We had a great shoot at the Noller Farm in Stockton, Illinois. Six shooters came out to endure wet and cold conditions on Saturday. They were literally lying in puddles of water most of the day. Everyone was cold and wet, including the instructors. But they endured the uncomfortable conditions and demonstrated they have the stuff that makes riflemen. On Saturday we had three shooters score rifleman. Two had earned their rifleman patch at previous events and one was a brand new rifleman. Many congratulations to John for scoring a 225 on the last AQT of the day.
Sunday brought much nicer weather, but then the wind picked up a little before lunch. We had 10-20 mph gusts that were flipping over rifle mats, blowing away pop-up awnings, and blowing over target stands. We broke down the awnings before they were destroyed by the wind and staked down the target bases.
After our KD presentation we broke out the center fire rifles and hit some steel. Some shot my M1A scout rifle with a red dot to ring steel at 200 yards. One of our shooters brought his Bergara 6.5 Creedmore so some other shooters shot that to ring steel at 500 yards. And yes, the winds were definitely affecting our rounds.
Scores of note:
- Keith - 210, 218 and I think a couple more we didn't bother to score
- Ben - 214
- John - 225 to earn his rifleman patch, followed up with a 218 and a 228
- Cort - shot a 199 with iron sights just before lunch on Sunday and then had to leave for work. I'm confident he would have scored rifleman if had been there for the three additional AQT's we shot that afternoon.
- On top of that, we cleared a few redcoat targets as well!
Kaitlyn and Adam showed a lot of improvement. We look forward to them returning and earning that coveted rifleman patch.
Many thanks to Tom Noller for sharing his farm with us. And Kudo's to all our shooters who endured the challenging weather conditions.
Here is a photo of our new rifleman! Huzzah!
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53782200428_b5658f8256_b.jpg)
Thanks to Rex and Dave for their hard work and everyone else that makes Appleseed possible. This was my third Appleseed and I finally scored the Rifleman Patch. Now I will try with open iron sights. Every Appleseed has been a great experience. I'm planning to attend more and will continue to encourage more of my friends and family to attend.
Thanks again, John