GOWUTAR Shooting Team
Tested in Competition. Proven Under Pressure.
Founded in the United States in 2025, the GOWUTAR Shooting Team is the brand’s North American competitive shooting and field-testing team.
Our members actively participate in USPSA, IPSC, Falling Steel, Night Shoot, and 2-Gun/3-Gun competitions. The team brings together Grand Master and Master Class competitors, certified firearms instructors, experienced range officers, active and retired law enforcement professionals, military personnel, and dedicated competitive shooters.
Using leading platforms from Glock, CZ, Staccato, CMMG, and other manufacturers, the team puts GOWUTAR optics through demanding matches, intensive training sessions, and real-world shooting conditions.
More Than a Shooting Team
The GOWUTAR Shooting Team serves as a direct connection between our product-development team and shooters on the firing line.
Competitive shooting places extraordinary demands on an optic. Rapid transitions, repeated recoil, movement, changing weather, unconventional shooting positions, and time pressure quickly reveal weaknesses that may not appear during standard laboratory testing.
Our team evaluates GOWUTAR optics where performance matters most - on the range and in competition.
Their mission is to provide practical, experience-based feedback that helps us improve durability, optical clarity, controls, mounting systems, reticle performance, and overall usability.
Our Mission
Compete at a High Level
Represent GOWUTAR in USPSA, IPSC, Falling Steel, Night Shoot, and multi-gun events throughout North America.
Test Under Demanding Conditions
Evaluate GOWUTAR optics during high-round-count training, fast-paced stages, repeated recoil, movement, changing light, and challenging weather conditions.
Provide Firsthand Product Feedback
Share detailed observations from competition and training to support product development, refinement, and quality improvement.
Build Better Optics for Shooters
Turn real shooting experience into practical improvements that benefit competitive shooters, firearms professionals, and everyday range users.
Meet the GOWUTAR Shooting Team
David Leake
Grand Master Class – PCC Division
David is an experienced PCC competitor, firearms instructor, and Range Officer. He also serves as President of the Somerset Sheriff Search and Rescue Team.
His combination of competitive shooting, firearms instruction, stage experience, and team leadership provides valuable insight into optic speed, reliability, control layout, mounting stability, and performance during demanding courses of fire.
Nathan Hill
Grand Master Class – Carry Optics Division
Nathan competes at the Grand Master level in Carry Optics. His high-level competitive experience and professional background allow him to evaluate optics under speed, movement, recoil, and pressure, providing valuable feedback on target acquisition, window visibility, reticle tracking, and overall reliability.
Michael Ford
Master Class – Open Division
Michael is a seasoned competitive shooter with extensive experience in Open Division. He has also organized USPSA matches and Night Shoot events at PMSC.
His experience as both a competitor and event organizer gives him a broad understanding of optic performance across daylight, low-light, and high-pressure match environments.
Kyle M.
Master Class – Carry Optics Division
Kyle is a Master Class Carry Optics competitor and a Rangemaster Certified Pistol Instructor.
His background in both competition and professional firearms instruction brings a practical perspective to optic testing, including presentation speed, dot acquisition, tracking, zero retention, and usability across different shooting techniques.
James
Retired sheriff’s detective and experienced shooter.
Additional Active Team Shooters
The GOWUTAR Shooting Team also includes a growing group of active shooters with diverse competitive, instructional, and professional backgrounds.
- Mike Bendis
- Rich Bendis
- Cornelius Bulman III
- Mike Maleski
- Matthew Johnson
- Dylan Preston
- Jack Lu
- Steven Chen
- Roy Wang
- Richard Yang
Together, these shooters contribute range time, competition experience, product observations, and direct feedback across a wide variety of firearms, divisions, and shooting environments.
Real-World Optics Testing
Competition Testing
Competition provides an unforgiving environment for testing red dot sights. Every optic must perform through rapid target transitions, hard recoil, movement, barricades, awkward shooting positions, and the pressure of the timer.
The team evaluates:
- Target-acquisition speed
- Reticle visibility and tracking
- Sight-window usability
- Zero retention
- Mounting stability
- Brightness controls
- Button accessibility
- Battery-compartment design
- Resistance to impacts and repeated recoil
- Performance in changing light and weather
High-Round-Count Training
Match performance is only part of the testing process. Team members also use GOWUTAR optics during regular practice and high-round-count training sessions.
Extended use helps identify details that shorter evaluations may overlook, including control accessibility, battery convenience, lens contamination, mounting behavior, and long-term zero stability.
All-Weather Evaluation
GOWUTAR optics are tested in changing temperatures, rain, humidity, dust, bright sunlight, low-light stages, and other demanding range conditions.
This continuous evaluation helps verify that our products remain dependable beyond controlled indoor testing.
From the Firing Line to Product Development
Every match, practice session, and equipment evaluation creates useful information.
Team members report their observations directly to GOWUTAR, allowing our product team to assess performance from the shooter’s perspective. This feedback supports ongoing improvements to optic housings, lenses, reticles, controls, electronics, battery systems, mounting interfaces, and overall durability.
This process creates a continuous development cycle:
Test. Compete. Evaluate. Improve.
The result is an optic shaped not only by engineering specifications, but also by the experience of shooters who depend on their equipment under pressure.
Built With Shooters. Proven by Shooters.
The GOWUTAR Shooting Team represents our commitment to developing dependable optics through genuine competition experience and rigorous field testing.
From Grand Master competitors to instructors, law enforcement professionals, military personnel, and dedicated active shooters, every team member contributes to the same goal: helping GOWUTAR build optics that shooters can trust when every second - and every shot - matters.
