Well, another balmy Florida weekend, overcast and a little Breeze to boot. Saturday started with a little fog but great shooting non the less with Sunday being a repeat of Saturday, the full distance AQT was something else to behold, we will let the Shoot Bosses go into that, in the mean time, enjoy the pictures.....
'May the wind be to your back so your round will get there uninterrupted'....BrownBess circa 8/16/10
BrownBess,
"Balmy?" In August? To quote Inigo Montolla, "I do not think that word means what you think it means."
Nice photos, though.
Looking forward to Willorith's report.
RickB
Rick, not as hot as last year there.....the balmy was a pun on napalmy hot......BB
It was indeed hot as 9 shooters took to the line on Saturday. The shooters started rolling in early, eager to take to the line and practice their birthright sport! After the introduction and safety briefing, Willorith gave a moving first strike that hearkened our guests' minds back to the events on Lexington Green and the sacrifices made there. Then, the shooters brought their safe rifles to the line and got down to business.
A family of three, William, Marie and their son Patrick brought their best teachable attitudes and toughed it out for Sat and half of Sunday where they had to depart due to prior commitments. All three were a pleasure to work with, but Patrick most of all. He listened well and showed excellent attention to his steady hold factors and safety that demonstrated a maturity that is rare in one so young. The pride of his parents was readily apparent and well earned.
Kas, a returning Appleseeder, demonstrated why persistence is so important! He spent Saturday tuning some of his positions to accommodate his body geometry and turned in a 210 score on Sunday to earn his badge. Great Job Kas! We hope to see you at future events!
Christopher, another determined repeat student turned in scores of 216 and 222 to earn his badge on Saturday. One shooter, Damon, was plagued by a faulty rear sight on his AR that caused him great frustration through the first part of Saturday. Once we were able to diagnose the issue with his rifle, Kas generously loaned him a spare carbine that he brought with him and Damon began to see some groups forming up nicely. Unfortunately he was unable to join us Sunday. Damon will be deploying to Afghanistan later this year. I ask you, gentle readers, to keep him in your prayers that he be returned safely to us.
We ran this event at a hectic pace that saw a total of four AQT's Sat. afternoon on top of all the requisite instruction with one rifleman revealed. After Redcoats and Benediction, the shooters were released to collapse in a tired heap with instructions to drink plenty of water for the next day.
Sunday we had 9 shooters on the line again. After morning instructions the grind began with the first AQT fired before lunch! Rick and Paul divided up the Brave Old Men and Dangerous Women presentations and gave excellent renditions of the vignettes therein while Eric and I set up the KD line. Once the food scraps were stowed and belts loosened a notch, we threw the shooters right back into the grind. Three more AQT's were finished up by 2pm and it was time for KD instruction. We had noticed earlier that the line for the afternoon would consist of solely centerfire rifles. We had over 800 yards to play with. No sense in letting that go to waste!
The shootboss, Eric and I gamed out what it would take to run a full distance AQT and debated whether or not such a feat could be accomplished within the time we'd have left. We decided that come hell or high water we'd take them back as far as we could and let them learn that what works at 25m carries out to full distance.
After a presentation that included information on target detection, range estimation, Quick n dirty wind doping, trajectory, comeups, base sight settings and point blank range we turned the shooters loose at 100. Two 5 shot sighter groups were fired at 4MOA squares to observe the effect of the increased distance and make/record sight corrections. Then the standing stage was fired. Long story short, we ran through an entire KD AQT with two sighter groups for information at 4 MOA and a stage for score all the way back to 400 yards. No riflemen were revealed by this exercise, but all the shooters got to see for themselves the effects of distance and the increased effect of wind as we moved backward. Total time for presentation, sighter groups and AQT, 2 hours 45 min.
We cleaned the range and gave a brief benediction at which Kas and another repeat Appleseeder, Scott, were awarded their patches for proving their rifle marksmanship against the anvil of the AQT. I'd like to congratulate all of our shooters from this weekend on some excellent work! It was a pleasure to work with you and I hope we'll see you all at future events!
Known Distance was great, to see all the shooters start to question thier own ability and actually start to Employ the Techniques taught to them, and everyones groups at 400yds were thier tightest. This is obviouse success.
See Ya'll back at Myakka,
Man, what a great event! A big old "Nicely Done" to all present - students and instructors alike!
Say, those canopies look might familiar. :cool2:
PH- Those canopies should look familiar to you. They are just like the ones you used to have.
W.
2 -shay. :wb:
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