Pillar guide

The Rimfire Competition Guide: NRL22, Steel Challenge & Smallbore

Rimfire is the cheapest way into competitive shooting, and in a year when component costs pushed every centerfire discipline further out of reach, that argument has never been stronger. Here is what the four main rimfire games actually ask of you.

Rimfire Ammo editorial· Updated August 13, 2026· 15 min read

Why rimfire competition is growing

The argument for competitive rimfire used to be that it was good practice for the real thing. That framing is now backwards. Rimfire disciplines have become destinations in their own right, with national championships, classification systems and genuinely deep fields, and the reason is arithmetic.

A centerfire precision rifle match consumes expensive ammunition in quantities that put a serious ceiling on how often most people can compete. Component costs across the industry have moved in one direction, and every manufacturer's price increases land on the centerfire shooter hardest. Rimfire is the one corner of the sport that has stayed comparatively insulated — the .22 Long Rifle remains by a wide margin the cheapest cartridge to shoot in volume, and a full day of competition costs a fraction of what the same day costs in any centerfire discipline.

The second reason is that the skills transfer honestly. Positional shooting, wind reading, stage management, working a bolt under time pressure, building a stable position off an unfamiliar barricade — none of that cares what is in the chamber. Rimfire compresses the distances so that a hundred yards demands the wind-reading attention that four hundred would demand in centerfire, which is a feature, not a consolation.

NRL22 and NRL22X

The National Rimfire League runs the discipline most people mean when they say rimfire precision. Matches are shot on a monthly course of fire distributed to member clubs, which means competitors across the country shoot the same stages and can be ranked against each other on a national leaderboard — an elegant solution to the problem that no two ranges are alike. Distances are kept short enough that almost any club range can host, and the challenge comes from positions and barricades rather than from raw distance.

The Base division and why it matters

NRL22's defining feature is the Base division equipment cap. Rather than restricting specific components, the league caps the combined manufacturer MSRP of rifle and scope, and for the current season that threshold sits at $1,650. It is the sum that counts, not what you paid — a used bargain does not buy you a better scope, because eligibility is assessed against the manufacturer's listed price on the season's effective date.

The cap is doing real work. Without it, precision rifle disciplines reliably drift toward an equipment arms race in which new competitors conclude they cannot be competitive without spending heavily, and participation stalls. Capping the entry division means the difference between the top of Base and the bottom of Base is almost entirely skill, which is the whole point.

Open division removes the equipment restrictions and is where competitors go once they have outgrown Base or arrived with a centerfire precision background. There are also dedicated categories for younger shooters and for women, which may be shot under Base, Open or air rifle rules, and a separate air rifle class that has quietly become a serious cold-weather and indoor option.

NRL22X

NRL22X runs under its own separate ruleset and functions as the more demanding sibling — a step up in difficulty for competitors who want more than the monthly club course of fire offers, with its own leaderboard. If NRL22 is the league, NRL22X is where the people who take it seriously spend their weekends.

The rules move, so read them each season

This is not a discipline you can learn once. The league actively surveys its membership on proposed rule changes — recent consultation covered the Base MSRP threshold itself, aftermarket triggers and barrel tuners, all three of which materially affect what a legal Base rifle looks like. Anyone building to the cap should read the current season's ruleset rather than a guide written two seasons ago, including this one.

Steel Challenge

Steel Challenge is owned and run by USPSA, and it is the most immediately accessible competitive shooting there is. There is no movement, no drawing from a holster for rimfire competitors, and no course of fire to memorise on the day. There are eight official stages, each with five steel plates in a fixed arrangement, one of which is designated the stop plate. You shoot the stage five times — each run is a string — and your worst string is discarded, so four count toward your score. The score is time. That is the entire game.

What makes it addictive is that the fixed stages turn it into a personal benchmark. The same arrays are shot at clubs everywhere, so your times are directly comparable to everyone else's, across the country and across years.

The rimfire divisions

Steel Challenge has thirteen divisions in total, and an event effectively runs as several separate matches in parallel: centerfire pistol, rimfire pistol, rimfire rifle and pistol-calibre carbine each compete among themselves. The rimfire divisions split on optics rather than on anything else:

• Rimfire Rifle Open (RFRO) — any .22 LR rifle with an optic. This is where most rimfire rifle competitors are.
• Rimfire Rifle Iron (RFRI) — the same rifles with iron sights and no optic.
• Rimfire Pistol Open (RFPO) — any .22 LR pistol or revolver with an optic sight.
• Rimfire Pistol Iron (RFPI) — iron-sighted .22 LR pistol. Fibre-optic sights are permitted in all divisions.

