazing custom rifle with scope and suppressor, plus Hornady donated 1,000+ rounds of 6.5 Creedmoor ammo, and he got to walk away with a $2,500 check!
The PRS Suppressor Category was also created at the start of the 2025 season. Ben Gossett was the top-ranked shooter using a suppressor, and he won a check for $6,000. Thanks to all of the suppressor companies that have really supported that new category. A few of those sponsors were scheming at the PRS Finale Banquet, and hope to make the “Top Suppressor” payout in 2026 even bigger than taking 1st in the Open Division! Morgun got a $10,000 check this year, so it’ll be fun to see how prizes grow moving forward. (Note: If you’re interested to learn about the trend of shooters between suppressors and muzzle brakes, and how that is being shaken up lately, check out this article.)
Great shooting to all of the guys who competed at the 2025 PRS Finale!
I’ll leave you with this photo I snagged from a video, which captures Morgun the instant after his last shot, as he realizes he just earned the golden bullet! 😉 Congrats, Morgun! Well deserved!
And finally, here is a full video I took of Morgun’s last stage at the PRS Finale. Morgun knew that his whole season came down to this stage. I watched all of squad 1 shoot this stage, and surprisingly, a few shooters dropped 2 points or more on this particular stage. The targets were spread far apart, and the one on the right was very small, making it extremely easy to slip a shot off the edge. If Morgun had missed more than 3 shots on this stage, he would have missed his golden bullet opportunity and allowed Austin Buschman to take this season’s PRS Champ. The pressure was real, the crowd knew it, and this run delivered. 🔥🏆
If you’d like to hear more about the 2025 PRS finale and season, I’d suggest you check out this podcast: Mythology of Marksmanship: Morgun King & Austin Buschman talk about the PRS Finale, the season, and Morgun’s golden bullet. It’s almost 3 hours long, but those two are a lot of fun to listen to!
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Excellent Report Cal
Congratulations to all the winners.
Paul Goggan
Always look forward to these articles. Tons of great information. Congratulations to the shooters. Just an amazing level of skill
Thanks, Dave! I always enjoy looking at this stuff myself. It’s interesting to see all the movement, and know some of the narrative around the season.
And I agree that these guys are all amazing shooters. The level of competition is just unreal. In 2022, if you had 286.7 points coming into the Finale you’d be in the top 25 … this year, you would have been ranked 56th! I’ve shot with most of the guys in the top 25, and it’s just crazy what they can do with a rifle. What really blows me away though is the consistency of some of these guys. Even with the continually rising level of competition, guys like Clay Blackketter, Austin Buschman, Ben Gossett, and Austin Orgain continue to be towards the top of the leaderboard for at least 5-7 years in a row. It is really rare for guys to stay at the pinnacle of this sport for so long.
Clay’s consistency this year was crazy, too. He shot in 9 Pro Series matches: two wins, five 2nd place, one 3rd place, one 4th place. He never even finished outside of the top 4 … and 78% of the time he was either 1 or 2! That’s nuts.
Anyway … you can see I am still excited about looking at stuff like this and seeing their season-long performance! 😉
Thanks again for taking the time to let me know you appreciated the info!
Thanks,
Cal
Cal,
Thanks for another awesome write up. This was my first season shooting local PRS matches and I’ve frequented this blog and have found it very helpful. I ended up finishing runner up in C class and I hope to continue to improve and shoot some of the 2 day matches. I think it’d be interesting to see how the pros travel to matches. What rifle cases, where do they store their tripod, what carry on pack etc. After driving to 1 day matches and lugging everything around I am perplexed at how one gets all this through an airport without costing a crazy amount in heavy or extra baggage fees. Thanks!
Hey, Lionel. Thank you, and big congrats on taking runner up in C class this year. That is a strong start!
I will say that when you see guys first start into this, most of them try to carry too much stuff. After you get a couple of 2-day matches under your belt, you will start to learn what you actually use and what you are lugging around for no reason.
But, I can help you with some of that. Not long ago I interviewed Austin Buschman and Austin Orgain, and I asked them to unload everything they carry in their pack at a rifle match. I wrote two articles about that.
