I just got home from the Pyramid Cup 2025 and wanted to get this all written up while it was still fresh in my mind because the first word that comes to mind is grind. Not in the negative sense, but in the way only competitive air rifle shooting can push you—mentally, physically, and technically.
This year was a reminder that precision shooting isn’t just about having the best rifle or the most polished gear. It’s about adapting, staying calm under pressure, and making one clean shot after another while everything around you is working against you. This grind is addicting and once you try it, you want MORE!
For Team Saber Tactical—and for every shooter running Saber Tactical and Karma Airguns gear—this year was a strong showing. We walked away with multiple top ten finishes across the board, including podiums in benchrest and speed, and consistent performances in field target. One of the coolest parts of the benchrest event was that EVERY Saber Tactical Team Member made the FINALS!
More than that, the event showed just how far our gear has come, and how shooters are trusting it to carry them through some of the toughest competitions in the sport. But before I dive into the results and the gear, I want to set the stage for anyone who hasn’t experienced the Pyramid Cup.
Why the Pyramid Cup Matters
The Pyramid Cup isn’t just another match. It’s one of the largest airgun competitions in the United States, pulling in shooters from across the country and even around the world. For me personally, this is where I got my start in competitive shooting back in 2019 and has changed my life ever since.
At the Pyramyd AIR Cup, you’ve got world champions on the line next to first-timers, pros swapping notes with hobbyists, and vendor booths humming all weekend long. It’s part competition, part reunion, and part proving ground for the gear we build and run.
Each event at the Cup has its own personality. Benchrest is slow, surgical, and mentally taxing. The speed silhouette event is pure adrenaline—controlled chaos under a stopwatch. Field target is a marathon of patience, position changes, and constant environmental calculation and is like a round of Golf, but with airguns. You need different skills for each, but the one constant is that your gear has to hold up under pressure and you need to know your gear like the back of your hand.
That’s where Saber Tactical and Karma Airguns came into play this year.
Benchrest: Red Pandas and Saber Tactical Chassis Shine
Benchrest is the backbone of precision shooting. At 100 yards, with 25 targets on a card, you’re chasing perfection while fighting shifting wind and mirage. You can’t rush it. Every shot is its own decision: hold center, shade a ring, or wait out the gust. Your holds can go from just favoring the side of the 10 ring to almost the full width of the target. Knowing when to break the shot is what separates the field of competitors.
This year, our team and shooters using Saber Tactical and Karma Airguns gear delivered a strong showing.
Thayne Simmons led the charge, shooting his Karma Red Panda to a second-place finish. If you’ve been around the sport, you know the Karma Red Panda isn’t just another PCP—it’s built from the ground up for benchrest dominance. The dual regulator system, massive plenum, and precision barrel design give it the consistency shooters need at long range. But hardware alone doesn’t win; it’s how it all comes together on the line, and Thayne proved just that with his finish.
Not far behind, Bill Squillace took third running an FX Panthera in a Saber Tactical chassis. This setup turned heads not only because of the result, but because it showed how well the FX Panthera with FX Dynamic block performs when you pair it with a fully adjustable, rigid chassis system. Benchrest demands precision and repeatability, and Bill’s rifle had both.
Then there was James Sharp, who came with the crew from The Pellet Shop. In his first-ever Pyramid Cup—and with only a week of trigger time on his brand-new Karma Red Panda—James shot his way into fourth place overall. That finish was one of the big stories of the week. Watching a first-timer step into one of the toughest events in the sport and immediately land in the top five spoke volumes about both his skill and how competition-ready the Panda is right out of the box.
Rounding out the top ten, PJ Clarke took eighth with another Red Panda, while our good friend Keith Rush came in tenth with his Panda build. That meant multiple Red Pandas in the top ten, plus Bill’s FX Panthera chassis build on the podium. If anyone had doubts about how dominant Saber Tactical and Karma Airguns gear could be in benchrest, this year’s results put that to bed.
And it wasn’t just air rifles. The Saber Tactical Pro Monopod showed up across the line, giving shooters rock-solid rear stability that’s hard to get with a bag. In benchrest, the difference between a stable rear support and a shifting bag is the difference between a nine and a ten. Those details matter, and they showed up in the results.
Gunslynger Speed Silhouette: Controlled Chaos
If benchrest is about patience, the speed silhouette event is about composure in chaos. You’ve got rows of steel silhouettes, a clock that never stops, and the pressure of knowing every miss costs you time. It’s a test of magazine changes, good wind calls, and knowing when to break the trigger.
