Ariel, WA Mar 28-29, 2015

[George Hacker]

Wow! What an excellent event.

3 Appleseed instructors + 8 shooters = aweseome time with the spirit of Liberty mixed in with it

Out of our group 4 were first time Appleseeders and 4 were returnees. We had three repeat riflemen confirm their marksmanship abilities and a father and son pair who are new riflemen. It was their first Appleseed event and they had very teachable attitudes.

We spent some extra time with one of the shooters after class on Sunday. She was doing everything right - the six steps, the steady hold factors in prone, and NPOA, but her targets just weren't cooperating and we couldn't find anything wrong with her equipment. She switched rifles and she put 5 rounds in the center square. All weekend she couldn't qualify with a redcoat, but after class she qualified at 200 yards and had hits at 300 and 400 yard targets. She has the skills and vowed to go home and polish her skills. For fun we put a clay pigeon out at 50 yards and had her shoot at it without adjusting her sights. She shot it on her first try. Great job, Courtney, on persisting and sticking with it. You confirmed that you know what you are doing, you just have to put it all together with your original rifle.

More news will follow, but this is a start. Shooters, please let us know what you learned and what you thought of the event.

George

[janer]

I really enjoyed the weekend.  Congratulations to all the rifleman.  Thanks to all of you for participating this weekend.  I hope to see you all again on the line.

[Prescott]

This was the second AS event that I was able to attend this spring as a shooters!   It is great that the NW now has enough instructors that I can actually get in some trigger time.

Thanks to George, Jane and John for volunteering and working the event.  The instruction and story telling was great.   I was especially proud of Jane, as she has turned into a first class instructor, and did fantastic job with both the marksmanship instruction and story telling.  I especially enjoyed the story of the ship captain (I can't remember his name) that brought the colonist accounting of the battle to England.  I have never heard that story and it is a treat to hear some new stories about the American Revolution.

This weekend I wanted to spend more time shooting iron sights, as most of my rifles are all equipped with optics.  We took Aladdin's Ruger 10/22 and installed a set of Tech-Sights to practice with.  Aladdin got frustrated shooting the iron sights on Saturday, so I took over the rifle on Sunday.

This weekend I learned that it is much more difficult to shoot iron sights with progressive bifocals.   In my younger years I did not struggle to get a good focus on the front sight and the rear sight was not as big and blurry.   I struggled on Saturday with our SKS and was not able to get 4 MOA shot groups with the stock sights.  I think we will install some Tech-Sights to see if that helps with my accuracy.  On Sunday, I switched to Aladdin's Ruger 10/22 and practiced with the Tech-Sights.   By the end of the day, I was able to shoot an AQT score of 221 and then cleared the last Red Coat.   

Congratulation to our two new Rifleman!  Huzzah!  The father and son pair that earned their Rifleman patches definitely know what they are all about.   

[Ironbar]

I had a great time too folks! Sorry I had to bag early on Sunday.

George, thank you so much for all the great advice about shooting with my Garand. I'm seriously considering the KD event at Eagle Creek in July!