Castro Valley, CA // October 18-19, 2014 // AAR

[haleson]

What a beautiful day for a shoot, and what a beautiful shoot it was!

Saturday dawned clear and we enjoyed excellent weather throughout the day.  We began with a safety briefing before jumping right in to instruction.  There was a little bit of a slow start due to a lot of nonstandard equipment on the line, but the up-front investment paid off and we were sighted in and comfortable in prone with sling by the lunch break.

Wes and Ron gave an excellent recounting of the first and second strike -- a story people just don't hear any more.  Some shooters were literally on the edge of their seats . . . which your humble Shoot Boss attributes to the skill with which the story was told, rather than the particularly noisy day we were having 

Picture removed by request of the photographed

We returned to the line to discuss applying the steady hold factors to the other positions, and managed to get an AQT on the books by the end of the day!  One rifleman requalified: Doug (Eljay here on the forum) turned in a 211 using a bolt-action.

With the usual admonition towards whirlpools and Advil, we ended day one.

Sunday started with a blanket of fog, though it had sufficiently cleared up to keep to our normal schedule (I didn't envy the 100-yard shooters on the public lines, though).  We also had our wildlife visit scheduled early morning, when the range's resident flock of turkey raced down the target line.

A quick review of the previous day's instruction took up most of the morning, with an added wrinkle -- Wes introduced the shooters to the Ball-and-Dummy+, giving shooters two dimensions with which to test their partners 

Picture removed by request of the photographed.

Sunday's lunch, as usual, revolved around the Dangerous Old Men . . . and ended with the recognition of a young man -- Wes promoted to Instructor!  Good work, Wes!

Panoramic of the firing line, Sunday afternoon.

Matt N. is the newest rifleman to come out of Castro Valley!

Sunday afternoon brought the grind . . . four hours.  Six AQTs.  lots of excellent targets!  We had one new rifleman: Matt N., who narrowly avoided the waters of the North Bridge with a 211!  Two others requalified: Doug upped his previous day's 211 to a 228, and Hans managed to turn in the high score of the weekend with a 238 on the last AQT.  Hans will be joining us on the line with a shiny new hat in the future -- thanks for stepping up!  There were also a lot of targets in the 170-and-up range -- keep working at it, shooters!  A rifleman persists!

This was an excellent shoot and a fantastic group of shooters.  Thank you to everyone who came out and made it possible!

******

Cadre from this weekend's shoot can be contacted via the forum handles below:

Ken -> haleson
Wes -> Relentless
Ron -> The Horse
Jules -> gr8fl1
Kim -> kilakiwi

EDIT TO ADD: Link to Tim's Chabot information post, including the Zombie Triangle targets here.

[Eljay]

Thanks to everybody for a great class.  Shooting an Appleseed with a bolt action is definitely an experience within an experience, so to speak.

I'm so happy that Matt got that 211 - he cranked out a lot of solid AQTs and there were at least a couple that were very close.

And congratulations to Wes and Hans!

[The Horse]

Thanks to everyone for making this such a fun and successful shoot!
You guys were a great group to work with and many of you were very close to getting their rifleman score. Come back out to the next shoot and get it
Congradulation Wes! You definately earned your red hat.
Welcome aboard Hans and thanks Ken for organizing another great shoot.

[Libertarian777]

What a fun Appleseed. I have definitely caught the bug and am already looking forward to the next one. And I'm honored to be joining the crew!

Congratulations Wes, and thanks to everyone.

[Ducky]

Sounds like you guys had an awesome weekend! Congratulations to the Riflemen!! Hans, welcome aboard--we're happy to see you decided to join us! And Wes, big congrats on getting your Red Hat. We knew you could do it!

We hope to see you all at Castro Valley in 2015; since our shoots in Sacramento will be the 2nd weekend of each month, our group will be a bit freer to come help you guys out periodically. Looking forward to it!

Best to you all,
Linda/Ducky

[haleson]

Since  ,

I've added some more 

[Nero]

Glad to see Castro Valley is in good hands!  Congratulations, Wes!  Welcome aboard to the new recruits and 'well done' to the shooters! 

Say hello to the turkeys for us!

[Eljay]

The kids and I both counted 11 turkeys.

[niimo]

Thanks for a great class everyone, I had a lot of fun. The AQT is definitely a challenge, that bottom row of targets is crazy small first time you see it at 25m. I'm very happy I managed to squeeze past 210. Shooting next to Doug certainly helped, I got a lot of good tips (and some pressure to do better after seeing all those high scores!).
I'll be back with a friend or two!

Does anyone have a link to some non-humanoid practice targets?

/Matt

[Nero]

Does anyone have a link to some non-humanoid practice targets?

The infamous 'zombie triangle' targets can be found on this thread.

[Eljay]

Glad it helped, Matt.  There's another 20 yard version that's been floating around, I don't know who first came up with it but I'll try to attach it.  There's no kind of overlays or anything, you just shoot it and score right on the sheet.  No, there's no 3 ring but there's also not the same kind of pressure so it kind of works out if you just use the 4s/5s.  I actually usually use "hits count" scoring - if it's in the black it's good.  Rifleman score's about 80% in the black so you're allowed 10 outside (bottom row still counts double so that'll chew up your 10 fast).

[niimo]

Thanks guys.