Davilla, TX AAR!

[voortrekker]

PJ,

Does this mean you just stepped to the plate to make an Appleseed weekend happen in the great neighborly state of Oklahoma!!!?

When you find a place, make sure it's not in the realm of the Trans Texas Corridor.

BTW, your buddies left, but you stayed for the Appleseed weekend.

THANKS. 

I think you are a natural in as far as being an instructor.  This organization needs instructors like you.  This nation needs instructors like you.

Thanks for the morning coffee neighbor.

[Sliptail]

I want to give a big thank you to everyone there at the RBC and the Appleseed, the instructors as well as just the people who came.

My dad, Groundhog, brought all of us down there and I have to say it was one of the most amazing times of my life. Not just learning how to shoot either, but learning the history, and meeting all of the people there.

I'm itching to do it again, and really excited to see what January brings with new people to the Appleseed. (Hopefully some of those people will be my good friends and their families.)

Once again, Thank you. I really did have the time of my life that week.

[VAshooter]

Anyone who believes that todays young people lack ambition and drive or care only about video games need only to meet this young lady. She is bright, energetic and very intent on improving herself and learning to shoot. She will develop into a strong leader and, I hope, an Appleseed Instructor.

VAshooter

[Nickle]

Welcome aboard, Sliptail.

I hear you've turned a few heads, and around here, that's a really good thing.

I'm sure you'll become an accomplished Rifleman, and a definite asset to the Appleseed Program.

[Sliptail]

Thank you, guys.

I really am excited and that is the path I'm looking at, becoming and Appleseed instructor.

[Groundhog]

I just posted Part I of my AAR over on the M14 firing line forums here:

http://www.m14firinglineforum.com/upload/showpost.php?p=303332&postcount=1

Part two is coming.  Somebody read it and let me know if you think I should dual post it over here too.  Hate to double post.

[Old Dog]

It probably wouldn't be a bad idea.  Seems like you have to register there to read posts and some folks here are registered over there (no idea why really since it's a great source of info about our favorite rifles).

[Groundhog]

Alright, here's the entire thing (part 1 at least).

The Rifleman's Boot Camp

Early in the morning on November 4th, my family and I arrived at the Adam's ranch about a mile past the intersection that marks the tiny town of Davilla, Texas. The directions were simple and the gate well marked. Our small caravan (we brought two vehicles) pulled into the camping area and checked in at the main desk. After getting the paperwork done and greeting a few people, we scurried back to the camp site to start throwing gear out and getting rifles ready. No time to set up camp now as we had to be on the line pretty fast. The weather was excellent, which was a little surprising as we had already had over two weeks of some of the finest Texas fall weather you could imagine and we were over due for a storm. After the initial safety briefing, one of the most fun and memorable times my family has had to date, started.

I don't want to get overly detailed here for fear of losing your attention so I'll try my best to condense the 8 days of training into a small package. Sunday through Thursday of the Rifle Boot Camp or RBC was spent training pretty much solely on our rifle skills. The instructors took us through several stages of progression starting with trying to get your shots on the paper to see if you had a group. We then learned how to tighten that group by following the 6 rules of shooting as taught by the RWVA folks. To nut shell that for you, they are:

1. Site Alignment
2. Site Picture
3. Respiratory Pause
4. A) Focus on Front Sight, and B) Focus your Mind
5. Trigger Squeeze
6. A) Follow Through, and B) Mental Snapshot of your Shot.

Naturally, there was a lot of elaboration on these steps throughout our training. The basic idea though was that if you were having a hard time putting rounds on the target, you needed to practice these steps more. Once we had groups, we learned how to calculate Minute of Angle measurements to correct our groups so they were on target (zeroing the rifle for practical purposes). Next (simultaneously really) came learning your natural point of aim or NPOA and how to correct that so you could be accurate repeatedly. This was accomplished by learning where the rifle wanted to point when you were in one of the three firing positions we were taught, standing, kneeling or sitting, and prone. Use of a good sling was taught to add great stability to your aim while in these positions. A standard GI issue web sling will suffice. I have yet to figure out how to duplicate the precision with my tacticool sling, but I'm working on it! We learned to shoot in the afore mentioned three positions and how to transition from standing to either the sitting or prone.

