Payson AZ, Sept 26/27 2009 After Action Report

[V]

Thank you Arizona! Had a great time sharing the heritage and history and having founder approved fun shooting in the sun!

Payson is a great range, easy to set up, organize and shoot.

I was there with AZRedhawk44 and Humvee who made me very welcome and really made this easy, thanks guys for all the work putting the shoots on here.

We had 20 shooters on Saturday, 14 pre-regs and 6 walk-ons, (2 pre-regs were no shows one free sat and one paid 2-day). We got two Rifleman on Saturday afternoon.

We had 18 shooters on Sunday (all returned except two of the walkons who paid 1-day Sat only). We got three Rifleman on Sunday.

We had at least 4 others who were knocking on the door with 200+ scores before the law of diminishing returns started to set in and the heat, tiredness, and sheer effort had their effects.

We were lucky to have two fine young men on our line who kindly let us take their Dad to the other end of the line so we could concentrate on his trigger finger issues (no hold back, jumping off). We got him fixed for you boys and if you bring him back again we'll make sure he gets Rifleman. These young men kept going all weekend with no problems and no complaints shooting every AQT and watching their scores increase steadily, from not on paper Saturday morning to 140- 150s by Sunday afternoon. It was an honor to sign their "Young Marine" shooting achievement papers. Lets hear it for Alex and Spencer and thanks to Mark - seeing families at Appleseeds is what gives us all hope for the future.

Speaking of fathers and sons another highlight was one of our Rifleman, the highest AQT I've ever witnessed a 241! Take that Dad. Congratulations to Craig....  commiserations to Mike. Or maybe not, after all, us Dads have taught them everything they know, right?

To all of our Riflemen who want to think about becoming instructors for the program I commend the following quote, which I first heard from my mentor Bob 210:

         Most men have more courage than they know, and a little to begin with is enough to start: I once thought that the mere sound of cannonballs would be enough to kill me - I have since tried it and found that I can stand it.
                                                          - Thomas Paine

Everyone feel free to add your comments in here. And I saw some cameras going off over the weekend so feel free to upload those here. If you are not sure how PM or email me for help.

Cheers
Phil

[Humvee]

V, it was great working with you.  Despite the heat, I think it was a great success.  We saw some HUGE improvements in everyone's shooting and I agree, I think Spencer and Alex (Mark's sons) were definately the troopers of the weekend. 

Some pictures from the weekend:

Trying to find some shade on the line



Our riflemen of the weekend






Craig's solid 240 and easy "gimme" 241

Note the last target!


Once again, Thanks to everyone that came out with the great learning attitudes, fought throught the ache's and pains on the line, and somehow managed to stay awake through the history lessons!   Just kidding, V and KC did a great job!

[LayloPro]

Heh! That last target on the right of Stage 4 is a true thing of beauty!! <

Must have been great instructions, according to Fred, eh?

Great job, all!! Congratulations to the new RifleMen, and a special thanks to all who came & tried.....it isn't over until you succeed.....

We'll be back again.....and you will have your chance....

LLP

[AZRedhawk44]

Craig's Rifleman score was the second-best I've ever witnessed, only eclipsed by Wayne Conrad at Tonopah, using a CZ bolt action .22, shooting a 242 total score.  It was remarkable.  We also had a 238 come out of this event by Craig's father later on Sunday.  Some remarkable shooting.  A remarkable father and son pair.  Two men who knew VERY much what they were about.

I'd like to thank Robert from the event for donating some fresh cardboard once we got back into the valley.  My backers were looking a bit ragged, and he set me up with half a dozen large appliance cardboard boxes to make fresh backers.  Glad to have him contributing to the mission here.  He suggested that he'll have more for me in the future, too!  Excellent.

Always good to spend a weekend with Appleseeders!  Thanks to all who attended.