AAR: Hartford, CT Nov 20-21 2010

[Glock23]

As intrepid shooters start to arrive in Hartford for the second day, I'm sitting here at home, by the fire with a hot cup of coffee. Weather.com shows the current temperature on the range is 31-degrees. Brrrrr.... Believe it or not, I wish I could be there shivering with them, but I'm getting ready to brave the holiday airport chaos.
Yesterday saw an excellent group of shooters arrive, many of them quite early, full of excitement for the day. It takes a special someone to fly out of bed at 0-dark-30 when the temperature is well below freezing to go lay on the icy ground and shoot a cold rifle. Those were our Appleseeders yesterday!
Knowing it was going to be brisk, The Log brought a crockpot of his famous chili and I set up my campstove with Hot Cocoa and Oatmeal to make the shooters more comfortable. The weather hardly improved throughout the day, staying in the 40's all day, mostly cloudy, and a stiff wind blowing all day. So stiff we had to call a CEASE FIRE at one point when the wind blew a section of our target stand apart.
But a Rifleman persists, even in less-than-favorable weather, and all our Appleseeders maintained a smile and positive attitude throughout the day. There was great improvement as the day went on and just as the sun was setting we were able to get in our second AQT. Several shooters were knocking on the door with scores in the high 190's and low 200's.
In an interesting coincidence, given the crappy weather all day, just as The Log started the recounting of First Strike of the Match over lunch, the clouds broke and the Sun came out to warm our circle of shooters. The Log finished up the Second and Third strikes of the Match later that day as darkness fell and in the end you could only hear his voice, which made for a moving end to the day (even though it was hard for him to see his notes, but he didn't need them anyway).
All the shooters pitched in to pack up by the light of their cars' headlights.
Given the excellent group of shooters and the marked improvement we saw yesterday, I wish I could be there today for the AQT grind - I think it's going to be very promising.

Unfortunately I had a cold all week and was battling back laryngitis. There were only a few snickers, mostly from the other Instructors... Special thanks to the shooters who put up with my squeaking, cracking, and croaking throughout the day. I gave it all I had.

I expect one of the other Instructors will be along to fill in the details on today's events. I'm off to put my vocal cords in some ice.

[The Log]

Just some quick notes from your humble Shoot Boss in Training on this weekend's festivities. I was pretty nervous about my first SB gig, but I have to say that it was a lot easier than I expected it to be, which I suspect is due in no small part to the quality (and quantity!) of shooters, and to the caliber of the staff - TOMINCT, Glock23, and the late addition DavidGW1 from Rhode Island. There were some confounding factors, though, As G23 noted, it was chilly and blustery Saturday, and the winds forced departing traffic from nearby Bradley Airport directly overhead. Try telling the Strikes with a A380 or 737 at full throttle not 500 feet over your head! And to top it off, some HGC members decided to have artillery practice on the rifle range, the pistol range was holding some sort of rapid fire activity, and an HGC work party fired up the leaf blowers! So my voice sounded almost as velvety smooth by the end of the day as G23's did. A hearty thanks to G23 for soldiering through and calling the line despite being under the weather. A Rifleman persists!!

And indeed all 13 of the Saturday shooters persisted through the adverse conditions and made rapid improvement in group sizes. Everyone took the lessons well, and I was quite pleased with how things went through the morning. For lunch we managed to find a sunny spot, and that couple with bowls of my wife's famous chili helped us fend off the worst effects of the chill and wind. The afternoon found the shooters making great progress, building to a practice stage-by-stage AQT around three. We didn't enforce the time limit on stages 2 and 3, so it didn't count, much to the consternation of my son Tom, who shot a 194! This from a kid who was having trouble getting into the 100s at his first Appleseed a few weeks back at Blue Trail Range (sorry - proud-Poppa moment!) We managed to squeak in two official SxS AQTs and a final Redcoat before the light failed us, and we wrapped up Second and Third Strikes and Benediction in the dark. I was grateful and humbled that the shooters, as tired cold and hungry as they obviously were, all stayed and listened to the story instead of heading to the comfort of their nice, warm cars. That was an impressive display of respect for the Founders.

Sunday dawned even chillier, but with the promise of bright sunshine and less wind. Maybe not much less wind, but at least the traffic pattern from Bradley kept the jets from competing with us. Six of the Saturday shooters returned, joined by the amazingly adept Rifleman James, who earned his patch back at the Pumpkinseed shoot at BTR. The shoot crew was also joined by CortJestir, current reigning Crown Prince of Beef Jerky. We woke the shooters up with a morning Redcoat and a quick RFAQT to get the blood pumping. The shooters quickly got back into the groove sfter a little review or yesterday's lessons, and we managed to get a couple more AQTs in before lunch. Scores were generally good and showing improvement, and we had a couple of near-misses on the magic 210, including my son Tom, who turned in a 196 for the first AQT. Jamie was showing huge improvement and great persistence, as were Keith, Liz, Paul and Phil. We pulled Phil over the line during the morning AQT grind with a 214, which he would steadily improve on during the day.