All of that was done to teach us how to shoot and qualify using the Army Qualification Test or AQT. I don't know if that test is actually used by the Army somewhere today or not but when I was in the Infantry, we shot our qualifications on a popup target range and were never taught some of the finer points of marksmanship that we learned at this school.

All of this was done at the 25 yard range. I think it was actually measured in meters if I recall correctly, but what's a few feet amongst friends? Once we had the basics down, we practiced our point of aim as well as shooting all 4 stages of the AQT over and over again. You had to shoot from both the standing and prone positions. You also had to shoot sitting and prone after transitioning there from a standing position and it was all timed. As people practiced this, they got better and better. All of us progressed at different rates. Several people scored the expert score of 'Rifleman' each day we practiced. Out of 21 students I believe over half made it to that coveted rank. Most of the rest were, as the instructors said, knocking on the door pretty hard by the end of the event. There was not a single member among us that was not dangerously effective with their rifle by the end of our training! Once you had the technique down, it was repetitive practice until you achieved Rifleman. Once there, some continued to shoot, others started working on instructing.

On Thursday we got split into too groups, those of us who had already achieved Rifleman or were knocking on the door, went to the known distance or KD range where we actually got to shoot out to 400 meters. This is where I was able to finally make the grade and earn my patch. We also spent the day gathering data on how our rifles shot at those known distances and what the targets looked like through our sights. By the time we were done with that we could tell you what range a target was at by how big it looked next to your front sight. Friday, we ended up in three groups and moved between them somewhat. Those that needed more individual help continued both Thursday and Friday on the 25 meter range and improved their skills with a few moving to the KD range. Those knocking on the door went to the KD, and those of us who were training for instructor positions went back to 25 meters to practice. Private Doofus was my favorite student during that part of the training. He was quite a challenge. The end of the day Friday marked the end of the RBC. Saturday and Sunday was the Appleseed event and people started arriving for that throughout the day on Friday. About half our group left Friday, having gotten some awesome instruction and trigger time for a steal. We had our last meal together as students that evening. Each day also had several history lessons taught. Some of these were training where we students would attempt to tell the story of April 19th, 1775, "The Shot Heard Round the World." All history lessons were concentrated on the events of that day. Good thing people back then took copious notes!

The Appleseed

The masses started arriving the morning of the 10th. It felt like an invasion. No time to mingle for us Instructors In Training! Off to the line to prepare. To nutshell an Appleseed for you, just read all the above stuff and compress it into about a paragraph and a half. We basically tried to pass on all of the above training to people in a much more abbreviated format. We ended up with over 60 people on the line Saturday. Some appeared to be there just to zero their rifles. Some were at their second or third Appleseed. Many were hungry for instruction. The biggest plus I saw was a pretty good turn out of youth. I'd bet we had more than 10 young people on the line. Several belonged to an organized youth group. Very neat! All of us trainees rotated through the various instructing positions, calling the line, line safety officer (LSO hangs out at the end of the line looking for safety issues and calls their part of line), and coaches. We all did demo's of the positions, NPOA, sling techniques, etc. also. The line ran very well. On Sunday, we had about 10 less Appleseeders. The line ran like clockwork. Everyone got the history lesson in parts. The last bit of practice was accomplished and AQT's were shot multiple times. We had several join the ranks of Rifleman over the two days that it ran.

At the end of the day, a lot of shooting and a lot of instructing (and learning) had taken place over the course of our adventure. We were whooped, happy but whooped. Bloody but victorious (literally, my elbows bled!). It was an awesome event to attend. In part II, I will go over the more personal experiences I had and give you more of my perception and opinion of the event. Hopefully my tips can help someone avoid my mistakes and have an even better experience at one. I will include a link to a lot of pictures of the event that you can look through at your leisure. Due to band width issues I'll only post one or two in the next post. So stay tuned...

Groundhog Out.

