Lauren Kalil continues her series with the 2025 Tactical Games National Champions. This time, she sits down with the most dominant Men’s Elite competitor the sport has ever seen—and he’s got some surprising things to say about his own vulnerability.
Jacob Heppner has won Tactical Games Nationals four years in a row. Let that sink in. In a sport that combines elite fitness with precision shooting under stress, where equipment failures can tank your weekend and mother nature doesn’t care about your training block, one guy has stood on top of the podium every single year since he started taking it seriously.
But here’s the thing: he’ll tell you straight up that he’s beatable.
Lauren’s conversation with Jacob covered everything from his dog-poop beginnings as a shooter to his controversial pistol technique that other top competitors think is stupid. She got him talking about the new prize purse for 2026, what it actually takes to train for this sport, and why he thinks Kirt Finnell is going to be angry all year—and why that’s bad news for everyone else.
Oh, and there’s a Taylor Swift tangent. Because of course there is.
Jacob didn’t walk into Tactical Games as some shooting savant. He walked in as a CrossFitter who picked up guns and promptly embarrassed himself.
His first event was Utah 2021. The first stage he ever shot had targets out to 400 yards with a pistol course of fire afterward. His performance? Dead last in Men’s Elite. Possibly dead last overall. He doesn’t think he hit a single target—and he’s not just talking about the 400-yard steel. He means all of them.
He keeps every video from those early days on his YouTube channel. No archives. No hiding. Just public evidence of how far he’s come. When Lauren asked what he was worst at back then, his answer was simple: long-range shooting. And honestly? It still carries over today to some degree.
The path to Tactical Games started with people tagging him on social media. Tim Simansky was probably one of them, along with maybe ten other people over six to eight months back in 2018-2019. Jacob had been posting videos of himself mixing CrossFit workouts with basic pistol shooting—the most ridiculous shooting you’ve ever seen, by his own admission. Enough people laughed at it and said he should try this thing called Tactical Games that he eventually bookmarked it.
The CrossFit Games dream died in November 2020 when he finished 11th or 12th at semifinals. That’s when he decided to try something new. He picked up shooting and boxing in the same year, knowing he wasn’t coming back to CrossFit. When Jacob says he’s done with something, he means it.
Unless someone pays him a lot of money. Everyone has a number.
Here’s the honest truth about how Jacob stays competitive while running multiple businesses and raising twin toddlers: he has a gym and a shooting range on his property.
He didn’t sugarcoat it. Without those things literally in his backyard, he wouldn’t be winning. The 20-minute drive to a range and 20 minutes back? That’s time he’d have to pull from his companies or his family. It just wouldn’t work.
His setup is unique. He can shoot in his barn, through his barn, around his barn—as long as he doesn’t hit the barn, he doesn’t care. The closest neighbor is about 40 yards into the trees, and yes, the cops still get called on him about once a month. There’s no sound ordinance in the county, so he’s in the clear legally. He’s probably not the most popular guy in his area, but what are you gonna do?
When Lauren asked about training camps emerging in Tactical Games like they have in CrossFit—the HWPOs and Provens and Comp Trains of the shooting world—Jacob’s take was realistic. You’ll probably see more regional training groups form as the sport grows. San Antonio already has a solid crew that trains together regularly. But right now, the sport is small enough that you might be the only person in your county who even knows it exists.
He did mention he’s actively trying to convince someone to move to Kansas City and train with him full-time. He’s working more on her husband than on her. He wouldn’t name names, but if you follow the sport closely, you can probably guess.
Tactical Games announced prize money for 2026, and Jacob thinks it’s a smart move. His philosophy: if they’re doing finals the same way as this year with five men and five women on the field, everyone in that final heat should make money. Not just top three. All five. Whether it’s a large amount or smaller, those athletes earned their spot.
Will the prize purse change the elite field immediately? Jacob doesn’t think so. You’re not going to see a bunch of ringers show up from other shooting sports and suddenly compete at the top level. The sport is too hybrid. The fitness demands combined with shooting precision under stress create an uphill battle that takes years to climb.
But the money will bring visibility. People will see it, get interested, and the sport will continue growing. CrossFit proved that model works—Jacob made enough money competing to make it worth his time without winning the Games. Tactical Games hasn’t had that until now.
