Shooting Background

Brady Hardin began his path into pistol shooting in 2015 at 20 years old as a means to become proficient with his carry gun. When Brady attended his first competition, IDPA, he did not finish very well, dead last of 37 shooters to be exact. His final score for this 6-stage club match was 447.62 seconds, under the old half second scoring rule too. He dropped 230 points with a 332.62 second raw time. However, despite falling on his face very hard he was instantly hooked on competitive shooting. Falling on his face just motivated him more to improve. Brady quickly learned that he did not know anything and had much to learn to become better.

What stood out the most to him was his lack of speed and his inability to be accurate. Brady then discovered the purpose of sights and how they worked but was still very lacking in speed. Brady determined there was a lot to learn to improve his speed, but it was going to take time to catch up to the speed of those winning matches. Something Brady decide very early on after his first match is there should be no excuse for why he could not draw and reload his firearm just as fast as the pro shooters. He began dryfiring every day to improve his proficiency, a term he would not learn until a few years later.

​Fast forward to 2017, Brady had been traveling to and competing in a few sanctioned matches for a year and had improved from where he was. After he had competed in the Florida State IDPA Championship, he was not pleased with his performance in the slightest despite his efforts to improve on his own. He decided it was time to find someone to help him improve. A few weeks after the match, Brady took his first training class with long time competitor, champion, and LEO Matt Sims. Brady took a one-on-one class with Matt, a self-defense class. After a long day on the range, Brady was overwhelmed with new knowledge and eager to begin improving his skills. The most memorable and impacting moment of this class was when Matt explained what makes a high-level shooter and a very deadly gunfighter. Equipment, skill, and will. Equipment can be bought. Skill can be learned. But the will, that is what drives us to get better and constantly strive for improvement. Someone lacking the will to get better and put the work in will never reach their full potential as a shooter.

From that day forward, Brady's will to improve and catch his goals has been very strong. Brady later made Master class in IDPA in 2018 due to Matt's help and B class in USPSA. Brady took more classes from Matt that year and in years to come. Those courses being an Advanced Competition Course, Gun Fighting Around Vehicles, Church Security, Shotgun Skills, and also helping with some specialty pistol courses years later that Matt was teaching such as a lady's introduction to firearms class and a red dot class for local law enforcement instructors. In 2018, Brady took a class from World and multiple time National Champion Elias Frangoulis. Elias's 2 day course gave Brady the skills, and more motivation, to reach Master in USPSA in addition to making Master in multiple divisions in IDPA.

​As of the end of 2023, Brady has achieved numerous State, Area, Regional, National, and World titles. Some of his more notable finishes are finishing 12th overall in the Single Stack division at the 2023 USPSA Handgun Nationals, 2nd Master in CDP at the 2023 IDPA World Championship (beating multi time World and National Champion Rob Leatham, he is very happy about that one), and 1st Master at the 2021 IDPA National Championship.