We had a warm early September shoot in Waco, Georgia with a great group of shooters.
We got a relatively early start on Saturday with the safety briefing and Redcoats before 10AM. We went from there directly into instruction concerning the three pillars for improved marksmanship (stable platform, NPOA, and executing the integrated act of firing the shot ;).
Incidentally, if memory serves me correctly, we started with one shooter having 100 yard effective range (aside from Travel Patriot who has been out on paternal leave with *two* new arrivals and was able to get away from nursing and honor us with his presence as a shooter). The heartiest congratulations to Travel Patriot and his wife and children. I guess we can congratulate him too for having cleaned that readcoat target with some kind of .308 AR contraption. I'd say he's had his fun, wouldn't you? ~~:)
We had approximately 18 shooters on the line and something on the order of 10 firing positions. This was the first time I recall organizing a shoot with relays, and I apologize for any confusion and crowding experienced by the shooters. (Anyone with experience of my philosophy of sefl-organization won't have to think too long about how this might have come out.)
Fortunately, everyone kept safety in mind as the shooters began to drink from the firehose and soak up the marksmanship heritage which has been passed down to us.
We broke promptly at noon for lunch and heard excellent first and second strikes from Roswell and Lt. K.
Moving into the hotter part of the day, we tackled three AQT's taking the seated and standing positions in "on the fly" during the first one. Steady improvement foreshadowed the possibility of new riflemen scores in the future, though it was clear to me they weren't going to be achieved on Saturday.
We finished up Saturday with the third strike presented by Roswell and a final long line of redcoat targets.
Sunday morning saw a smaller but enthusiastic group of shooters engaging redcoats and remembering John Parker who faced real ones at around 9:15. This was followed by a presentation on the Philosophy of Liberty.
We proceeded with review of the prone position, NPOA, the six steps, and *practice*. Things were starting to sink in. At least three shooters achieved the "bumper sticker challenge" receiving a bumper sticker for having five rounds in one black square on a string of fire.
At lunch WorM2 told us stories about dangerous old men and heroic women which was followed by an excellent KD primer from CokeGuy.
By the end of the day, Chris had secured his rifleman patch with a 212, and a number of other shooters were knocking on the door with scores just under 200. A host of others had achieved steady improvement, and Ally and Nick had earned Luther Blanchard patches.
We were spared rain, though there were thunder showers all around us, and I returned home to find a swollen creek. In our case, we finished up a little early around 3 because of the oppressive heat.
It is now up to you shooters. It is up to you to continue down the path to become riflemen. It is up to you to dryfire, dryfire, dryfire. It is up to you to bail out the ship so the seeds of liberty are not lost forever.
On a lighter note, it is up to you to let us instructors know how we can improve.