P.S. I forgot to mention the cost of this event. The true cost will be discussed in the next post as I cover preparedness. The only fee charged for the entire event was my $200 cost to register. This year, military, women and children shot free. Needless to say I took full advantage of that deal!
The Appleseed was less, $70 for both days, $45 for one. Boot camp covered the Appleseed cost.

[voortrekker]

Greg,

I read your post over at the M14firinglineforum.com and thought is was very well written.

Thanks for doing that.  I saw 2 or 3 guys wearing the M14firinglineforum.com T-shirts during check-in at the Davilla Appleseed.

I am looking forward to part II.

With the first real TX norther coming in for this 2007 year, I'm look for some heavy antlered mean ole' brush bucks this Thanksgiving Holiday.

Oughtta be some good hunting, right in time with the rut.  Perfect.

[Son of Martha]

Thanks, Greg.


Good people, good times, memories for a lifetime.....

Appleseed!


Not gonna last forever...get in on it while the gettin's good....

SoM

[natlmatch]

Sorry for the late post. I would like to thank Scout for the use of his land and the instructors for the use of their time, I am grateful that men like you still exist. Theres so many things I want to say but others have already summed it more eloquently than I ever could. This was my frist Appleseed and it was everything I hoped for and more, even though I only stayed for Saturday, it was an "awakening". I dragged my buddy along too, we both had a really good time even though the wife is still giving him grief for "playing war with his stupid friends" hehehehe. I invited her out for the next Appleseed........she just looked at me funny. Oh well, I tried

Best Regards,

NM

A little video of the line on sat morning:
http://jettrail.net/Photos/Movie_0005.avi

[Groundhog]

In part one of my narrative, I wanted to get across what the RBC and Appleseed courses teach you and what to expect from a more academic perspective. This part is my personal experience and some pictures of the event.

Boot Camp - Arrive Early, Arrive Prepared.

That sums up what you need to do in order to have a pleasant unhurried experience at a RBC event. At least the beginning of one. By their nature, both RBC's and Appleseeds are hurried things. There is too much to teach and too little time to do it in. That's not saying it's not a quality experience though in any way. It's just... fast! At the Boot Camp, you will eat, breathe, and dream the shooting drills every day. You'll feel it. Boy will you feel it! I'm pretty sure even an 18 year old would be sore after a day or two of it but if you are 30 or over (I'm 42), you'll feel it but good. To me, the irony of that was the fact that all you did was stand, sit, lay down, shoot, and walk some. That's the extent of your physical exertion. Allowances are made for folks with disabilities. I hope my experience simply reflected on my sedentary life style and wasn't indicative of my permanent physical abilities!

My family and I, hereafter referred to as Fire Team Groundhog, arrived Sunday morning. We had never camped out before as a family. Being married for 16 years, that meant I was a touch rusty. We literally worked for weeks to get all the stuff ready we'd need, much of it borrowed from a good friend of mine. I don't recommend this approach! However, as it was our only option at the time, we went with it. The final packing showed us just how ill prepared we were. We couldn't get everything into our mini-van and ended up packing my car too. All that caused us to be so far behind that our host, Scout, recommended that we wait and drive up in the morning. A sound recommendation that was! At least we got there on time and had the presence of mind to have the shooting gear accessible so we were able to grab and go. The instructors don't dilly dally, there's just no time for it. Every break we got was spent doing what we could to get Fire Base Groundhog set up. Unfortunately, that amounted to just unloading a lot of stuff. Most days we shot until the sun went down. On our first day we actually had a little light left at the end but we still ended up setting up the tent mostly in the dark. A friends tent. One we'd never, ever, used before... This hapless situation is where the true spirit of the Boot Camp starts to come out in people. Several of our fellow students showed up and helped us get the tent into a tent like shape. Once that was conquered, we put just enough stuff down to sleep on and collapsed. I'm pretty sure we ate in there somewhere too. Scout fed us darned near every day. Now if you attend anRBC elsewhere, you probably won't get that kind of treatment. I'm just warning ya. Scout went waaaay above and beyond for this venture. Hmmm, just might be his undoing there. I can see it now... Nobody wants to attend the other boot camps, everyone waits until Davilla! Well, there's worse problems to have. At any rate, that is pretty much how the first day went except for one other minor thing. Scout had planned a run toBrenham to pick up ammo for them that needed it. I had NO ammo for the wife's AR and only about half of what I needed. The run got delayed a hair and once again the true spirit of the last class of '07 showed itself as plenty of ammo was offered in the mean time. There's that whole preparedness thingy rearing it's ugly head again.

