AAR: Duluth, MN -- July 19-20, 2014

[AFTERMATH]

This event was several years in the making.  It was worth the wait.

We'd had several Appleseeds here some years ago, but could never make another work - until now!

The United Northern Sportsmen's Club(UNS) has always been a great host, and I've gotta say I was quite anxious about our return!

Pre-registration wasn't looking the greatest, but it turned around towards the end - with five shooters signed up.  Several more would walk on.  At the last minute, JasonS was able to make the trek to help instruct this one - bring with him his son, who would make shooter number seven.

One thing to note about the Duluth/Superior area in July:  Apparently, if you need to find lodging during this month, you'd better start looking in January.  Jason, had left planning to find a room along the way, but to no avail - That is until I was talking to our range contact and managed to find us a room, at a price we couldn't refuse.  Thanks again!

We began Saturday with seven shooters and one observer - Mary who wanted to see what we were all about, stayed with us the entire weekend.  Next time I suspect she'll take the plunge and join us on the line.  She was a pleasure to have with us.

As we faced off against the Redcoats on Saturday morning, it was proven that we'd have our work cut out for us this weekend.  I recall that only two were able to reach a maximum effective range of 100yrds.  Such a level of marksmanship, or lack there of, would be unacceptable to Morgan's Riflemen, from whence our lineage derives.  Further more, this is unbecoming of Minnesotan's.  But this is why we're here, and through the course of the weekend the results would prove to be undeniable improvement across the entire class.  Saturday evening's Redcoats - of the few that remained, they did so on a prayer.

Sunday morning's Redcoats, were a little better off - as most of the shooters had learned from Saturday, and made alterations to their rifles, thus changing their zero's.  That morning the shooters performed, not a small amount of drills - mag-change, transition, NPOA, cadence, etc...  All custom designed to improve their speed and accuracy, better preparing them for their first encounter with the AQT.  Which would come after lunch and some Dangerous Old Men stories.

Still the AQT would prove a formidable adversary for seasoned and novice shooter alike.  But the students were making good progress.  I'm certain, had we continued hammering through them we'd have made some Riflemen.  However, being a Rifleman is not as important as scoring Rifleman.  And when Riflemen have an opportunity to do some work at actual distance, they ought to take it.  After being instructed on the fundamentals of KD the shooters were ready to try their hand at some real shooting. 

We moved the line back to the one hundred. 

AR's/scopes - Come down 6 minutes...  .22's, come up 6

Those that remembered found the zero's to be true.  Those that didn't, got them on the next string.

Now we're moving out to 200yrds - How many minutes do we come up?
3 was the answer indeed - with the exception of Curt.  His leaf-sight .22lr had run out of vertical adjustment, but with a little of trial and error, he found that he'd have to hold about a target and a half high, IIRC.  But he got it, he proved he could get it.

Come up 3 more - As we moved out to three hundred.
Here, as expected, the wind proved a bit tricky.  Constant breeze with slight gusts at the firing line - gusting/swirling from every direction at the 300 yrd.  A bit of drift with the .30's, more troublesome for the .223...   But everyone, was able to get on target - "'D' style. 

After zero's were attained - It was time to ring a bit of steel.  The day was coming to an end quickly, and being that just banging away at steel, isn't nearly as satisfying without an objective, the Shoot Boss presented a challenge.

Each of you, prep one round - Let's see if any of you are good enough to join Morgan's Riflemen.

Well, it wasn't an exact replication - as of course they were shooting their modern rifles,  they had just recently confirmed their zero, and the target was a 4moa circle.  But it was 50yrds further, with wind and their barrels had cooled to ambient temperature by the time they were in prep...  While I doubt Timothy Murphy would have found much difficulty, by modern standards this is quite a challenge. 

Kevin, with his .308 AR managed to make the mark.  All others got close.

Any weekend at an Appleseed, is a weekend well spent - This one was exceptionally well spent.

I'd like to once again thank UNS, David and Kevin for their hospitality, Jason for making it easy and all of the shooters for making this event a success. 

A guy can do a lot, as a Shoot Boss.  But in the end, a good Shoot Boss knows that it's the students who drive the event and its his/her job to navigate.  And it's the students that will drive further and save America!



P.S.  Well, I forgot even to take the group photo...  Not sure if anyone else got pics.  So, all you nay-sayers are just gonna have to take our word for it. 

[Prepper Rookie]

Was a great weekend.