There is no magazine capacity limit in the rimfire divisions. Compensators are allowed; suppressors are not. Rimfire rifle and pistol competitors start from a low ready position with the muzzle pointed at a mark on the ground, rather than from a holster, which removes an entire category of safety concern and is a large part of why these divisions are recommended to new and younger shooters.

Classification

Classifications run from D up to Grand Master. To be classified you need a USPSA membership and to have shot at least four of the eight official stages in a division, which most clubs will get you inside one or two match days since a typical club match runs five or six of the official stages. Times improve your classification as they improve, so there is a visible progression rather than a vague sense of getting better.

RCSA Rimfire Challenge

The Rimfire Challenge Shooting Association runs a related but separate game, and the distinction matters if you are searching for local matches. RCSA is rimfire only — .22 Long Rifle exclusively — and events include stages for both rifle and handgun, so a competitor typically shoots both rather than choosing.

The format will feel familiar: a course of fire of five to seven steel targets, none smaller than eight inches, five strings shot with one plate designated as the stop plate, and the lowest four strings totalled for score. Divisions are Open and Limited, and a competitor may enter both. The association releases an updated rulebook annually.

In practice RCSA tends to be the more relaxed, club-level entry point, and the larger target size and rimfire-only field make it a genuinely good first match for a young shooter or anyone who has never stood on a timer before. If both exist near you, there is no reason not to shoot both — the skills are the same and the calendar rarely collides.

Smallbore and the Olympic pathway

Smallbore rifle is the oldest of these disciplines and the one that least resembles the others. There is no clock in any meaningful sense, no steel, and no reward for speed. There is a paper target, a scoring ring, and the question of whether you can put shot after shot through the same hole from positions the human body was not designed to hold still in.

The equipment rules run in the opposite direction from every other discipline on this page. Where NRL22 caps how much you may spend, smallbore specifies what you may use with great precision — and in the traditional target rifle categories, that frequently means iron sights only, with telescopic sights, slings, palm rests and adjustable butt plates each either permitted or prohibited depending on the exact category you have entered. Only .22 rimfire ammunition is permitted; magnum rimfires are excluded outright. Read the specific ruleset for the specific category before you buy anything at all, because the categories differ from each other more than newcomers expect.

Smallbore is also the only rimfire discipline with a genuine international and Olympic pathway, through the fifty-metre three-position rifle and ten-metre air rifle events. That pathway is narrow and demanding, and the junior programmes that feed it — collegiate teams, 4-H shooting sports, junior clubs — are where almost everyone who reaches it started.

For an adult recreational shooter, the honest assessment is that smallbore is the hardest of these four to be immediately satisfied by and the most rewarding to stay with. Nothing else will expose a flaw in your position and trigger control as mercilessly, and nothing else will improve those things as quickly.

Rimfire benchrest

Rimfire benchrest deserves a mention because it is the discipline where the ammunition itself becomes the primary variable. The rifle is supported, the shooter contributes far less mechanically than in any other game, and what separates competitors is equipment quality, wind reading and — above all — having found a lot of match ammunition that a specific barrel genuinely likes.

It is comparatively cheap to run at club level and rewards a kind of obsessive consistency that some people find deeply satisfying and others find tedious within an hour. It is also the discipline where lot testing stops being a nicety and becomes the entire sport, which is worth knowing before you decide it looks easy because someone is sitting down.

Which one should you start with

If you want a recommendation rather than a table: shoot a Steel Challenge or RCSA match first, whichever is nearer, because you can do it with a rifle you probably already own and you will find out in one afternoon whether competing suits you. Then, if the precision side appeals more than the clock, build toward NRL22 Base and use the equipment cap as the discipline it is meant to be.

