Watervliet, MI May 18-19, 2013 AAR

[Oz]

What a great weekend at Watervliet!  Twenty-three shooters came out to spend a fantastic two days learning about marksmanship and American heritage.  I could not think of a better way to spend my birthday weekend or nicer folks to spend it with!

We had many new shooters and they really soaked up the instruction.  Did I count four new Riflemen this weekend?  Barry, Lynn, Chet and Bob--congratulations and well done!   

Scouts of Troop 110 (and leaders and parents): thank you so much for coming out.  I know you each learned a lot, it was great to spend the weekend with you.  Lynn, you have a  fine group of young men.

Tom, your setup is awesome although at some point perhaps it will become more energy efficient if we just bring the event over to your place rather than make you bring your gear, family and friends to us!  Until that time comes--I hope you keep coming to us with as much gear as you care to bring along and as many people as you can find.  Denise, now that you know how much fun he has with us I hope you won't let him come out alone!

Jim, Jenna and Lane--it was great working with you too.  I loved your enthusiasm--you just pushed through today's 88 degree temperature and kept on learning.

Barry and Ron and Darcy: I know you had other commitments on Sunday but I'm glad you came out on Saturday and I hope we see you again.

On Sunday we smacked steel at 200 yards and our shooters saw that what they learned works as well at distance as it does at 25 meters.  And then we had a little special event, and I'm very proud to have shared that with you.  (You were all calling your shots, weren't you?     )  Our RSOs will always be able to say that they once cleared a line with a Krag-Jorgenson next to a Trapdoor Springfield next to a Browning M1919A4 (and the list went on from there).  And the shooters did not need to know any of those model names to know they were part of something pretty cool.  Thank you to the folks who arranged it, and to everyone who took part!

Many of you have said you plan to come to another Appleseed event.  I can't wait to see you on the line again!

We had an awesome instructor corps.  Thanks to SteelThunder for heading up the shoot and to intheburbs, Caliper, Grindstone, Rascal21, Sam-I-Am, Zazzles, BitelySam, American Razzamatazz 15 and TreadCarefully--it was a privilege to work with each of you again and I particularly want to thank you folks who had to travel halfway or all the way across the state to volunteer this weekend (which is nearly every one of you)  You all rock.   

[Oz]

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.372515959525246.1073741830.240556109387899&type=1

Link to pics of the shoot on Facebook--thanks to Rascal21 for putting them up so quickly!

[SteelThunder]

Great group of shooters.  Early heat for a Michigan spring but the spirits were high even if the bodies were unwilling. 

Thanks to all who kept on pluggin'.  I'll second Oz's encouragement to our shooters.  Amazing progress by several "complete newbies"...love it when we see folks that have little experience/never touched a rifle before soak in the instruction and start posting very respectable scores.  Nice job Ann, Darcy, Denise, Pants, Brian and many others I'm forgetting.

Thanks to Boy Scout Troop 110 for 2 great lunches.  It is a real treat to have a lunch provided and I hope that the donation bucket helps offset some of your troop expenses.

And another hearty congrats to our 4 Riflemen.  Nice job fellas and I look forward to seeing you again. 
+  Barry - you'll look great in an Orange Hat! 
+  Lynn and Chet - my apologies for lending you my rifle and costing you a lot of money on a custom 10/22.  Come back to another Appleseed guys! 
+ Bob -- whew!  That was a squeaker!

Enjoyed everyone and I hope you enjoyed the instruction, the history and our "special" events...where else do you get to shoot a guy's hat with main battle rifles circa 1770 - present day?

[Daddy O]

Good morning,

Lynn Long hear (Troop110er). A GREAT time was had by all scouts and adults at this outing. The shooting skills we learned were fantastic. I wish I could have taken this 30 years ago and I'm glad to have had an opportunity to share this with our Boy Scouts. It's hard to express the gratitude we have for all of the safety officers / trainers that gave their weekend to us.
I've already got some scouts that indicated they are going to stop until they have their rifleman patch! Yes you are right SteelThunder your loaner rifle got me hooked. I'm already looking at Ruger pieces parts to build one of these dudes. Can't wait to try it out at a future outing and hopefully earn a cold weather rifleman patch with some of our other Scouts.

Happy birthday wishes to OZ again and a heartfelt THANK YOU! To you all.

See you soon at another outing!

Troop110er
   

[Zazzles]

I had a great time this weekend and I thought everyone did very well!! I am excited to see all of you at an Appleseed again! I am happy to see all my instructor friends again   

Zazzles

[ITB]

Awesome weekend.  Nothing better than sharing it with some fellow Americans eager to learn about marksmanship and heritage.  We had a tremendous group of shooters that gutted it out on the first hot weekend of the year. 

Lynn - thanks for bringing out Troop 110.  That's an impressive group of young men.

