Colebrook, CT Dec. 5-6, 2015

[Heavyduty77]

What a great weekend for an Appleseed! The Northwest Connecticut Sportsman's Club in Colebrook, Connecticut hosted the weekend's activities. The weather was exceptional for this time of year in the Northeast. Temperatures started out on the ‘airish' side in the mid-twenties but warmed up to fifty degrees by the afternoon with plenty of sunshine.

Of the six shooters on Saturday three were new to rifle shooting. All three made great strides in their performance with Ryan shooting in the 170s. Mike and James also made solid improvements in their marksmanship abilities.

Ed was having some initial issues but improved rapidly after switching to a scoped rifle and receiving some tips from JayH.

Bill and Valerie both worked hard and advanced their skill levels on Saturday.

JayH tried out his tube fed bolt action rifle and fired an impressive ten (yes ten) Rifleman scores ranging between 230 to 245 points! Not to mention his ‘cleaning' of the Redcoat target.

Scores on the Redcoat targets showed great improvement by all attendees over the two days. 

Of course, most important of all was the telling of the 'Three Strikes' and relating the purpose of the Appleseed mission. Hopefully everyone will take to heart the stories of the sacrifices of our forefathers and incorporate their spirit into their lives.

This was my first AS as Shoot Boss and I want to thank TominCT, AICIRTAP and Quigley for their great job (and JayH for his guest appearance!). Quigley moved up the ladder to IIT1.......congratulations!

[Josey Wales]

Great Job 

[AICIRTAP]

Here are pictures from Saturday, enjoy! 

[Jay Haich]

Normally we have this in Dec at Colebrook:


This weekend we lucked out with excellent weather. Although it started out below freezing the sun shone for the whole day.


Here are a few photos of the Sunday line up.... just to show it did happen 








You have to earn the right to tease me about my PINK shooting mat.... shoot a higher score than me 


Shooting a tube fed Bolt Action reminds me of something ..... drop in powder and ball...



Insert ram rod...


Place a cap.... ok I know I am actually attaching a sling


Please Sir.... may I... prep the tube.


Jokes aside.... It was great to spend a day sending lead downrange. Due to a change in working circumstances I retired from AS more than a year ago. TominCT was being sneaky when he invited me to come and shoot on Sunday. He is hoping to get me inspired to dust off the Red Hat. Although he did not succeed in getting me back on the AS instructor bandwagon I did get to close out one of the items on my AS bucket list - I got to shoot a few AQTs with a tube fed bolt action for the first time.
A few comments on running a bolt action: I rest my elbows on a 3/4" foam pad and with a cutout in the pad for my right elbow I was able to keep my NPOA on target during the cycling of the bolt. I had to resist the urge to cut short the follow thru as the time monkey was looming large. To save time on the 2nd stage I shot from an open legged position and it was only on the first AQT that I did not get the 10th round off.

Be Safe
Jay H

[TOMINCT]

 Sorry for the late reply, it was  a great shoot!

  It was good to have the IT crew that we had to help a bunch of new shooters trying hard to be Rifleman. Although there were no Rifleman scores among them the attendees had solid improvement, whether being there for one day or both.

Thanks to NWCSA for the use of the range for a weekend, they have been a supporter of Appleseed in Ct for 7 years and we look forward to more in the future. 

Thanks to all who were there this past weekend, hope to see you all again.

A Rifleman persists.

[Quigley]

it was a privilege to work with TOMINCT and Heavyduty77 at my first shoot as an IIT. I believe that I learned much more than the shooters. Although Jay H could not be talked into resuming his role with the RWVA, I am glad he brought his bolt gun and tubular magazine to the range. He provided me valuable tips all day long and it was the first time I saw a tube magazine in action at an AS. it was both educational and impressive. I am not convinced that he can not be persuaded to return to his former position as SB.   

[radia]

Just wanted to say that it was an intense and rewarding experience and I learned (and improved) a great deal.

I had gone to a previous Appleseed event in West Lebanon, NH, perhaps five or six years ago. At that event I showed up for Saturday only. It was mostly unsatisfactory for me - with my poor eyesight I had difficulty seeing the target, never was able to get any good groups, and never quite grasped the meaning of NPOA.

Ever since I moved from NH back to CT in 2011 I haven't been a member of a gun club, did not have a place to shoot, and pretty much hadn't touched any of my firearms. But I recently moved to a 14-acre property and thought that it might be possible to do some shooting on that land. So I was pleased to discover the shoot scheduled for Colebrook, which was just over a half hour away, and I signed up for both Saturday and Sunday.

I now have a newer eyeglass prescription with a couple sets of glasses - one of them with progressive bifocal lenses and the other with single focal-length lenses, and wanted to see if I could do any better with the iron sights on my 10/22 using the new glasses. Unfortunately, neither pair was usable with the iron sights. The progressive lenses are great when I'm driving a car, since with them I can easily see both the road ahead and the gauges on the instrument panel. But as hard as I tried to make them work with the iron sights, I found that the optical "sweet spot" was just too tiny to allow me to get into any position where I could use the sights. The single-focus pair of glasses was no better, since they have low-profile lenses that I ended up looking over instead of looking through - and since I'm near-sighted that simply did not work. So Saturday was a disappointment.

But I had a "Plan B" in mind for Sunday - namely, to remove the tech sights and replace them with a weaver rail and a scope. But I had used Loctite when I originally installed the tech sight screws, and they were not cooperating. Luckily Tom had offered me the use of his scoped 10/22 for Sunday, and once I got the hang of using it, I was able to do much, much better.

Once I was actually able to see the target, all of the instruction about NPOA finally made sense to me, and for the first time since, well, forever, I found myself shooting some tight groups. Maybe not 'rifleman' groups, but nice groups nonetheless. The personal attention that I received was great, and my shooting skills have improved markedly as a result (thanks, Jay!).

The two day event was physically demanding for an older, out-of-shape guy like myself, but I'm glad that I did it.

And the revolutionary war narrative emphasizing the human dimension of the events that led to the founding of this nation in a way that was never taught in school (why not?) was awesome.

Thanks for putting together such a great event.

Ed