Everything a PRS Champ Carries at a Rifle Match – Austin Buschman Shooter Spotlight Part 2
Everything A 2-Time PRS Champ Carries At A Match – Austin Orgain Spotlight Part 4
Both of those show what pack, tripod, rifle case, and other gear they carry with them at every match. It is 100% exhaustive coverage of everything they are lugging around at a two-day PRS Pro Series match. It was really interesting for me to hear what those things were, and maybe more importantly: what didn’t make their list to carry at a match. If it’s not in the article, it’s not with them at a stage.
So I bet those articles have a ton of helpful info, like what you were referring to.
I also remember listening to a VP Precision podcast where Jake Vibbert was sharing a few tips for flying to a rifle match. I searched for it, and couldn’t find what episode it was. He had a few tips like if you upgrade one of your legs to 1st class (which is just $60 for one of the legs I fly regularly), then you get 2 free checked bags AND they can weigh up to 70 lbs each (typically checked bags are limited to 50 lbs). If you were to just walk up to the counter and tell them you need to check 2 bags that weighed 70 lbs, I think it might cost $250 each way. But, if I spend $60 on that 1st class upgrade for one leg … I get the same benefit and a larger chair for a short flight. That tip has saved me hundreds of dollars flying around to rifle matches! I also think Chad Heckler and Francis Colon talked about flying on one of their Miles to Matches podcasts, so you might look for that one, too.
I’ll share one more tip that Ben Gossett told me directly at the 2024 PRS Finale (where he skulldrug everyone and won the golden bullet). Ben said when he flies he doesn’t carry a backup rifle, but only carries his match rifle along with a backup barreled action. I think he did have 2 scopes, but he puts both scopes in his backpack to carry on when flying. Most of our chassis/stocks have gotten really heavy over the past few years, but he said something like, “Really, the main things that might go down on a rifle is the bolt and trigger. There might be something else that keeps a barrel from shooting, but you just aren’t going to have a problem with your stock or chassis.”
Austin Orgain told me once when he flies he doesn’t bring a backup rifle, unless maybe it is for a really big match like a finale. He said if he traveled across the country and his rifle went down, that likely means that match was blown for him. He wouldn’t give up and go home, but if the rifle caused him to drop more than 1 or 2 points on a stage (which would probably be the case for a serious failure), then that match is likely not going to give him useable season points anyway. So if he had to borrow someone’s rifle to finish the match, that is okay with him. It’s such a small chance that you would need a backup rifle anyway. I’ve flown with a backup rifle to matches over a dozen times … and I’ve yet to ever need to pull it out and use it. I have gone to my backup rifle at a match before, but it’s just never been one that I flew to. By the time you’ve shot a dozen PRS Pro Series matches, your rifle and gear are going to be close to bulletproof. If something isn’t extremely reliable, then a pro shooter is going to change that out before the next big match. It costs too much to time and money to travel around to matches for a piece of gear to ruin your match. I promise that the longer you shoot, the stronger you will feel about that!
Hope all of that is helpful! You raised a few good questions, so just wanted to try to pass along anything I could. I still think you should just stick with your plan and go shoot a few 2-day Pro Series matches, and you’ll see what different guys are carrying and what works best for you. My pack doesn’t look identical to Orgain or Buschman. Everyone approaches stages and challenges a little differently, so you’ll just have to find what works best for you. My last piece of advice is after you have shot 2 or 3 two-day matches, unload your pack and remove anything that you never used or you don’t believe is helping you get points that you wouldn’t have got otherwise. That will keep things simpler and lighter, and that will help you get more impacts. 😉
Thanks,
Cal
Thanks for the coverage during this past season, Cal.
It definitely was a fun one!
You always do such an amazing job with articles jammed with information. I was wondering if there is a listing of what each of the winners in each division/classification is shooting. What rifle action, barrel, chambering.
Thank you for all you do to keep us informed.
Thanks! Glad you find this stuff interesting. I haven’t published that info, but it’s a good idea. Thanks for suggesting it.
Thanks,
Cal