Denise - it was great working with you on Saturday.  You made great progress as a new shooter, and your 178 AQT score was awesome.  As were the several targets on stages 3 and 4 of that AQT that were single holes.

Jim, Jenna, and Lane - I'm glad we got you guys squared away on Saturday, so you could better enjoy the weekend.  Jim - you might have to buy Jenna her own AR, she seemed to enjoy shooting mine quite a bit.

Brad - you did a great job when we did ball and dummy together.  Keep working at it, and you'll start making some really nice groups.

Barry - congratulations on your Rifleman score.  I look forward to seeing you in an Orange hat in the near future.

On with some pics....

Troop 110 Color Guard raising the flag Saturday morning


OZ kicking things off with the prone instruction


Grindstone telling a compelling First Strike


Oz captivating folks with his Third Strike


Barry receiving his Rifleman patch


The Pink crew


Crew pic Sunday morning (before we all melted)


Grindstone rocking in the pink shirt, framing the Red Coat Sunday morning


The Great and Mighty Oz receiving his Red Hat


Lynn shooting his Garand (note the enbloc clip caught in mid-flight a foot above his head by the extraordinary photographer  )


Hmm..what's that?


Mmmmmm......belt-fed goodness.  Any firearm that requires a tripod is OK in my book!


Zazzles with Oz's perforated hat.  It survived surprisingly well, considering the array of firearms used on it.


Chet receiving his Rifleman patch (241 score!)


Prosper taking the Blue Hat

[tomahawk]

Day 1:
Getting ready for the day.




More Boy Scout Color Guard photos.




The South Line.








The North Line.

[tomahawk]

Day 2: Ringing steel on the 200 yard range.
Steel Thunder showing us how it's done.






Caliper (in red hat) showing us how it's done.


InTheBurbs showing us how it's done.


























TreadCarefully showing us how it's done.




Grindstone showing us how it's done.


AR15 (in blue hat) showing us how it's done.

[tomahawk]

Oz's Orange Hat Retirement:
The shooters were instructed to shoot the Orange hat as many time as they would like in 90 seconds. You may have heard of the "Mad Minute". This was a "Mad Minute and a Half". 

The line prepares in nervous anticipation.




The "Mad Minute and a Half" begins.




Oz's Orange Hat was hurtin' for certain. Oz delivers the "coup de grace" with a 1919.

[tomahawk]

SteelThunder with his Brown Bess musket.

[SteelThunder]

Great pix Tomahawk!  Thanks for all you do for us at Watervliet!  It is an honor to serve with you!

[tomahawk]

SteelThunder, It is an honor to serve with you as well. You are a man that knows what he is about.

[onthepaper]

Thank you all for the time and hard work that you put in with troop 110. We all learned a lot and had a great time. The facilities at Watervliet Rod and Gun Club are excellent. We are looking forward to our next "Appleseed"...and having that new custom 10/22 that Steelthunder so graciously gave a taste of!

Chet Pierce

[Daddy O]

Hey,
Looking at KIDD for the Ruger rifle build. Tom M. indicated these components were hard to beat. What is your barrel length preference and trigger pull, wasn't sure if 2 stage was the way to go.
Looking at the calendar to get another shoot plugged in shortly.

Have a good evening,

Troop110er
         

[SteelThunder]

Hey,
Looking at KIDD for the Ruger rifle build. Tom M. indicated these components were hard to beat. What is your barrel length preference and trigger pull, wasn't sure if 2 stage was the way to go.
Looking at the calendar to get another shoot plugged in shortly.

Have a good evening,

Troop110er
         

Hammer Forged is right.  Kidd is hard to beat.  They are right there with Volquartsen and Power Custom.

Personally if you are scoping it, the barrel length is relatively unimportant.  16 - 20".  If you are going iron sights, go with the longest to get your sight radius the longest.  Bull barrel steel is going to be heavy.  There are good results with the steel-lined lightweight carbon or aluminum barrel like Whistle Pig.

Triggers?  You can easily spend $250 on a trigger and it will be a beauty.  2 stage vs 1 stage is up to you...I like 2 stage because I'm used to shooting military rifles (M1, M1A, Match AR) so I like having a similar feel.  You can also spend <$50 and get a target hammer/sear/spring set up from Volquartsen that gets you a BIG step up in triggers.  (My loaner rifle you used had this).

[Reckless Rick]

WOW what great weekend and your AAR is nothing shy of outstanding,Thanks for sharing

[onthepaper]

Hey SteelThunder...what stock do you have on your rifle? Is the the Hogue overmolded stock?

[SteelThunder]

Hey SteelThunder...what stock do you have on your rifle? Is the the Hogue overmolded stock?

Sorry for the Slow Response (TM)  The desert tan stock is a Boyd's Tacticool on the OD green 10-22 with the Whistle Pig barrel

[onthepaper]

Thanks Steelthunder! Gettin something in the works!