His concern? It would be rough if 2026 has a prize purse and 2027 doesn’t. That kind of regression would hurt the sport. He doesn’t think that’ll happen, but he flagged it as something to watch.
Lauren asked the question directly: can anybody actually beat Jacob Heppner?
His answer might surprise you. Yes. Absolutely yes.
The difference between Tactical Games and CrossFit, in his mind, is the equipment variable. At the CrossFit Games, you can show up practically naked and they’ll give you everything you need. Grips, clothes, knee sleeves—it’s all there. You’re not going to have equipment issues that take you from winning to losing.
Tactical Games? You can check your firearm, your ammo, your equipment as thoroughly as humanly possible, and still have a squib or a malfunction that tanks your whole weekend. Kirt Finnell is the perfect example—an optic issue took him out of contention this year. Those things happen, and they’re largely outside your control.
If you take equipment failures out of the equation and assume everyone’s gear functions perfectly, there are a lot of guys who could beat Jacob. Kirt is at the top of that list. They talked after nationals, and Jacob told him straight: next year is going to suck for him because Kirt’s going to be pissed about one stage for an entire year.
Jacob knows what that feels like. He’s trained angry for a whole year before after something went wrong. And like it or not, it works.
If Kirt had stayed in contention this year, would he have won? Jacob can’t say for sure—it happened so quickly, they only got through two stages together before Kirt’s weekend ended. But he guarantees it would have been within 1%. Less than 10 points separating them.
For anyone trying to get better at this sport, Jacob laid out his approach clearly.
During the offseason (which started about two weeks before this interview), fitness and shooting stay completely separate. He’s not picking up a gun while breathing heavy unless he just ate a pound of cake. Shooting can be dry fire or live fire, but it’s isolated from any conditioning work.
As events get closer—about a month to six weeks out for regionals—he starts combining the two. Not a lot, but enough to see if what he’s built in each discipline connects properly. What’s missing? What needs work? Those connections guide the final prep.
For nationals, that combination phase stretches to two or three months out. The season looks like: separate work → combined work for regionals → more integrated work for nationals.
The dry fire piece can’t be overstated. When Jacob first heard people telling him to dry fire, he thought it sounded like hogwash—same reaction he had to zone 2 cardio. He committed to doing it every day for a month specifically so he could tell the next person who suggested it that they were an idiot and he’d wasted his time.
Two weeks in, he realized how beneficial it was. Even just 10-15 minutes a day made a massive difference. Now, for every time you see him shoot on Instagram, he’s probably dry firing twice as much. The shooting content is what gets posted because dry fire is boring to watch, but that’s where the real work happens.
And it’s free. Post-it note on a wall, your gun, a Sharpie to mark a target. That’s all you need.
Jacob dropped a technique that he knows other top competitors will roast him for: he dials his pistol.
Not holds. Dials. He changes his pistol zero for every stage based on target distance.
The logic makes sense when he explains it. Tactical Games targets are small. If you’re breathing heavy after fitness work, the last thing you want is to think about holding an inch over or slightly left or whatever adjustment your zero requires at that distance. He just wants to put the red dot on the target and pull the trigger.
So he has all his distances already mapped out for his pistol. When he shows up to a stage, he adjusts his zero to match that distance. Point of aim equals point of impact. No thinking required.
Does anyone else do this? A lot of people think it’s dumb. But as Jacob pointed out, a lot of people who think it’s dumb haven’t beat him.
The risk is obvious—same as dialing for rifle. If you forget to reset your zero between stages, you’re shooting 30-yard targets with a 560-yard zero and nothing’s hitting. He’s shown up to training sessions at his barn, couldn’t figure out why he was missing, then realized he needed to change his pistol zero.
It’s more work upfront, but it takes the guesswork out of shooting under stress. Your call whether that trade-off makes sense for you.
Jacob learns something every time he goes to a regional event. Doesn’t matter if it’s his 12th or his 20th—he comes back with something to work on. Aaron Clark was going to beat him at the Idaho regional this year until he couldn’t flip a spinner. The sport keeps humbling everyone.
His recommendation is two to three regionals per year, not including nationals. He knows money isn’t unlimited, which is why the dry fire emphasis matters so much. You can get better without burning through expensive ammo at every training session.
If you can only afford one or two events, use them as diagnostic tools. Show up, see where you’re weak, go home and fix it.