Another sunny spot for lunch and tales of Dangerous Older Men and Women, and it was back to The Grind and a little Known Distance instruction from CortJestir. We got back to the Grind and managed to drag Keith over the line to Rifleman status with a smoking hot 230 - amazingly, this was only the second time he ever touched a rifle, the first being last year at the Hartford AS. All the shooters were showing huge gains, including my kids - Liz improved on her BTR high of 138 to achieve a Sharpshooter's score of 178, and Tom got heartbreakingly close to Rifleman with a 204    Don't worry - we'll get them both over the line at Colebrook in two weeks. All the time this was going on, James was quietly cranking out progressively better Rifleman scores. Of the 11 AQTs he shot Sunday, every single one was a Rifleman score, from a "low" of 217 to a high of 242. I fully expect to see him make Appleseed history with a perfect 250 someday soon.

We ended up Sunday under somewhat better light conditions, and all the shooters pitched in for a traditional Appleseed "leave it better than you found it" clean up. We were able to put the Orange Hat on James and Keith, and I think we came pretty close to convincing Phil too, this having been his second AS. I'm pretty sure we'll see fruits from this groups' Seventh Stepping efforts - if they put half the effort into Seventh Stepping as they did into their AQTs during the grind, we'll fill the lines at Colebrook and beyond.

That's all for now - pictures when I get a chance. Thanks for making this one both a breeze and a blast!

[The Log]

Real men shoot pink rifles during Ball and Dummy.



Watching James crank out RM scores all afternoon was like watching a well-oiled machine operate.



Rifleman Phil and Sharpshooter+ Tom look over their handiwork


I have more pictures, but for some reason they are mostly of my kids. I know there were other cameras on the line, so let's see those photos!!

[CortJestir]

Great write-ups!

This was a fun shoot. I love the larger lines, but once in a while, having a smaller line is great fun too. And that first winter hit is always a tough one to get through as you're not used to cold yet. 11 months ago, we were up in Colebrook and I believe it was 7 degrees outside - and snowing. For some reason, I felt colder at this 'Seed than that one!

Congrats, Phil and Keith on your well deserved rifleman scores. And thanks to Keith and James for stepping up and helping out - you'll be hearing from me soon.

Some pics I took. As always, PM or email for high-rez versions...

The Log delivers his signature Dangerous Old Men


Rifleman Phil, who graciously provided the crew with some hot cocoa and treats at the local Dunkin' Donuts after the shoot


Rifleman Keith - another volunteer from the New Haven area (finally!)


Out newest volunteers, Keith and James


We have a berm splitting the line, too, just like Calverton! Our tribute to kDan, sans cavalry saber 

[vernic82]

Sounds like another great one at HGC!

2 new Riflemen and 2 new IIT's!

[fprintf]

Glad to read all about this!  Congratulations to James and Keith, both on the outstanding Rifleman scores and accepting the Orange Hats. You may find, as I now do, a sense of longing at missing any of these Appleseed events! Watch out, it is truly addictive teaching others about our shared heritage, the history of April 18/19, 1775 and marksmanship.

Finally, a note to Tom (The Log's son). Congratulations on your high AQT score, it is hard for me to imagine the work you must have put in over the past few weeks to improve your scores so dramatically. What do you think helped the most?  Did you do dry-fire exercises, work with your Dad on your shooting position or just go in the back yard and shoot a lot?

The best I can do is console myself in the Cheshire Library copy of Paul Revere's Ride while I wait for my copy to arrive from Amazon.com. What a great read!

[TrenchKnife]

Hey Nutmeggers (and others), it was a great shoot as you would expect from an appleseed. I personally enjoy the challenges; in this case it was cold, windy, noisy, with wet ground and worst of all my primary rifle's firing pin broke early Saturday (how often does that happen?). My wife came with me and used my backup rifle which, I found later, had a loose rear site. It was a miracle to have her there, but I bet I'll get her back again (with a better rifle). The challenge of using that piece of junk rifle on the second day made it quite an exciting shoot. again I like the challenges (any rifle off the shelf ... right?). I look forward to a harsh new England winter shoot, maybe I'll see some of you there.

my thanks go out to all the instructors; (I'm horrible with names, so please take no offense) to the shoot boss who had pulled together a great environment (fun, flags and food), to Dave (red hat, blue earmuffs) who was quite patient with my second day's junk rifle shoot, to The laryngitis sufferer and the cocoa, The white bearded gentleman that seemed to ooze calmness, and the second day's rifle knowledgebody (red hat with badges up and down the right arm). I Hope I missed no one, and if I did .. well, you shined like brass too.

congrats to the new rifle men and nice to see them become volunteers.

