Great shoot with great folks! Saturday we started out with 19, and a bunch of them BoyScouts from a local troop... along with some parents, and Alex, the Eaglescout, who brought them all!!! Way to go Alex, you know how to seventh step and spread the Appleseed message far and wide... Out of the 19 attendees, there were 15-16 loaner rifles on the line, right from the start, as we knew the boy scouts and some of the parents did not have rifles. Thanks to all Instructors who provided loaners for the folks...
We got a late start, as some folks thought 8:30 meant 9:30, but we caught up OK. First redcoat showed we had work to do, but by the end of the day we had good groups from most shooters and some knocking on the door... High scores Saturday were: Jacob=195, Alex=175, Pam=165, Tim=149, and Nishan (Thunder)Wood=133.
It started raining on the way home from the Shoot on Saturday night, and rained pretty good, (for So. California). Sunday morning 14 returned to a clear sky.... but it was COLD!!! Had to be in the 40's (god forbid!) For SoCal, that is Winterseed weather!!! Especially since we had 20-30 MPH winds all day. Hi scores Sunday were.... RIFLEMAN! Alex, the Eaglescout, Shot a 214!! first AQT on Sunday... Way to go Alex Congratulations! O0 And did it with a .223 rifle... Glad your fellow scouts were there to see you get that rifleman patch at your third Appleseed. See, perserverance pays off!! And he stepped up and took the orange hat of Instructor in training... Other high scores Sunday were: Brandon shot a 197 (knocking on the door) after struggling with the dreaded seated position, he changed to kneeling and got it right. Christopher=192, great shooting for your first Appleseed. Tim shot a 173, Max, Tim and Pam's son shot a 168, and Thunder bettered his score from Saturday to 154.
Sunday afternoon, about 3:30, we got a 30-40 minute blast of arctic winds from the north about 50 mph. THE WIND WAS BLOWING THE MATS AND RIFLES OVER, THE TARGETS OFF THE BACKERS, AND BACKERS OFF THE WIRE MOUNTS!!! We even lost a shooting mat that lifted up, traveled the whole distance of the range to the targets, and disappeared over the berm, with our line boss, Zot, hot on its heels, but he never could catch it... It was one of those Yoga mats... you know the kind... :sos:
I wish I got that on video, this shoot was one for the books!!! #)
Thanks to all the shooters, for not quitting, and sticking with it. It just shows the caliber of folks you will meet at an Appleseed. I hope everyone had fun, learned a lot about the history of your country, something about YOUR heritage, and that you will carry that forward... I will post some pics tomorrow, after I size them down.
Special thanks to V for bring out the target backers for us to use and loaner rifles...Bob 210 for providing Loaner rifles, and Rock-Chucker for helping out with instructing on the line and bringing out loaner rifles, too. My IIT crew (Zot, JudgeCrater and L0ck03) were great, listened, did the job well, and advanced too!
Any other comments, feel free....
This was my first full Appleseed as an Orange Hat. What an experience! Thank you Camljr and Rock-chucker for your guidance, encouragement and support, and thanks to the other IIT's on the team - I felt like I improved 1,000 % as an instructor this weekend. It is humbling to see the determination and effort put forth by the youth - our future - that attended this weekend. During the weekend, several shooters came up to me just to comment on their shooting "I called this one dead on!", "I pulled one but I know why", "I MADE THE REDCOAT HEADSHOT!!!". The fact that they trusted me - a total stranger - to impart a skill of arms and shared those private moments of wonder as the skills started to take hold warmed my heart so, it could have been blowing twice as hard and snowing and I would not have felt it.
My first Appleseed was back in August in Escondido - where Justin and I met Camljr, Bob 210, and a few others. RBC a few months later in Piru and made Rifleman and took the hat. Appleseed lit a fire that continues to burn and grow in my heart to get the message out to EVERYONE in this country to WAKE UP!
I look forward to working with Alex as a new IIT, and I am sure that many others this weekend who are knocking on the door to Rifleman will be joining us soon.
And I was grateful there WASN'T a video camera as I went head over heels chasing the rifle case and mat across the range in the wind. Not my best photogenic side by any means :-[
Zot
Some pics of the shoot.
More pics.
A warm and sincere thank you to all the instructors. I wish I could have been there Sunday. Hope to catch up with you at the next Appleseed. The pictures were fun? :~
Congratulations on achieving Rifleman Alex O0
Welcome aboard Sir ------- we are honored to have you with the California AS corp ;)
JA