Jacob’s office has a wall of custom-painted rifles, one for each year of competition. The designs come from his friend Justin Barker, a Cerakote applicator and gunsmith down the road (whose wife also nannies Jacob’s kids, so basically their whole family is essential to the operation).
Year one was an aircraft theme—vintage World War II styling with laser-etched rivets across the whole gun. Complicated build. Year two was a ripped American flag. Year three expanded on that. Year four is what Jacob calls “the condiment gun”—ketchup and mustard colors that were supposed to be Chiefs-themed, but he doesn’t really watch sports so he’s not totally sure.
There’s also a unicorn rifle that he only used for one regional event. He took second place to Austin Aylward with it and immediately retired it.
Some of the rifle stocks have his placements lasered on them. One has Sal Hernandez’s name on it because Sal beat him and he took second. The reminder lives right there on the gun.
The 2026 design isn’t finalized yet—they’re waiting on the new JP rifle and haven’t started that conversation. But the gold lever action from a fun bet will be at the Cerakote booth at Shot Show for everyone to point at and make fun of.
Jacob has the fourth Concept2 StrengthErg ever manufactured. Single digits. Greg from Concept2 called him up, made him sign an NDA, and showed him the new equipment before launch.
Jacob made three guesses about what it would be: stepper, runner, fan bike. All wrong. When he saw the StrengthErg, his honest reaction was that it looked stupid. He was disappointed—he wanted something he could really dig into.
Then he actually used it.
Greg sent him some workouts and told him to report back if he still thought it was for grandmas. Jacob ate crow. The whole bird. The leg press function especially can get you into the pain cave, though the row and bench movements are more about muscle failure than lung capacity—like doing 100 handstand push-ups where you just hit a wall and become a ball of nothing on the ground.
He was actually jealous that Tactical Games got the StrengthErg into competition before he could get it into Monster Games. He’d called Greg in April trying to buy enough units to showcase it at an event, but they couldn’t keep up with demand. Next year, he’s making it happen for CrossFit if he can.
Lauren tried to do rapid fire questions, but Jacob is anecdotal by heart. Stories come with every answer.
Favorite song on the new Taylor Swift album? This led to a five-minute story about pitching a viral marketing campaign to a Kansas City lumber yard based on Taylor Swift’s song “Wood” (which is allegedly about Travis Kelce). The lumber yard’s boss thought it was cheesy. Jacob thinks they missed their shot at going viral with the Swifties.
Watching Stranger Things? No—too scary. Currently watching Landman, the Taylor Sheridan show.
The Summer I Turned Pretty? His wife watched it. He refused. No guns, no treasure, he’s out.
Another dog for Winston? No. He already gave the dog two friends (the twins). Two dogs and two kids is too much.
First 2026 regional? He literally doesn’t care yet. Hasn’t looked at the schedule. Couldn’t tell you a single date or location. Also, they might be in Europe for three months next summer if they can rent their house out during the World Cup.
At the end of the interview, Jacob dropped the competitive comparison: he finished nationals with 125 total points. Jenay had 122.
They text each other throughout events, talking trash the whole time. It’s the kind of rivalry that makes both athletes better—one male, one female, going toe to toe without actually competing against each other directly.
Jacob admits she outshot him on a lot of stages. He also claims he did some aggregates while eating a cheeseburger and still finished before her. The back-and-forth is real.
Jacob’s interview reinforced several themes that anyone serious about Tactical Games should internalize:
Dry fire is non-negotiable. It’s free, it’s effective, and the best in the sport do it more than they do live fire. Stop making excuses.
Equipment failures are part of the game. You can be the best athlete on the field and still lose to a malfunction. That’s the sport. Control what you can, accept what you can’t.
Facility access matters. Jacob is honest that he couldn’t stay competitive without his home range and gym. If you don’t have that, you need to be more creative and efficient with your training time.
Competition is diagnostic. Every regional teaches you something. Use events to identify weaknesses, not just chase placements.
The prize purse changes things. Not immediately for who’s competitive, but for visibility and long-term growth. Money brings attention.
Everyone is beatable. Even the four-time consecutive national champion will tell you that. The question is whether you’re willing to put in the work to be the one who does it.
Watch the full interview on Lauren Kalil’s YouTube channel, Queen of Hustle. This is part of her series catching up with all the 2025 Tactical Games National Champions. You can follow Lauren on Instagram or visit her website at laurenkalil.com.
