Manchester, TN, September 4 and 5, 2010
Shoot boss: TAZDevil
Instructors: DwayneH, Franklinfarmer, Grandson of Liberty, TNTimberwright
IIT: Bonzi, Lilbit, TNDryfire, TNColonel, Theophilus
Advancements:
TNColonel to Instructor (Red Hat!)
TNDryfire to IIT2
LILBIT:) toIIT2
Theophilus toIIT3
Attendance:
pre-registration : 36
two day 18
Sun only 1
Actual attendance:
Saturday Sunday
Pre-registration: 35 15
walk-on 10 6
Total 45 21
New riflemen: 3!
Family of nine including three generations!
Excellent covered range. Indoor restrooms. Two large outdoor conference areas available for instruction
Extremely flexible educational staff with COF adapted for student needs
Excellent sunny Labor Day weekend weather in the 80s F.
We initially thought that we could handle only 32 shooters but we found enough room for 45!
Shooting at 100 yds went really well
TAZDevil
I attended Saturday with my wife, daughter, and three sons. We were very pleased with the safety considerations and instruction. I shot at home Sunday evening (after getting a sling and scope for my 10/22) and was able to keep 10 rounds in a 1" square at 25 yards in prone position with no problem. We had intended to attend Sunday, but lots of sunburn and lack of sleep prevented that. Looking forward to another event and are exploring hosting one. Thanks to all of the instructors! I am afraid that I don't have the names matched to the faces yet, but hope to see you all again.
Sunday was a good day on our line too, but we missed you.
If anyone has pictures, please post, my kids are interested to see them.
FF
Franklinfarmer:
We have pics. One for now, for your kids to enjoy. More to follow - but today is a travel day for us, so it will be this evening.
Theophilus
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Theo,
Thanks for the pic. Monday morning, when I was a little worn out and discussing the day's plans with the family, she says to me: Papa, Can we go shooting today?
I let her shoot one AQT. It was a 199. I think that is about what she can do consistently, but clearly she plans to keep at it.
We enjoyed it and look forward to getting back to Manchester.
FF
Hoping one of you all can help with this. My son is left-eye dominant, but right-handed. How should he be shooting. Should he be using his left eye all the time? He has a very difficult time from the prone position doing so. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance!
Shortwave, here are three answers:
First of all, shooting right handed and using the left eye are not (or should not) be an option. When you say that prone position is difficult for him, I'm assuming you mean shooting left handed in prone is difficult.
In the short term, pick whichever handedness works best and is easier, and develop your skills with that. So, under the assumption above, let's go with right handed shooting. Then the main suggestion is to get a piece of duct tape and put it over the left lens of his shooting glasses. This will eliminate the need for squinting and consequently tensing up his face. Remember relax everything that can be relaxed when you shoot.
Somewhat longer term, shooting left handed (and left eyed) would be the professional recommendation. Then he can more easily learn to focus with his dominant eye and still have the weak eye for peripheral vision. (Note: If in your original post you meant he has been shooting right handed and trying to use his left eye---which, of course, is difficult---then you might want to try this arrangement first, and go ahead and develop his skills left handed. There is really no reason the left handed prone position should be "very difficult." It just takes some patience and practice.
In the long term, every rifleman should develop his shooting skills in both handedness(es). Read Boston's Gun Bible concerning the frequency of need for weak side shooting. Overall frequency is small, but in summary those actually shooting at someone who can shoot back receive, not infrequently, wounds which disable the strong side and necessitate weak hand shooting. For CQB there is also the need to go around weak sided corners. That's not a rifleman skill per se but still a very useful one if you need to clear your house or some such.
Excellent and much appreciated advice Franklin Farmer! Thank you.
More pictures:
More pictures:
(Dupe of above, trouble uploading.)
More pictures:
More pictures:
More pictures:
One repeat (titled correctly this time) and one new picture:
Another picture:
Just have to say that we had one heck of a bunch of very enthusiastic Appleseeder's out on Saturday and just a few less on Sunday. It was a very good weekend with excellent weather and I felt good that the whole Instructor Corps present did a super good job. Initially we were thinking we'd run short on Instructors, however, more came in and that gave us a very good ratio of Red Hats to Orange Hats. TAZdevil did an excellent job as SB and was able to help get all the IIT's advanced as needed and we got our State Coordinator, TnColonel under a Red Hat after he worked this shoot very hard to get his Final done.
As far as the attendees, they were very great. I've never seen anything like the one large family group of 9 that we had. Boy, if we had more American's like them, then we would have a super solid People who were grounded in their Heritage and also who had excellent Riflemen skills. All the shooters attending this AS made the People of April 19, 1775 very proud and I'm sure they would give them all the "Tip of the Hat" to say "Thank you."
I thoroughly enjoyed this AS and I look forward to doing my third at Manchester in the near future. I love the Range.
It was also a privilege to work with TAZdevil for the first time. He has excellent Teaching Aids that made instruction a lot easier. We had time on Sat to get some AQT's and then on Sunday we did quite a few with a lot of the Line getting to shoot at Known Distance of 100 yards.
Congratulations again to TnColonel for getting under the Red Hat. You IIT's, keep on pushing on those PC's and you'll get the RH.
You shooters who read this, just keep up the Riflemen's "Tenacity." That will keep on improving your skills and YOU also need to look at going ORANGE
in the 7th Step as we call it. But, regardless, Teach family, friends and whomever you can what we taught you (we call it planting more Appleseeds). O0
Take care all,
TnTimberwright