The high plains known distance extravaganza is back in 2025 at the beautiful Ben Lomond Gun Club in Ramah, CO.
The weather was forecasted to be warm over the weekend, but when we got out to the range to setup, there was a great surprise waiting for us: BLGC built a cover over the KD range! That allowed us to spend the weekend shooting in the shade and saved everyone from the heat. Ben Lomond Gun Club consistently makes improvements to their already world class facility and we greatly appreciate all they do for Appleseed in letting us use their range.
On day 1, we kicked off the weekend shooting Morgan's Shingle! The satisfying PING of rounds impacting steel rang out across the range as we had two students nail the shingle. David and Chris were the newest members of Morgan's Rifle Corps! Everyone certainly gained a newfound appreciation for the level of marksmanship required to be a rifleman during the American Revolution.
We moved on to an introduction of the three challenges of a rifleman so everyone could get familiar with the plan for tackling those challenges throughout the weekend. We quickly reviewed sling use, the prone position, firing the shot and NPOA as a refresher for everyone before getting sighted in at 100 yards. Once everyone was zeroed, we reviewed the standing position and shot stage 1 of the AQT.
We then spent some time deep diving trajectory and ballistics. The wind was calm on Saturday morning, so we got onto the range and started gathering trajectory data and formulating come ups and refining those. We talked about effective data gathering and the importance of recording meaningful data. We started with the standard come ups, which got everyone on paper and with a little refinement, everyone was making good hits. Once everyone had solid come ups, we shot each stage of the AQT before moving on to a new distance.
By lunchtime, the wind was becoming a factor that couldn't be ignored, so over lunch we talked about wind, making wind calls and heard history about James Madison and how rifles made their way to the colonies.
After lunch, we spent the remainder of the afternoon shooting the AQT, refining come ups and looking at how wind could affect making the shot at the various distances. After we wrapped up the AQT, riflemen emerged! Chris, Scott, Steve, Jon and Eric all took home a Known Distance rocker and Jon started off strong shooting distinguished with a score of 48! We managed to squeeze in one more AQT and day 1 wrapped up with everyone feeling like they had a chance to really start to address the skills needed to shoot out to 400 yards.
Day 2, we kicked off again by giving everyone the chance to shoot the shingle. Four more students connected, becoming members of Morgan's Riflemen, congratulations to Steve, Scott, Keith and Mike for making the cold bore shot! Flux also connected with the shingle on Sunday! Congratulations to everyone who hit the shingle.
We dove back into practice after a reconfirmation of zero at 100 yards. We reviewed the sitting and kneeling positions and practiced transitions at 200 yards. After everyone felt comfortable with stage 2, we dove into an AQT. After the dust settled from the AQT, we had another rifleman! Keith persisted and got his patch early on day 2. Everyone on the line saw marked improvement in AQT scores on day 2, and we could see the hard work of addressing the three challenges of a rifleman paying off.
After an AQT, we dove into the one challenge of the rifleman we hadn't covered in detail up to that point: range estimation. We covered techniques for range estimation and battlesight zero along with some equipment considerations relating to both.
After the academic portion, it was time to put the theory to practice. We set up some steel on the range, and everyone was provided with the width of the steel targets. All the students used their equipment to gather the necessary information to estimate the range of those targets, and then we had the opportunity to use that estimated range and all the data gathered through the weekend to make hits on those targets. We even introduced some friendly competition and handed out a prize to the person with the most hits. After giving everyone the chance to make some hits, Matt prevailed with 5 out of 6 hits on our targets! Thanks to all the students for making the most of this exercise and for demonstrating a thorough understanding of all three challenges of a rifleman, all of which were needed for this exercise.
After our range estimation exercise, we broke for lunch and heard the stories King's Mountain and Dr. Joseph Warren.
We wrapped up the weekend with a couple more AQTs, and covered other environmental conditions to consider when shooting long range. I think everyone came away with a wealth of knowledge about addressing the three challenges of a rifleman, about their equipment and about the importance of marksmanship during the American Revolution.
A big thanks to our students for spending the weekend at our 2025 Known Distance Event! Your positive attitudes and willingness to learn made the weekend really enjoyable. It was a great shooting with you!
Many thanks to our team of instructors: flux, codefogey and bravhrt for making this event happen. It was a great weekend!