What a great weekend despite the nasty looking weather. Luckily, the worst we encountered were some canopy/kites which the entire group of shooters, spectators, and instructors quickly brought back to the ground. The fabulous Hobbs Island Shooting Range was nice enough to cut the range fee in half and let us in early each morning. Thanks Google and Maximum Ordinate for the help setting up on Friday. Saturday morning shooters included 2 multi-generational families with some grandparents watching their 6 granddaughters between them learn our history and shooting. TonyB started the day off with a great 1st Strike before we jumped right in with the Hits Count target. We realized we had a good mix of experienced and new shooters when 4 nailed Morgan's Shingle. We took our time on Saturday fitting shooters with their loaners or adjusting their rifles as they took in all the instruction. It was time well spent as each squares target showed improvement. It's always exciting to see shooters just get blocks of instruction and bring their groups in like these guys all did. Thank you, HardHolder and Special K for your heartfelt 2nd and 3rd Strikes respectively and Max. Ord. for sharing some delicious chili. We ended the day under a Tornado Watch - a ho hum event for these Southerners, but I got a little worried. The sky wasn't even green or purple. I'm told it was nothing.
The instructors arrived early Sunday morning and pieced the range back together after Mother Nature tossed everything around all night. We gained 1 veteran Appleseed shooter but lost 3 others for the day. GTEngineer and Special K began our day with a bit of history and we launched into review from the day before. The shooters were very attentive and willing to learn all the new positions and concepts like IMC and known distance. By the end of the day we'd shot 3 AQTs. Michael requalified as rifleman a couple of times with a 215 and 218. Derrick, Skip, Faith, and Charlene consistently had groups that touched each other, but they never ran together on one AQT. Everyone else showed incredible improvement and seemed much more comfortable using their rifles. Remember that a rifleman persists. Keep up the perfect practice and come back to see us.
Many, many thanks to everyone that attended for all their help in picking up the range so quickly each day and the super friendly atmosphere. Shannon and the shooters' relatives that sat in the cold cheerleading everyone made the shoot so much more enjoyable. A huge thanks to all the great instructors from the orange hats through the grey hats, I haven't learned so much in one shoot since I first became a volunteer. I can't wait to work with you all again.
Feel free to comment or post your pictures from the shoot. At the end of the shoot, we were told a couple of the girls' mom was in labor with their little sister. Congratulations!!! We hope they are all happy and healthy and have a great Christmas! We are so glad their aunt brought them to the range to spend the weekend with us. They took home some art and craft supplies (aka – spent brass) to make Christmas presents for their other siblings. We'd love to see those pictures.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year's Appleseed family!
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A group photo from Sunday. I'm sorry we missed a couple instructors and shooters.
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Marsha and Skip got some one on one help with their equipment.
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Special K teaches Rifleman's Cadence and Carding the Sights with models Tennessee Hangfire and Mermaid.
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Practicing prone position
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Practicing the seated position.
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Stage 4 of the AQT with a new line boss, Mermaid, belting out the line commands.
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GTEngineer shares his story about Deborah Sampson aka Robert Shurtleff
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Veteran Appleseeder Michael requalified with 2 riflemen worthy AQTs. Nice job!
Sounds like a great event! I love hearing about all the kiddos. That's awesome sauce.