This was Arizona's inaugural true full distance Appleseedd event, in keeping with Appleseed's mission to increase events where full distance is available.
We had a 4-man instructor crew this weekend to coach 11 attending shooters with their marksmanship. Saturday morning's redcoat target showed us that of our 11 shooters, had Captain Parker mustered them on the green, 6 of them would have qualified as 200 yard shooters and 2 as 100 yard shooters, prior to any instruction this weekend.
We had brand-new novice shooters in the group and even some smallbore competitors who, even though they didn't have autoloading rifles, worked hard to keep at the pace we needed in order to accomplish all the objectives of the weekend.
Shooters persevered through a hot, dusty Saturday (no doubt they were inspired by Charlie's excellent account of April 19th's events) to about 6:30 in the evening so that we could accomplish all the instruction topics of day one. The closing Saturday redcoat saw 2 people qualify at 300 yards, 1 at 200, and 4 at 100, despite the fatigue.
I was looking forward to the Sunday AM redcoat figures once everyone was well-rested but armed with improved marksmanship techniques, and I was not disappointed by these Kingman shooters. 4 of the 10 that returned on Sunday scored the Morgan's Rifle Company headshot. 3 qualified at 300, 4 at 200 and 1 at 100. We proceeded to confirm our sights and do some 'ball and dummy' coaching in the AM, then hit our first AQT of the weekend. After that, it was time for our Full Distance shooting lesson. We went over target detection, range estimation, drop compensation, and wind compensation and after some lunch and discussion about some 'dangerous old men', we went over to the High Power 1000 yard range.
A quick demonstration and confirmation of 'Battlesight Zero' at 200 and 300 yards had us moving back to 400 yards. I'll admit to a very satisfied moment when, as I sat at the 400 yard firing line, and Charlie, Larry and Chuck were downrange at the targets examining their handiwork, I could hear Larry shouting in excitement that this stuff actually works. O0
Range rules prohibited us from shooting inside of 300 yards of the targets (I had to get a special exemption for the purposes of demonstrating the upper arc of BSZ at 200 yards), so we did not run a full AQT at known distance, but we did get out to 500 yards and we put 60 rounds downrange, all in all. The wind was relatively kind to us, for it being Kingman. I would estimate that the peak wind we faced might have been about 10-12 mph, but mostly stayed right around 5. At 400 and 500 yards it was just enough to make calculating wind figures educational with appropriate results down-range, but not so much that it was over-challenging.
Rimfire shooters, under SavageShootr's direction, crunched out AQT's and refined their marksmanship fundamentals. High AQT score for this weekend was a 202, by AZTara.
The last redcoat of the weekend only had 7 people to shoot it (the rest of the group watched from the shade), but 2 made the Morgan's headshot, 2 qualified at 400, 3 at 300 and 1 at 100.
We closed out the event at about 7PM (did I mention these were dedicated Appleseeders?) and reminded everyone of our shared duty to remember the sacrifices of those that brought this country into being, so that we can protect it and pass it on to our Posterity.
Looking forward to returning in July. There are some good Americans here.