Ossian IN May 31- Jun 1 AAR!!

[grunt soldier]

What a beautiful weekend.  a bit hot but awesome weather.  What a beautiful venue.  such a great range.  Amazing hot lunches both days.  Great American's bettering themselves and their rifle marksmanship!  hanging out hearing the true history of April 19th!! 

Does it get much better than that?  I don't believe it does.  Hopefully TJ will pop in soon with his great pictures of the event.   

I just want to say a huge thanks to Taylor, Deb, John, and Dave for spending your time with us this weekend.  there were a million other things you gals/guys could have been doing and it was truly our honor that you choose to spend it with us! 

Taylor!  thank you for coming out.  you were such a respectful young lady!  You give me hope for the future.  your position and shooting improved so much so quickly.  keep with it and your sure to be a riflewoman soon!

Deb. you had such a great attitude and teachable mind set.  thank you for coming and I'm glad you learned a lot an had a great time.  please join us again soon!

Jon  You almost had it sir.  keep with it and you will be there in no time.  200 first aqt of the second day is awesome.  remember your trigga control and elbow under the rifle. 

Dave I thought when I saw your first AQT that you had gotten rifleman.  after a little further inspection you were right on the border.  207!  dang close.  remember your Trigga control and your npoa shifts.  you could see the groups open up a bit when you muscled it.  Please come again soon!

again thanks to everyone who attended!

[greyfox]

The heat was hot and the patriotic fervor was hotter as Taylor, Deb, John, and Dave joined us at the Ossian Conservation Club to spend a sunny Saturday and Sunday sending lead down range and unapologetically celebrating the founding of this great nation through the heartfelt retelling of the events of April 19, 1775.

Huzzah to these Appleseed shooters (three out of four who were new to the program) and each of whom made tremendous marksmanship progress - step by step as it always is....sometimes even a couple steps forward and then a step back to think and learn and then step forward again. Huzzah to our fabulous hosts at the Ossian Conservation Club who cooked for us (Thank you ladies!) and especially to Jack who stood side by side with us under the solar broiler and cheered everyone along! Huzzah to TJ whose hat suddenly turned from orange to red on Saturday afternoon and in that mystical moment earned a congratulatory can of Lubriplate from greyfox. Huzzah to grunt soldier and spitfire51 who each drove hours to get to Ossian and serve as Shoot Bosses respectively on Saturday and Sunday.

So what's not to like? This was my first Appleseed as an Instructor in Training. I got to visit a beautiful lakeside conservation club I had never seen before, meet wonderful people, help teach those wonderful people new skills, shoot firearms, ring steel on Sunday,  reconnect with the founders, work alongside some real professionals who care enough about this nation that they donated their weekend (as volunteers) to make it an even better nation than it was the weekend before.

What's not to like? It must be a trick question. 

In a final and relevant note, last night I participated as a student in the classroom portion of the NRA Basic Pistol course. It is an excellent class and even experienced folks are learning a lot about handguns. The class is being taught by a very competent and extremely personable local county sheriff.  He has over 30 years of service in law enforcement and has been a firearms instructor for almost as long for military, police and the general public. The point being that in the lecture he asked the question, "When is the best time to take the shot?" Many responded from the class...all incorrectly.

So...I shouted out, "During the respiratory pause!" The instructor stepped back a moment and then asked me to repeat my answer. I did. Then he told the class that this was the first time he had ever heard the correct answer from a civilian. During the break, this generated quite a bit of inquiry from other participants.

All I could tell them was, "Hey, you need to go to an Appleseed. You'll be glad you did!"

Huzzah from the Pigeon River Valley!                 

[TJ Kackowski]

Sorry for the delay getting these photos posted ... I just hate it when work gets in the way of my Seeding.

I echo the remarks of grunt solider and greyfox ... an outstanding weekend and an outstanding group of fine Americans who've had the scales removed from their eyes.  I look forward to seeing each and every one of them back on the line along with their friends and family.

On to the pictures.

Gathering





Shooting the first Redcoat target









Indiana's newest Instructor, greyfox, gets right to work



Trigga Control, Trigga Control, Trigga Control



The shooters are showing much better form after some instruction





Carding the sights









Lunch time!



Working on new positions after lunch





Our Youth Shooter receives some much deserved recognition



When the SB wants to rest, they volunteer to be the Demo Dummy













Now the Shooters get back to work









greyfox gets some trigger time during the AQT grind



Giving the United States Rifle, Caliber .30, M1 a workout on the 100 yd line

[greyfox]

Super photos TJ!

[brianheeter]

No pictures of the Ho Ho cake???

[spitfire51]

Apparently its ding-dong cake, not ho ho cake as we were led to believe.  No pictures of it, but I will happily report it was delicious.  Here's one of my favorite moments of the weekend.  A Garand next to a suppressed .22, it was quite an interesting audio juxtaposition.