Some of the best parts of the learning experience was having 'classes'. This gave us a chance to get away from the line for a bit and sit. In a chair and everything! Speaking of which, I highly recommend bringing folding chairs, the $10 camp kind. The classes went over the more technical aspects of what we learned on the line as well as our history lessons. There were two or three a day and functioned as a breather as much as a class. Some of the more entertaining moments of these classes were watching smoke come out of peoples ears. By that I don't mean anger, I mean more like pressure in your head trying to get an idea out. You could just see it (in your imagination anyway). JuniorBirdman and Dragon Wood both experienced these moments on rare occasion when trying to get a concept over to some of us who had our granite shields up. We students regularly experienced it when trying to get our shields DOWN! You do actually go over some complex stuff in a couple of these classes. Nothing the average Joe up and coming Rifleman can't handle mind you but it's not easy street either.

The action all takes place on the line. Two lines if you're lucky, the 25 meter and the Known Distance (KD) range. Our KD went out to 400m and could have easily accommodated 500 to 600 I'd bet. Most of what takes place on the line got a good going over in Part I of my narrative. From a personal perspective there were some things that stood out. One was how safe the line was. There was no complacency. There was a learning curve on the first day or two for the newer and rusty amongst us but that was to be expected. The supervision of this critical aspect of the camp was outstanding. I also found that my twisted version of the Boy Scout motto worked against me. Mine is apparently "Be OVER Prepared". I'll have to work on this. What I'm trying to say though is, take as little as possible to the line with you. It's just a pain to haul it all around. And yeah, I know I said I was unprepared in the beginning. That unpreparedness tended to exacerbate the overkill later. You are, however, on the line, all... day... long!!! So prepare accordingly. Sunscreen. Water. Hat. Think about what you'd need to go hiking all day. You get breaks of course, but you are out in mother nature all day. This might be no big deal if you happen to be an active duty infantry soldier but if you are a computer network administrator like myself it's quite a change. I am now in the market for one of those tacti-cool rifle carts. I think that would help a lot for dragging what you must down to the line and back. The KD range is a real eye opener. When I shot for the Army over 20 years ago, we never fired at paper past 25m. Our 'test' was on pop-ups that you never got to examine. Seeing what actually happens to your shots as the range increases is extremely educational. Also learning to gauge distance with how big things appear based on your front sites size next to it is very helpful. It would take more than the time we spent at the KD for me to get good at that though. They have you record data for your rifle based on it so at least you can go back later and know what you did.

Scout's place was great. I wish I lived on a huge ranch like that. The 25m range was down in a shallow depression that was ringed by a concrete curb. Scout said it was where the moon shiners backed up the trucks to load them back in the 30's. I suspect it was really for the old greyhound race track that used to be there. We camped just above this. It only rained one night and not very much, thank goodness. But the wind. My goodness it was strong and lasted for hours at a time. I seriously thought parts of my camp would blow away at times. The KD range was a long, gently sloping field about 150m away from the 25m range. We had the luxurious benefit of Scout's shuttle service to and from there courtesy of his tractor and a flat bed trailer. Don't sit over the wheels when Junior Birdman drives... Our backstop on the KD range was a bunch of the huge round hay bails, and of course, the angle of fire put you in the dirt shortly after that. We experienced something kind of neat with those hay bails though. Some of our bullets went through them and got slowed down enough that they just plopped out the back side and ended up on the ground for us to find. Several got a nice trophy out of that. Firebase Groundhog ended up being fairly comfortable but I could have made it more so if I had some experience at this camping stuff. We had electricity. Facilities were port-o-potties. He had set up a neat shower rig with a wood stove to heat the water so you could have a warm shower every evening. I got a cold one one morning. You move a lot faster when it's cold! As I mentioned, Scout fed the boot camp crew nearly every night and quite a few lunches too. Him and his Dad went through some serious brisket doing that. I tried my hand at breakfast tacos for everyone on Friday morning. That turned out OK but I needed to be better organized. We had a nice camp fire that lots of us hung around most evenings, assuming you were prepared and didn't have other things to do. Fire Team Groundhog ended up going to town two or three times to get supplies. On Friday evening a bunch of us worked to turn the 25m range sideways to get the line longer. Who knew the RWVA had a seabees outfit?

