My wife and my conscience have been pestering me to go to an Appleseed ever since I bought her a 10/22 for her birthday last year. We had taken it out and shot some redcoat targets, but hadn't really done what it takes to get on target with it. There was always the excuses - ammo for my M1 was too expensive and it wouldn't do to take 2 people with one rifle to an Appleseed; the barrel on the M1 needed replacement anyway; there wasn't one close anytime soon - you've heard them all. I told myself I would go when they came to the local range, and when I found out that there would be one in Mechanicsville (1 hour away) I realized I had no excuse. Besides, my wife bought me a 10/22 for our anniversary, so I really had no reasons left.
We went, we shot, we (almost) made rifle-couple. We had lots of fun, and my only real complaint was that the brass of the shooter next to us (with his M1) kept flying onto us. On the first AQT we stapled up on Saturday, I shot an 82, making me a marginal potato-peeler. We moved onto the 1 inch squares, and by that afternoon I was up to 95. I would have cracked 100, but I had some problems with the transition stages.
Sunday was completely different. My groups were much tighter, and my positions were much firmer. I managed 190 on the first AQT and 143 on the second (most of the drop in score was due to magazine troubles). We've gone on and measured out a 25m dry fire range at our house, and I'm looking into the legalities of setting it up as a .22 live fire range. We'll continue until we earn rifleman, then we'll move on to larger rifles - M1 and M1A for me, AR for my wife.
My advice for anyone thinking of going to an Appleseed but always coming up with excuses is simple: stop it, just go. There was a guy in
our group from Pennsylvania who made rifleman, and one from New Jersey who was only a few points short, both of whom drove down. They took the time to git-r-done, and are not going to quit - it was clear they were just as hooked on the experience as we were. We won't quit either, because we know how important it is. We understand the responsibility we have to the children we want to have, and understand we have to know how to shoot if we plan to teach them. We will.
This sort of response to attending a first Appleseed is what keeps instructors coming back.
Welcome to the Appleseed program.
VAshooter