A great shoot with 16 on day one and one of the Saturday only shooters returning Sunday to hammer it some more.
There were two riflemen produced, although one was a ringer that visited us in January ;). Congrats to both.
I think a first for Appleseed. We used the indoor range at El Paso Community College. There were a few procedural items we had to develop to make it work but nothing cosmic, just more movement to get squared up on shooters that we couldn't see behind the lane separators and working with a mike to get over the noise of the blowers.
We lost a little valuable trigger time till we figured we could turn off the blowers and not retire to the classroom for instruction. We gained it all back by having the movable target carriers to keep us from going downrange.
I would like to thank Atticus for making the trip, helping me learn a bit more along with West Tx, Grizzled One and Buck for their great job teaching and the hard work organizing and gaining us the use of the excellent facility. We had one more IIT. The "ringer" rifleman put up her rifle and donned the orange on Sunday to help us out. I won't mention her name till she comes aboard and picks one.
We may not have produced a lot of Riflemen but there was solid improvement in every shooter and some mighty awake and aware citizens on Sunday afternoon.
A special thanks to El Paso Community College and Johnny Eoff, for going out of their way to make this a great Appleseed experience for everyone. It is refreshing to find that level of acceptance. They made every possible feature and service available to us. We cannot thank them enough.
Sam
A well organized, well executed and well received shoot. Many good things happened, beyond my stepping up to very active participation. Believe we may even get some good press out of this. Yup, a member of the press was there and she had a ball. Members of the EPCC administrative staff wandered by for a peek now and then and were suitably impressed, even with the length of Sam's mustache. :)
Atticus was a tremendous mentoring and instructional asset, answering the why's and where's that had been unanswered before. Or maybe I didn't know enough to ask the questions. ::)
Spurred many attendees to vow to return to win that coverted Rifleman's patch and to 7th step themselves.
Great feeling watching several who had not shot before, become one with their rifle. Better feeling when we assisted a couple who had almost given up.
My thanks to all for an illuminating experience. And the pictures of Atticus' initiation into the Mysterious Order of the Sombrero will be forthcoming. ;D
Hot Dang!!!
Git 'er on!!
You guys are getting it done out there, no doubt about it!! O0 O0
Sam, I'm thinking you & WestTex may be another one of those teams that just makes stuff happen in a big way.......
You go, guys!! <:)
I love a good story, don't you?? ;) O0
LLP
I don't have too much to add, Sam and WestTx pretty much covered everything. I do want to thank all the shooters that attended and remind them to persist and start dry-firing right now, that will enable you to easily achieve the Rifleman score with ease at your next AS.
I also need to thank the West Texas/New Mexico crew, they are a fantastic group. All are dedicated to preserving the Constitution and Heritage of this great nation. Each and every one of you did a great job of keeping the line safe, instructing marksmanship fundamentals, seventh stepping and teaching about the traditions of the American Rifleman! O0 I look forward to seeing you on the Appleseed trail and working with you in the future.
Russ/Atticus
Sam,
I'm guessing the new Orange Hat is the young lady who "visited" us in Jan. What an addition to the Instructor corp.!
Tell her "welcome" and get her on the trail. Come to think of it, let me know where she'll be instructing, I could use some fine tuning, haven't been shooting enough.
Longshot
That would be the one longshot.,
Smiled as she stepped to the line with an Accu-triggered 17 HMR and shot a 240 ;D.
She is going to improve a lot of shooters. He husband came by for a while Sunday too. I think he may be joining us eventually.
Sam
She signed on today at "Trailblazer". Should be commenting here soon.
Hello everyone, Trailblazer here
Thanks for all the welcoming comments
I had a great time with a great group of folks.
I am really looking forward to working with everyone and contributing to the cause
Plan on helping with the next El Paso event in March
See you there! :)
Meant to post pictures of the Sombrero investiture. Somewhere around here I have one of Fred as well....let's see....
Oh well here's Atticus