Thanks for the great shoot and I hope to see you again.

[Jay Haich]

Thanks to all who made my 2nd AS a very rewarding and enjoyable day.
I "cheated" and only attended the Sunday. It was quite different to my 1st AS in  Wallingford last month where we had about 40 "seeds" on the line and slightly warmer weather, here we had less then 10 "seeds" and I was shooting with a glove on my support hand and had chemical hand warmers in my pockets (yah yah... I know I am a wuss that gets cold easily, but I am going to claim that the 30 yrs I spent in Africa have thinned my blood).
The recap of the fundamentals (4 Safety Rules, 6 Steps, Steady Hold Factors, NPOA, etc) was spaced between shooting sessions and made a perfect balance between trigger time and class time. We had a concise intro to Known Distance shooting (I missed part of it at Wallingford due to the call of nature) and it wet my appetite for some center fire instruction - I plan to attend the RBC in May 2011.
It was good to meet some new "seeds" and the 2 old "seeds" (Liz & Tom) who I met in Wallingford - being The LOG's offspring: does that make them "She-Kindling" & "He-Kindling ?
The Basic Marksmanship that is taught at AS has helped me a lot. My support arm is staying under the rifle consistently; I am forcing myself to check my NPOA the 2nd time, 3rd time and sometimes even the 4th time; I started to apply shooting in cadence (needs more work as it is not automatic yet) and I am using a trigger reset more (something else that needs to become 2nd nature).
I was battling with my Standing shooting. I had been using a Loop Sling that was adjusted for the prone position and it was not providing enough support in the Standing position (we were shooting 4 min AQT's with transitions from Standing to  Sitting and Sitting to Prone). I am shooting a Marlin 795 and cannot "short stock" too much as the rifle does not like it when you contact the magazine. The CourtJestir suggested I try a Hasty Sling: This improved the Standing groups a LOT and did not have a noticeably negative impact on my other positions.
My mental game needs work as I found I was making more mistakes during the last 3 AQT's of the day. (I need to correct the Shoot Boss- I checked the scoring at home and my low score for the day was a 210 and not 217 as I had reported during the day. This was during the 9th AQT where I shot 2/4/4 instead of 3/3/4 and I made other scoring errors on that target  .
I look forward to seeing you at an AS in the near future as an IIT  .
JH

[The Log]

It was good to meet some new "seeds" and the 2 old "seeds" (Liz & Tom) who I met in Wallingford - being The LOG's offspring: does that make them "She-Kindling" & "He-Kindling ?

They were "twigs" once, but the way they've grown I think they're more like "stumps"  

So you made the classic new-Rifleman's error - re-scoring your AQT. My wife ("The She-Log?") did the same thing and discovered that a math error had put her over the top in Colebrook back in July. She feels like she's been living a lie, and we've been chasing that 210 ever since. She'll get there, and soon, just like Liz and Tom, and eventually Maggie - she'll be five on Christmas Eve, so that particular wood chip needs a little more seasoning, although she has stated emphatically that she expects a pink Crickett for her 6th birthday  

One thing I forgot to offer you was another Rifleman's patch for your stunning string of RM scores. I don't think the conditions warranted the coveted Winterseed patch, but if you'd like a coyote patch to go with your OD patch from the BTR shoot. PM me and I'll get you one if you want it.

[Jay Haich]

One thing I forgot to offer you was another Rifleman's patch for your stunning string of RM scores. I don't think the conditions warranted the coveted Winterseed patch, but if you'd like a coyote patch to go with your OD patch from the BTR shoot. PM me and I'll get you one if you want it.

Shoot Boss IT: Thanks for the offer, but the OD Patch is all I need. If I qualify with a .30 Cal I would not kick a Coyote RM Patch to the curb. I agree that we would have to have snow and other bad things (like sleet) to qualify for a Winterseed.

Regards
JH

[Who_Me?]

being The LOG's offspring: does that make them "She-Kindling" & "He-Kindling ?

They were "twigs" once, but the way they've grown I think they're more like "stumps"  

I am nether kindling, nor a stump thank you very much.