Once again, Thayne Simmons delivered, this time running the Karma SLS. He blasted his way through the stages and locked down second place in the speed competition. The SLS is built for exactly this kind of event—fast semi-auto cycling, balanced handling, and just enough weight to settle without slowing transitions. Watching Thayne run it under pressure was proof of what that rifle was designed to do.
But he wasn’t the only one. The line was stacked with FX Impacts dressed up in Saber Tactical TRS rails and other Saber Tactical precision gear. Those rails kept rifles rigid and optics aligned through rapid fire. A lot of shooters underestimate how much rail geometry affects precision in speed shooting, but when you’re slamming through transitions, a rigid, extended rail makes a real difference.
For me personally, this was the best speed competition of my career. I ran an Impact outfitted with a TRS rail, a low-profile bottom rail, and our new Saber Tactical buttstock with the bag rider system. Since rear bags aren’t allowed in speed, the adjustable buttstock gave me the shoulder lock I needed to keep the air rifle planted through transitions.
It felt like every detail came together—gear, setup, mindset—and for the first time, I made it deeper into the event than ever before with two wins and a close last target standing defeat to my good friend Newman from Cape Fear Airguns. That’s what I love about this event: it strips you down to fundamentals under pressure and shows you exactly where your setup stands.
Field Target: Patience, Positioning, and Wind Calls
Field target is a different kind of grind. Instead of sitting at a bench or racing silhouettes, you’re working through lanes filled with knockdown targets at distances that stretch your confidence with low power and high precision air rifles. The rules for this event is you have to be under 20 FPE so you see a lot of .177 setups and a few .22s shooting quite slow to stay under that FPE rule.
In Field Target you’re shifting between sitting, kneeling, and offhand positions, often in awkward terrain, all while trying to make a pellet find a kill zone that looks like a pinhole on glass.
This year, our FX DRS Classic in a Saber Tactical chassis saw action in the hands of Thayne Simmons and Val. The adjustability of the chassis gave them the ability to dial in cheek height and length of pull quickly as they moved between positions. Val also ran an FX Dreamline in one of our original Dreamline chassis, showing that even older platforms can still compete when paired with a modern, rigid interface.
Field target is as much a mental game as it is a shooting one. You’re constantly adjusting for wind, recalculating holdovers, and trying to drop steel critters with tiny .177 pellets. Over the course of a long day, fatigue can set in. That’s when the right gear matters most, not just for precision, but for ergonomic fitment to you as the shooter and repeatability. Watching our Saber Tactical rigs hold up in those conditions was a reminder of why we design them the way we do.
The Atmosphere of the Cup
What makes the Pyramid Cup so unique is the atmosphere. On one hand, it’s fiercely competitive. Every shooter on the line wants to win, and the margin between victory and middle of the pack is razor thin. On the other hand, it’s a community gathering. You see shooters helping each other, swapping pellets, trading wind calls, and laughing about the shots that went wrong.
Conditions this year added their own spice. Winds picked up and died down without warning. But through it all, the vibe was positive and we all had an absolute blast.
Our booth was buzzing the entire week. Shooters lined up to demo the Karma EQ on Know Your Limits spinners, the Red Panda on steel, and the SLS speed rig on silhouettes. Vendor row was alive with conversations about setups, tuning tricks, and new products. For me, that’s as much a highlight as the competition itself—the chance to talk shop, learn from other shooters, and see how our gear is being used out in the real world.
Wrapping It Up
Looking back, the Pyramid Cup 2025 was a milestone for Saber Tactical and Karma Airguns. Thayne Simmons taking second in benchrest and second in speed, Bill Squillace landing third with his Panthera chassis build, James Sharp coming in fourth in his very first Cup, PJ Clarke finishing eighth, and Keith Rush locking down tenth—all with Saber Tactical and Karma gear—says more than I ever could.
The message is clear: this gear isn’t just about looks or marketing claims. It’s proving itself under the toughest conditions, in the hands of both seasoned competitors and first-time Cup shooters. Benchrest showed the repeatability and precision of the Red Panda and FX Panthera chassis builds. Speed proved the efficiency of the SLS and FX Impact Saber Tactical TRS rail systems. Field target highlighted how important adjustability is when conditions get tough with the FX DRS Chassis.
I’m proud of our team, our friends, and our gear. But more than anything, I’m proud of the community that makes events like the Pyramid Cup what they are. The friendships, the shared lessons, and the memories matter just as much as the podiums and scores.
Now the focus shifts to Extreme Benchrest 2025 in Arizona. If the Pyramid Cup was any indication, we’re ready to show up strong, keep pushing the limits, and continue proving why Saber Tactical and Karma Airguns are becoming trusted names on the competition line.
— Chris Turek, UpNorth Airgunner
