Zins had won a sixth NRA National Pistol Championship.

As a six-time National Champion, Zins becomes the fourth member of America's finest pistol-shooting athletes. The only surviving member of this elite group, retired Army Sergeant Major Bill Blankenship, was on hand to watch Zins in competition and to welcome him to the club.

Zins began his bid for membership with a victory at the 1996 National Championships. Then, following tours of duty in Japan and as a recruiter, he returned to Camp Perry and won in 1998. In 2001 he notched his third national crown. He won championships number four and five in 2002 and 2003.

For 2004, Zins knew the goal and went after it. He started with a second in the Preliminary Championship. Following this warm-up, Zins overcame steady, tough wind conditions to shoot an 886-point winning score, plus 43 tie-breaking hits called "Xs," in the .22 Championship. The victory gave him a six-point edge over the number-two contender, Army Sgt Adam Sokolowski. The next day, in the Centerfire Championship, and again in very difficult wind conditions, Zins topped the field with an 883-44X -- eight points ahead of Marine Reservist S/Sgt William Walker's 875. The Centerfire win left Zins with a 22-point lead going into the final day's .45 Championship.

Steve Reiter, now retired from the U.S. Army Reserve, and a five-time National Pistol champ himself, closed some of the gap during the .45 Championship. Reiter posted a .45-winning score of 874-38X that also earned him second overall in the Pistol Championship. Third place went to one of Reiter's former teammates, Army Reservist S/Sgt James Henderson, from St. Louis, Mo. In the end, though it was Zins, with an aggregate 2635-123X, who joined Blankenship, Harry Reeves and H.L. "Joe" Benner (both now deceased) as a six-time winner of the Harrison Trophy -- the silver cup that symbolizes the NRA National Pistol Championship.

In other competitions, women's laurels went to defending champion Judy Tant, a clinical psychologist from East Lansing, Michigan. Tant dominated in .22 and Centerfire competition, although West Virginian Delores Williams took the .45 title an 841. Tant's championship aggregate score was 2558-75X.

Team honors for 2004 went to a hard-holding civilian foursome, Team Ultra Dot -- a group organized by Larry Carter of Larry's Guns in Portland, Maine -- with the depth needed to win against traditionally powerful armed forces teams. Ultra Dot posted a win in the .22 team championship, then stayed closed on the heels of Springfield Armory "Blue" and the Army Marksmanship Unit in Centerfire and .45 team matches. They won the Comin' Through the Rye trophy for the aggregate pistol team championship at 3436-130X. A group of local youths, the Ottawa County Sportsmen's Club Juniors, swept junior team honors at 3159-52X.

The 2004 Pistol Championships began with two matches, meant to add a bit of nostalgic luster to the proceedings: The Harry Reeves Memorial Revolver Match and the NRA Revolver Distinguished Match. Both events are 300-point contests and both require that competitors use revolvers of the type that dominated competitive firing lines in the first half of the 20th century.

Veteran Arthur Monahan won the 2004 Harry Reeves Match at 283-7X, and the first win in the Distinguished Match went to Raymond Wallander of Pleasant Gap, Pennsylvania, at 280-9X. Both men used Smith & Wesson revolvers; Monahan opted for a 6"-barrel Model 19, and Wallander shot a Model 686. The cutoff score for the Distinguished "Leg" match was 267-1X.