The morning of Sat, Sept 14th at Creek's Edge Range appeared to be a typical East TN weekend. Despite reported threats of thunderstorms throughout the day, the early morning calm and light breeze on the face was welcome, but deceiving. 17 brave shooters arrived at a sold out event that had been forecasted to be wet and windy. Would the weather cooperate all day?
After an initial, early welcoming to AS, Gator got us started us off with the First Strike. Our shooters were then introduced to the Redcoat Target and with few Morgan's shingles hit, we were prepared to be "eating well" with a large number of "cooks" on the line. After some good instruction and several squares targets turning out very worse for wear, our students started fine-tuning their equipment and they began to apply the fundamentals of rifle marksmanship. This was a very teachable bunch!
At lunch break, Cleveland shared a heartfelt Second Strike while the East TN sky took note. With Isaac Davis' charge to "take good care of the children", the sky turned very dark. Undaunted, Special K stepped up and delivered a solid IMC. Half-way through, the sky unleashed its opinion, and we had a long pause as the rain had its own "vote".
Gratefully, the rain abated after soaking our shooter's, their mats and equipment, but the undaunted spirits of our shooters persisted. Special K led the Regulars back to Boston with the Third Strike, and as the day closed, we wondered if the inclement weather would reduce the number of shooters the following day.
Much to our delight, on Sunday morning, everyone turned out! (with the exception of one with a prior commitment).
The shooters, including 4 youths who were awarded William Diamond patches, were all very engaged in the instruction over the two days. They were very active in CORRECTLY answering questions posed during the KD block showing a firm grasp of IMC.
The weekend yielded one new Rifleman, James S., who persisted throughout the weekend and scored a 210 on the last AQT of the weekend!! Huzzah!! This of course, earned him a baptism with water from the North Bridge. Young Samson scored a 214 from a bi-pod, as soon as he grows into his rifle, he will easily earn his rifleman patch. Several other shooters and first time Appleseeders were knocking on the "rifleman" door and the steadily improving Redcoat targets demonstrated this. Lots of conversation about attending the next event and the purchase of new equipment was heard. 😎
K-Mom easily requalified.
Special thanks to our shooters and our Appleseed cadre who all turned out to brave the elements and clearly model the fact that a Rifleman persists!!
Also, many thanks to Upacreek for coming and helping us play catch up on Sunday.
Huzzah,
Maximum Effort
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Thanks for letting me crash the party. I'm sorry I missed the showers on Saturday. It was great to see all the families and friends shooting together.
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Always be aware of your surroundings. Special_K and Cleveland are doing a great job reviewing the prone position, but the chicken sneaking up on Cleveland was fun to watch.
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Full on assault by the wanna be velociraptor. No Jeffs were harmed as he went on to make this AAR.
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He's got the steady hold factors down.
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Josh and Shannon make mincemeat of their targets
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Ken and Jeff shoot in prone
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Jeff and Reed made up one of the family pairs here this weekend
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I love the ball and dummy exercise. These guys all did great coaching and encouraging each other.
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Maximum Effort tells us all about known distance shooting
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Prone to the Left
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Prone to the Right
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John shot left-handed with a bolt action AND shot well! I should mention that while it looks like his hand is over the line, it was just the angle of the camera. The next shot was shot the same way and I triple checked that Brian's hand was well behind the firing line.
(https://i.imgur.com/95PQsbE.jpg)
Cool shot of Brian showing great steady hold factors
Looks like an awesome event! O0
Congratulations James S. and Young Samson!