Buckeye, AZ - March 21 & 22, 2009

[AZRedhawk44]

This Appleseed was a fantastic turnout at a fantastic facility.  It thoroughly exceeded my expectations.  A huge thank you and kudos to the Buckeye Hills Sports Club for getting the Joe Foss Shooting Range up and running, and making it available to the Appleseed program for the weekend.  This is going to be the beginning of a very good relationship, I think.

We had 36 shooters arrive for Saturday.  We very nearly filled the facility.  Lots of family there, fathers and sons, fathers and daughters.  The day started with a charging line of rampaging redcoats.  Our shooters performed admirably.  Out of 36 shooters, we had 6 folks make Morgan's Rifleman Company with the 250 yard shot, 1 cleared the 400 yard stage, 3 at 300, 5 at 200 and 14 at 100.  That's 29 out of 36 shooters.

After that, it was firehose time.  We let 'em have it!  Prone position, steady hold factors, sling usage, six steps, inches-minutes-clicks over a couple of 1" square targets took up most of the rest of the long morning.  Gromit presented Strike 1 and I presented Strike 2 during lunch, then we jumped back into action with work on standing and seated positions, as well as introduction to NPOA.

Finally we faced our first AQT.  With the sun getting lower in the sky and the rest of the Joe Foss range silent, we continued on to our last target of the day, the ubiquitous Redcoat.

Sunday brought 24 of our shooters back to the line.  The event crew were here early preparing the backers for the anticipated high wind.  We used some drywall nails with plastic washers to hold the cardboard to the frames, to avoid a repeat performance of Avery-08.  Through the course of the day we had maybe half a dozen targets fall off the boards, but not a single backer came apart.

We opened again on a Redcoat.  Performance was exceptional, with 19 out of 24 shooters qualifying on at least one stage of the target.  Some folks had brought alternate rifles for the day, so we did some sighter squares and review, then a new chance at the AQT.  Still no riflemen, we posted the green Classification AQT with no NPOA shifts.  Scores were very good on this, so we did several different drills:  Ball and dummy, carding the sights, and NPOA shifts on more 1 inch squares.

Lunch time came around again, and Gromit told us about Strike 3 and Sammuel Whittemore, While I talked about Hezekiah Wyman, David Lansom, Margaret Gage and Sarah Tarrant. 

Refueled and rested, more AQT's followed, broken up with a carnival star and one more NPOA drill to change things up.  Finally on the last AQT of the day we found a man among us who knew very well what he was about:  Jeremy shot a 212 after a heart-breaking 208 with 4 rounds he didn't get off (shouldawouldacoulda doesn't pay off, but persistence does!).

Shooters re-affirmed my faith in us as a country and as a people in a way only Appleseed attendees can do.  We talked about 7th-stepping and may have a couple of IIT candidates... we'll see how that plays out.

[1911Ron]

I agree, we had a good turn out, a lot of determined folks showed up and the really determined showed up on Sunday.   A hearty well done to Jeremy on his Riflemans score <  a "little" breeze came out of the southwest, but no dust as they had put down soil cement on the dirt on the range.
All in all a good time was had by everyone.  1911Ron

[sourceofuncertainty]

Hey guys,

Thanks for putting on a great event. I made it for both days but foolishly left my backup rifle at home and was sidelined for part of the second day. Nonetheless I enjoyed it a great deal (this was my second Appleseed) and look forward to finally earning rifleman at the next one. What a terrific range that is! 

[Rumpshot]

I attended a class at the Buckeye range again yesterday Mar 28.  The folks I talked to were really enthused about the Appleseed from the previous week.  Many club members commented that they would be on the roster for the next Appleseed.  Much positive press and kudos.

On a different note, many of the club members have taken to calling me by name and I don't know most of them by name.  Does that mean I should join the club???

[Rumpshot]

Some photos.

[Rumpshot]

More photos.

The Mosin-Nagant in action.

And the Rifleman shooter of the weekend.

[apollo]

Well, we do have incredibly high standards, if you can meet them you might consider joining. Let's see, are you still breathing? Do you have the funds available? Are you willing to work for no pay? Do you own body armor? (may be necessary for some meetings). We can use all the competent help on the range we can get. And for the most part we have a pretty good bunch of people there, one more is always welcome.
Apollo