Manchester, TN, June 25-26, 2011

[dond]

This is just a quick note before I head home. Nine shooters arrived Saturday morning. Four returned early Sunday morning and all but one of the remainder returned after church. All the shooters were at their first AS, except for one, a youth, who was the son of one of the instructors. And all of them wound up borrowing rifles from the instructors. Therefore, things progressed rather slowly Saturday. But they picked up Sunday and great improvement was noted. One shooter earned the Rifleman's Patch with a 210, and then upped it to a 221. Others were closing in on it. There was a 200, and some in the 190s and 180s.  All the shooters were enthusiastic and are expected to return to future events. We were hampered some Sunday by rainstorms, one of which was severe. Fortunately, the firing line was covered.

The instructors are to be thanked for doing an excellent job, as well a having several rifles to loan out. A special thanks go to Tncolonel for doing his usual fine job of promoting the event. Unfortunately, several local events seemed to hamper the attendance this time. 

The history was well received, as usual, and three Youth Patches were well earned. I expect pictures will follow this post.

[TN_Dadx5]

As one of the Instructors, I want to thank every one of the participants.  You are to be commended for your persistence and attitude.  The instructor corps could tell that there was some frustration with not attaining expectations, but you all kept at it. 

You probably don't fully understand how much learning was squeezed into you or how much improvement really took place.  On average the group size on the first Redcoat was about about 6" at 25 yds (quick, how much is that in MOA?  Answer's below).  But we saw many end Sunday with groups smaller than 4 MOA and just about everyone's groups were below 6 MOA.

Olivia, Hanna, Peter and Nathan were attentive and great to work with.  I hope to see you all at another Appleseed soon.  Nicole, Greg and Kip, I really enjoyed working with you and I hope that I wasn't too bothersome.  I know it can be distracting to have someone hovering around in the corner of your vision and constantly harping  on trigger control, dragging wood or whatever!  All I've got to say is "The beatings will continue until the marksmanship improves!"

Unfortunately, I was spending too much time beating participants that I didn't take any pictures.  Hopefully, someone else did and can post them.