Winter is officially upon us in the evergreen state. However, even with the damp/fog/chill, it didn't dampen any of our spirits as well as any of the excitement from the 13 folks who joined us for a full weekend of rifle marksmanship and American history.
Even with the much shorter daylight we have to work with, we still managed to squeeze in 1 AQT at the end of the day Saturday, followed by a Saturday benediction in the rapidly darkening dusk. Sam became the first Rifleman of Saturday with a SOLID score of 230! Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah! Our instructor in training Corey also demonstrated that the marksmanship skills taught that day truly works by turning in a re-qualification score of 233! Huzzah! We started Saturday with no one clearing the hits count target, and finished the day with 2 fully cleared hits count targets even in the rapidly diminishing daylight. Even though Sam was the first attendee to cross the Rifleman line on Saturday, there were quite a few knocking on that door with scorews of 206 by Logan and 185 by Justin.
Sunday was expected to be a very wet day and we thought we would be prepared for it with multiple pop ups courtesy of the host club and attendees who brought their own. However what we did not anticipate was how strong the gusts were throughout the day. Even in-between the unusual downpour and the strong gusts, we were joined by 12 attendees Sunday and finished the day by awarding the coveted Rifleman patch to 3 additional attendees. Kyle experienced the true heartache what it feels like to have scored a 208 followed by a 209 (we had multiple instructors review the AQT and tried our best but a 209 was the concurrence of everyone), however on the very next AQT Kyle put the pieces together and formally crossed that line with the very last AQT of the day and a score of 217! Logan also joined the ranks of Rifleman Sunday by turning in repeated Rifleman scores of 223, 226, and 217! Kyle was our 3rd Rifleman with a score of 218, which was preceded by super close scores of 208 and 209, I bet crossing that line was a huge relief!
Sunday finished with even greater numbers of folks who have made additional progress towards the Rifleman score, by turning scores of 199, 209 (multiples of these) and many others in the high 180s.
To all who came close, do not be discouraged. In fact you should be encouraged and thrilled at your improvements throughout the weekend. Be proud of the fact that you have shown tremendous improvement in just 2 days, and the fact that out of the millions of other things you could've been doing in more comfortable environs, you chose to join your fellow Americans on a wet and gusty weekend learning about rifle marksmanship and American history! We are certainly proud of you for choosing to join us for the weekend, even knowing that the weather wasn't going to be accommodating for personal comfort.
Review the information in the little white book you were all given, and more importantly, dry practice dry practice dry practice. A Rifleman persists. I hope to see you again in a future event (WA events have started going live at https://appleseedinfo.org/schedule/?qstate=WA&state=Washington) with a friend/significant other/family member!