If I could have done this over again there are some things I would have changed based on personal experience and observation. Not all the tips and changes I'm going to describe are my personal experience! Guns and Ammo. Idealy you'll want a spare gun along for those "just in case" scenarios where your primary breaks. If that happens it will stink because you'll end up having to get your other rifle 'set up' for how you are shooting. A lot of guys brought .22's and tried to switch half way through. This forced you to relearn stuff for your 'new' rifle and slowed people down some. My recommendation would be to bring the rifle you want to shoot all the way through and stick with it from start to finish unless you absolutely have to change. Don't bring a bolt gun or a tube fed gun if you can help it unless you want an extra challenge. The course is designed with a semi-automatic, magazine fed rifle in mind that holds at least 10 rounds in a magazine. If you deviate from this you'll still learn it all but qualifying with another type of rifle is harder. The more magazines you have the better. Peep sites are better than notch sites if you got 'em. Use the same kind of ammo through out. It affects your accuracy if you don't. Scopes are fine but you'll feel like you accomplished more if you get qualified Rifleman with just your iron sites. Cheap safety glasses break easily. Carry spares. Don't forget to put your hearing protection on down at the line. It gets really loud if you don't. Ask me how I know that... The people that had RV's or camper trailers seemed to have things much easier. Bring 'em if you got 'em. Keep all food in coolers inside water tight zip locks. Soggy lunch meat is nasty. Bringing your entire family is fun. I now have several more shooters to have fun with. It's also hard. If you think it's tough getting everyone ready to get out the door in the morning for church or school, you think the same thing when it comes to getting everyone down to the line by 8AM. Actually, you'll probably find it more difficult. It was still fun though. If anyone has a good field expedient way of doing dishes at camp, I'm all ears. That part sucked. We thought about bringing our dogs. I'm glad we didn't. Two lanterns are better than one. Good cell service is hard to get away from the city. Roaming charges can and will get you if you let them! If you are an absolute novice shooter, go to an Appleseed or two before you attempt a boot camp. You'll do much better much quicker. Practice at home before you come. Just two things will help immeasurably. Dry firing to get your technique down and getting into the sitting and prone positions to get your body limbered up. Going from none to doing it all day long will get you really sore. A good coffee pot is worth it's weight in gold out in the field.

There are plenty more tips and tons more I could write about this but I've carried on long enough. Here's a couple of pix as well as a link to all the really good shots I got shared out for you on Photobucket. Come to one. Meet good people. Make new friends. Invite new people!

Here's the link to the whole picture set:

http://s233.photobucket.com/albums/e...%20RBC/Shared/

And here's a pic or two.



Original 'Ol Glory


I'm the guy in the red suspenders.

[Scout]

Just wanted to drag this out of the dust bin. This was the second RBC in Davilla in 2007 and it was a huge success. A lot of this I had forgotten about. We had to set up a 100 yard firing line with a full dirt berm and target line in one day/night and had a filled firing line the next day with over 80 shooters.

Just wanted to let the rest of the Texas folks take a look at themselves from 2007. Thanks Steve for reminding me and thanks to everyone involved in this RBC. 

[POP]

Thanks, Scout.
Those archived AARs are fun and educational to peruse through.

Check out that pic of Alonso in his "younger" days.   

POP

[starfox]

Check out that pic of Alonso in his "younger" days.   

Yeah, what a baby face!