Gainesville, FL Feb. 4-5, 2012

[9mm4545]

I was really worried about this shoot as one week before the shoot we only had 2 shooters pre-registered. Then on Friday there were 13! Let's see: 13 shooters; 13 colonies. Yep, seemed like a good sign for the weekend. Another bit of good came in the form of two additional instructors who came out to help. Thanks to Smoak and Douglas we had a great instructor to student ratio and their help was deeply appreciated. With weather that the rest of the country envies, we were off to a flying start on Saturday as our 12 shooters (one of our pre-registered shooters couldn't make it) were given introductions,  a safety briefing, the line commands, and a brief historical framing of marksmanship in America. With the rifles on the line, the Redcoat target was shot at--and occasionally hit. Improvements in marksmanship were clearly in order so we got right down to doing just that. Our instructors showed how to build a solid position using the simple web sling, how to fire every shot using the all important six steps, and how to align a students natural point of aim with the target. And as expected, the hits began to be on the target and the groups began to shrink, just like we said they would. Some rifle issues were sorted out and the long preparation periods started getting shorter as our eager students became more adept at working their rifles. Instruction in the concept of inches, minutes, and clicks made sight adjustments simple. We learned how a Rifleman fires every shot rapid fire as Rifleman's cadence was explained and practiced. By lunchtime, we were actually a little bit ahead of schedule and while everyone took a break for lunch, we heard how a  nonprofessional militia made up of farmers and shopkeepers took on the soldiers of the mightiest military in the world. With the sobering thoughts of the massacre of Lexington in mind, we were again on the firing line with more instruction in the fine art of hitting tiny targets with rifles. A few soft groans might have been heard as the physical strain of transitions was undertaken but our group was ready for the effort and managed the new positions of standing and sitting well. With great attitudes, the teaching was absorbed quickly and before it seemed possible we were able to introduce the target that puts it all together: the AQT. With a mid-afternoon break we took up the story of April 19th, 1775 again and remembered those Americans who gave up everything for Liberty. By the end of the day we had finished a couple more AQT's and had several students who were scoring quite well indeed. Kyle, who had shot the Rifleman score before, showed that he still had it and repeated his performance with solid scores. As we ended for the day, the final chapter in the tale of April 19th was woven with the badly bruised British regulars finding out that freedom loving Patriots were a force to be reckoned with. Oh, and the results of the final Redcoat target? Well, our numbers for 3 and 4 hundred yard shooters tripled

Sunday was another beautiful winter day in Florida as 8 brave souls came out to practice the fine American tradition of marksmanship. With only one new shooter on the line, the preliminaries were rapidly dispensed with and we were quickly into sharpening skills and making good habits permanent. It took some doing but some pesky rifle issues were finally corrected for Arun, our new student, and immediately he showed that he was much better than his initial target indicated. Much, much better. A quick review of the fundamentals led to improvement while we hammered away at the squares target. Our students got a chance to become instructors when we did a "ball and dummy" drill. Just to spice thing up during the pop-pop-pop of .22 fire, a M1 Garand just had to be brought out so that everyone could enjoy the sound of the "finest battle implement ever devised". By lunch it seemed apparent that we were ready for tackling AQT targets. We took a break for lunch first and heard about some of the lesser known participants in the battles of April 19th. Folks like Hezakiah Wyman, David Lamson, and Samuel Whittimore were honored by the telling of their remarkable stories. I do wonder how many of us ordinary people will have stories told about us over two hundred years from now? The AQT grind was underway and our students endured the corrections and cajoling of the instructors as errors were corrected. The correction of those errors led to increasing scores and we had two more Riflemen earning patches by the end of the day. Congratulations to Bill and Arun! Stacie, Rob, Barrett: you guys are knocking at the door with scores that are so, so close. If you can put everything together on one target on one day, you too will be Riflemen. Practice your dry fire at home and persist; it will be worth it. For everyone, thanks for coming out. It was an honor to work with you and I do hope to see every one of you again down the road.

[smoakingun]

There is a perception in this country today that college kids are slackers and no nothing about hard work or perseverence. What I saw this weekend gives me hope. I showed up unannounced Saturday morning expecting the usual line up of families. What showed up was a suprise. Nearly half of our line was made up of college students. All of them showed up with teachable attitudes and expectations of easily conquering the fabled AQT.: . They all worked hard and persisted, and by the end of the weekend all were perilously close to conquering the AQT. I have no doubt that all will shoot the score at their next applesed.congradulations to Bill ad Arun for becoming riflemen. Arun deserves a bonus atta boy fou showing up to his first applseed on the second day, missing day one, and shot score on his fith AQT.

[9mm4545]

I would be remiss if I did not mention that most of the reason we had a line filled with college students was solely due to the diligent and persistent seventh stepping of our very own college student, pikid89. Thanks to pikid's efforts we had a respectable turnout and thanks to the excellent instructors we had a very successful event.