Toccoa April 19th/20th

[Flathead]

 Where to start?! Raymond and Silence showed up on Friday to get some range time in, and for Raymond he scored the first rifleman score of the week end!  He is getting ready for that red hat before to long. We prepped the 40 yard range on Friday after some local shooters were done with it and waited near the club house for campers and SoM.
Saturday at 5:30 am (yes Ron there is a 5:30 am!) the rain started, nothing we couldn't deal with. And as shooters filtered in we had several repeat apple seeders show up and some new ones. SoM gave the history lesson as only he can and then it was time for safety breifing and getting donw to the business of learning to shoot.
  The red coat targets were shot up a little more then normally happens on the first volley, but with some return shooters we were hoping they would be. Then the little black squares that you love to hate so much because the targets don't lie you just have to listen to what they tell you.
  By Saturday afternoon we had the group up to speed and eveyone was shooting quite well by time we shot the first AQT. And had 2 shooters score rifle man  with others knocking on the door. At this point I also need to point out the attitude of the shooters and how great it was to work with great Americans this week end, one shooter, when asked if she was going to make rifle man this week end  replied, "hell yes"!! It is hard not to enjoy this program with people like her coming to these shoots, it was her second and her husband made rifle man at the last Toccoa shoot (also known to those in attendance as the mud bowl shoot) and she was determined to gets hers.
  As Saturday ended we lost a couple shooters that would not be back on Sunday but the feed back we got from them was that they wished that they could be.
On Sunday it was SoM teaching some of the things you can't learn at 25 meters in the class room while we waited for noon to shoot, and went over some qoutes from our fore fathers that would raise the hair on your arms and almost bring tears to your eyes, at least for me, it was time to go put holes into redcoats!!! 
If Saturdays results were better than expected Sunday was outstanding!!! Other than a few misses from rifle changes, most of the shooters were doing even better than we hoped for.
Some shooters went to the full distance range while Silence and I worked with the others trying to tighten up groups and work out the remainder of bad habits.
When the AQT grind started we had a couple that were so close they could feel and taste it so we kept working on that until they were tired and needed a break. And wouldn't you know it just as the break was starting we had the Mutant Alien Zombies attack!!! They always seem to come at the wrong time.
Then we worked on combined fire (team firing) at the same target.
  Then it was time for AQT again we shot 2 without going down range to score targets until both were done and had Sherry make it this time! I think she had a 50 on stage one on one of them and 48 on another!
There was still time for another one some back to the line and we had some much improved scores with Ed (his first apple seed) score a 182 and Holly a 172 (her second Apple seed).

Working with Silence and SoM is a great experience, I would recommend everyone make an attempt to get to a shoot they are working just to see how they do it.

And to the shooters that showed up, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am glad I got to work with you on this special date in time, and that you took time out of your busy life to come learn with us on how to shoot a rifle accurately.

[Deadeye]

Flathead,
Great job! You were very personable, helpful and knowledgeable. Your advice on keeping my right elbow anchored while working the bolt made a big difference.

Thanks a lot! I hope to be seeing you in the future. I will do my best to bring some additional shooters!

Dave

[Flathead]

Anyone ve picture from this event online yet? Would like to see what the line looked like