Your first match, step by step

1. Find the club, not the discipline. The best first match is the one that is forty minutes away and runs monthly, not the one that theoretically suits you best and is four hours away. Governing-body match finders list registered clubs and dates.
2. Email the match director before you go. Every one of these disciplines is run by people who are actively pleased when new shooters turn up, and a short email asking what you need will get you a better answer than any article. Say it is your first match. They will pair you with someone.
3. Arrive for the safety briefing, not for your start time. This is where the rules that actually get people disqualified are explained, and it is where you will learn the local range's specific commands.
4. Bring more ammunition and more magazines than the minimum. Every experienced competitor has run dry mid-string and none of them did it twice.
5. Bring the mandatory safety equipment. Eye and ear protection always; a chamber flag and a rifle case or bag where the discipline requires them.
6. Expect to help. Club matches run because competitors reset steel, paste targets and score for each other. Volunteering on your first day is the fastest way to stop being the new person.
7. Do not buy anything for six months. Shoot what you have, find out what actually limits you, and then spend. The gear you would buy on day one is almost never the gear you need on day thirty.

The ammunition question

Every discipline here runs on .22 LR, but they want different things from it, and this is where new competitors waste the most money.

Speed games — Steel Challenge and RCSA — care about reliable function far more than about accuracy. The targets are large and the distances short; a failure to feed costs you a run, while a slightly wider group costs you nothing. Semi-autos dominate these disciplines and semi-autos need enough pressure to cycle, so this is bulk high-velocity territory and you should buy it in quantity.

Precision games — NRL22, smallbore, benchrest — invert that entirely. Function is trivial in a bolt gun, and what matters is how consistently a given lot performs from your specific barrel. Match-grade ammunition costs several times what bulk does, and the correct approach is to test several options at your actual competition distance, identify what your rifle prefers, and then buy that production lot in depth while it is still on shelves.

The practical consequence for a new competitor is that your ammunition budget should be planned in two parts: a large volume of inexpensive functional ammunition for practice and speed games, and a small, deliberate testing budget for finding what your precision rifle wants. Mixing those budgets — buying match ammunition for plinking, or trying to win a precision match on bulk — is the most common and most expensive error in the sport.

Frequently asked questions

What is the NRL22 Base division equipment limit?

Base eligibility is based on the combined manufacturer MSRP of the rifle and the scope, and for the current season that threshold is $1,650. It is the sum of the two that counts, and it is assessed against the manufacturer's listed MSRP on the season's effective date rather than what you actually paid. The league publishes an official MSRP database and an eligible-combination filter so you can check a build before buying. Rules are reviewed between seasons, so always confirm against the current ruleset.

Do I need to be a member of anything to compete?

It depends on the discipline and on whether you want a score that counts nationally. You can generally shoot a local club match as a guest to try it. For a Steel Challenge classification you need a USPSA membership, since USPSA owns Steel Challenge, plus at least four of the eight official stages shot in a division. NRL22 has its own membership and club structure for leaderboard scoring. Ask the match director — they deal with this question constantly.

Can I use a suppressor in competition?

Not in Steel Challenge rimfire divisions, where suppressors are prohibited while compensators are allowed. Other disciplines and individual ranges vary, and some precision matches permit them. Never assume; check the discipline's current rulebook and then check the host range's own policy, because a range can be more restrictive than the governing body.

How much ammunition should I bring to a first match?

For Steel Challenge, budget a minimum of twenty-five rounds per stage and bring roughly double the minimum — a typical five-stage club match works out to a floor of about 125 rounds per firearm. For a precision match, count the round total on the published course of fire and add a comfortable margin for sighters and mistakes. Running out mid-match is a solved problem and the solution is a bigger bag.

Is a semi-auto or a bolt action better for competition?

It depends entirely on which game. Steel Challenge and RCSA are scored on time, so semi-autos dominate and a manual action is a serious handicap. NRL22, smallbore and benchrest are scored on precision, and bolt actions dominate because they allow a tighter chamber and impose no lower limit on which ammunition will function. Decide the discipline first, then buy the action that suits it.

Is rimfire competition suitable for kids?

It is arguably the best entry point in the shooting sports. Recoil and noise are low, rimfire divisions in the speed games start from a low-ready position rather than a holster, and several disciplines run dedicated younger-shooter categories. Junior programmes through clubs and 4-H shooting sports are where most competitive smallbore shooters begin. Stock fit matters more than any other equipment consideration for a young shooter.

Keep reading

• Steel Challenge vs. NRL22: Which Rimfire Discipline to Start With
• The Rimfire Rifle Guide: Bolt, Semi-Auto & Lever
• Best Rimfire Optics: Rimfire Scopes, LPVOs & Red Dots
• Best Rimfire Shooting Rests, Bags & Bipods
• Rim Thickness Sorting: The Benchrest Trick That Actually Works