AAR - Liberty Center, OH, 9-19/20-2015

[Blindman]

Liberty Center gave us a perfect weekend for an Appleseed. Nine shooters brave the morning rains in order to master Rifleman's skills and learn the stories of their heritage. Ages and skill levels ran the gambit, from 'experienced' to 'minimal handling' but with good listening skills and an attentive instructor corps, the weekend proceeded without major incident.

    Saturday morning weather was wet, but cleared to a beautiful shooting weather by early afternoon. Instruction was presented by myself and Cadence, with Topper Serving as a very competent model. Little Buddy and Charlie (who braved her duties despite recovering from recent surgery) served yeomen duties as line and range safety officers

Redcoat scores were fine evidence of studious attention payed by students.
             SAt  (9)     Sun (6 in am,7 PM)
         AM   PM    AM    PM
100     2      5      5      7
200     2      3      3      6
300     2      2      2      1
400     1      1      3      2
H         1      2     3       3
clear    1       1    1       1

By the end of day two, we had given out four rifleman patches, Kevin Schroeder, (Radiotron) persevered through his second Appleseed to gain his patch, as did his new friend Gary Hankins, who was dubbed "Loan'r Wolf". Also taking home a patch was Mathew Kukla (MatthewSafety) and Mike Smith, who has yet to be named. Congrats to all!
More as time allows.
Blindman

[Cadence]

Huzzah!! To all our new riflemen!

[topper]

Wow, what a great weekend! Our line of shooters really worked hard. There was a bit of discouragement setting in during the  Sunday afternoon AQT grind. The AM/PM  redcoat stats prove they were able to overcome that along with the sun and fatigue and produce incredible improvement in marksmanship.

If the redcoat improvements weren't enough we welcomed 4 new rifleman by the end of the day. Huzzah!

We had the pleasure of working with 4 youth through the weekend also. They stuck it out, worked hard, shot safely and showed marked improvement in handling their firearms and marksmanship. Keep practicing and home and come back to earn your patch.

What really stuck out to me was how strong the shooters finished Sunday afternoon. Good job!

[radiotron]

I can't thank our hosts and instructors enough for another great weekend @ an Appleseed clinic.  The instruction was spot on, and the storytelling was engaging.  Saturday morning was a little challenging due to the intermittent rain.  Blindman was nearly shouting relating the events of the second strike of the match during lunch.  You see, we were under a tin-roofed shelter house and the skies really opened up for 20 minutes or so...  But, the sun peeked out, a comfortable breeze set in, and we all got to work, even though the line was a little soggy.  I had a decent AQT going, but posted it too close to my neighbor's and ended up with extra holes in my target.  No problem, there will be many more to come.  Next go-around, I NPOA'd myself onto someone else's target - Holy Cow, how does that happen?  I guess my "2 cheek sneak" was a little too ambitious.  At the end of the day, it was Cadence's turn to shout, because the club was having a fish fry that evening, and the noise from a couple of the fryers was amazingly loud!

So, Sunday morning I was ready to show that I was paying attention and learning.  I thought I did well on the first AQT of the day, and handed it to Charlie for scoring.  Later, she politely declined to tell me how I did, so I put her to work marking up a few more.  I received the coveted patch at lunchtime, and sincerely appreciate the camaraderie and congratulations from everyone.  Later, my best AQT of the weekend was missing a round on the second stage because for some reason I cycled the bolt on my 10/22 rather than the mag release and didn't have enough time to one-handedly reload that round. 

I'm especially happy that Gary was able to earn his patch also.  I neglected to bring any shelter to the clinic, and he cordially invited me to share his for the weekend.  Sunday afternoon I sensed a little bit of frustration on his part during the AQT's.  He was shooting well, but not as consistently as he and I knew he could.  A couple of us wondered if his Ruger's barrel was too worn to shoot a tight group, so I asked if he'd like to swap rifles for a bit, just to try something different, and he took me up on the offer.  He liked my gun well enough that he decided to use it for the last AQT of the weekend, and sure enough, he knows very well what he is about!  Lucky for me, I was able to pay him back for the use of the shelter before the weekend was over!

Again, a big HUZZAH to Blindman, Cadence, Topper, Charlie, Little Buddy, and the Henry County Sportsmen's Association and especially the club president.  She came out to cook for us both days!

Congratulations to all of the shooters.  All of my work friends know now what Appleseed is about and I've already volunteered to loan my rifle to a couple of them if they would like to attend.
-radiotron

[little buddy]

Charley, Scoring AQT's and watching the line even after knee surgery!

[little buddy]

Ready for some shooting!

[little buddy]

A cleared Sat AM and Sat PM!

[little buddy]

Little Buddy slinging up to shoot an AQT with the M1 Garande on Sunday.