12 eager shooters greeted the cadre on Sunday morning. The wind from the day before had mostly passed leaving us a beautiful day at the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office. Big shout out to our host, Sheriff Frank Reynolds.
We went through the usual "house-keeping and introductions" and I was lucky enough to reward 6Bones and Wileycoyote for their contributions to the program with some well-earned 25 pins. Huzzah!
We began the day with the telling of the 1st Strike of the match by yours truly. We followed that up with the Safety briefing before retrieving rifles and heading to the line. Then we learned the Line Commands. Our first target of the day was of course the Hits Count Target. We quickly saw that we had some work ahead of us. ~~:)
Our first point of instruction was Sling Use and the Prone position. We followed this up with 5 rounds at the center square. Then we learned the first 3 steps of firing the shot followed by NPOA before we got down and did some rifle fitting with foam and wrap and some NPOA checking. The shooters were rewarded for their patience with another 5 rounds in the square.
Next we reviewed the first 3 steps and learned the last 3. This was followed by a trigger exercise and then another 5 rounds in a square. We then used the next two squares to shrink our groups and bring the tripod together.
After the shooters prepped one lunch we took our squares inside with us to eat. Mechanic regaled us with the Second Strike of the Match. Then upacreek had us pull out our squares target as she covered talking targets and IMC. Refreshed and renewed, we headed back outside for more shooting.
Our afternoon portion of the day began with Instruction of all 4 seated positions followed by the shooters trying them all out on the Hits Count target. Having found which seated position worked best for us we learned about Rifleman's cadence and used that best seated position to shoot in cadence at the shingle.
We took a break inside to hear 6Bones tell the Third Strike of the Match. Then we covered Standing before shooting a practice round on the square of the AQT. Then upacreek explained to us what the AQT was before we began with Stage 1. Then we covered transitions Before moving to Stage 2. We covered transition to prone again Stage 3. Then we shot stage 4. After that, we did it again in reverse (minus the instruction). :---
We shot a final redcoat of the day as the AQT scores were tallied. We were delighted to find we had a rifleman among us! Congratulations Will!
Our final target of the day showed that we had really made an impact as everyone's score improved and Bob cleared the target! (I suspect that Will would have too had he not been per-occupied with his AQT score. ;D )
We closed the day with awards, including the Luther Blanchard patch to two youths, and the telling of Timothy Murphy and how one man (or woman) can make a difference. YOU can make a difference!
In Liberty,
Roswell
Pics to come...
:pics:
Congrats Will, welcome to the brotherhood of riflemen! Bob, awesome job clearing that red coat. Everyone else, I saw lots of improvement throughout the day. Keep up with your perfect practice and that rifleman patch can be yours too. Thank you to all for coming out to Appleseed this past weekend!
Instructor 6Bones shielding his daughter Gbear from the brass of his other daughrer Bug_7 (both blue hats). As fellow instructor upa creek said, "if only we could shield our children from everything like that."
(https://i.imgur.com/hIUG48F.jpg)
Our 2 youth shooters; Autumn and Nickolaus
(https://i.imgur.com/gfuad6L.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/OVW8oBy.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/gdCvZKB.jpg)
Will our Rifleman with a 236! Huzzah! :bow:
(https://i.imgur.com/g1aq2h7.jpg)