Delhi's shooting range that turned an American into a national champion

For most of the last decade, the traffic between Indian and American shooting ranges has run one way: Indian shooters chasing foreign coaches, foreign camps, foreign competition to close the gap with the world's best. Jeff Browning just reversed it.

The American marksman spent nearly two years training out of Topgun Shooting Academy in New Delhi before returning home last month and, within weeks, winning the 10m air rifle title at the US National Championship in Camp Perry, Ohio, representing the Virginia State team.

"I had been a competitive shooter in the United States since 2012 and wanted to continue pursuing the sport while living in India," Browning told PTI.

"When I arrived in Delhi in the summer of 2023, [academy founder and former international] Shimon Sharif and the coaches at Topgun Shooting Academy gave me the opportunity to train in the 10m air rifle."

The Indian connection

Browning's win wasn't a one-off connection to Indian shooting.

He'd already claimed gold at the Topgun Cup in India in September 2024, suggesting his time at the Delhi academy ran deeper to a genuine training base than just a curiosity.

Topgun itself was built for exactly this kind of story.

It was founded in 2006 by Shimon Sharif the first rifle shooter from Delhi to represent India at a Shooting World Cup, with over 100 medals to his name.

The academy set out to make it a Professional shooting coaching in India at a time when the sport was still finding its institutional footing.

Two decades on, it's coaching an American to a national title back home.

"I returned to the United States last month, and within a month of my return, I won the U.S. National Championship," Browning said.

"I am truly grateful to the academy for the training, guidance, and support I received during my time in India."

The pandemic connection nobody saw coming

Topgun's pull with American shooters didn't start with Browning.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, with international travel and competitions frozen, the academy ran virtual competitions that kept shooters worldwide match-ready through the lockdowns an improvised solution that turned into an unlikely bridge to elite American shooting.

Among the competitors was William Shaner, who went on to win Olympic gold in the men's 10m air rifle at the Tokyo Games, setting an Olympic record of 251.6 in the final.

Lucas Kozeniesky, who competed in the same online events, later paired with Mary Tucker to win silver in the 10m air rifle mixed team event at those Games a medal that took the USA's Tokyo shooting tally to four.

"It's a matter of immense pride for us to have contributed to the development of rifle shooters from several countries, including the United States," Sharif said.

"Jeff Browning's national title is another feather in our cap and reinforces our belief that quality coaching and a competitive training environment can help athletes perform at the highest level, regardless of where they come from."

Why this direction of travel matters

The story lands differently because of where Indian shooting itself stands right now.

Shooting is India's most successful Olympic sport by medal count, with seven medals through the Paris 2024 Games.

A run that began with Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore's silver in 2004, was punctuated by Abhinav Bindra's gold in Beijing, and was extended when Manu Bhaker's double bronze in Paris ended a 12-year medal drought for Indian shooting at the Olympics.

Investment in ranges, coaching pathways and structured development programmes over the past decade has been credited with turning shooting into one of the country's most reliable medal sports.

That's the infrastructure Browning walked into in 2023 not a finished product, but a system confident enough in its own coaching to take on foreign shooters and send them home better than it found them.

Whether Topgun's Covid-era virtual meets or Browning's two years on its range, the throughline is the same: India's shooting ecosystem isn't just producing its own results anymore. It's exporting them.

A Delhi range just returned the favour America never asked for.