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Huzzah! Patriots Day was a blast this year at Skyline Hunting and Fishing in Littleton. It was my first time there personally and I can't say enough how thankful I am to SHFC for letting us use such a beautiful range and all they do for the program!
Saturday started off a little chilly but surely enough we warmed it up by lighting the brushfires of liberty in these shooters' hearts. We started off with some history (quick note: if you ever get a chance to work an event with Hezekiah75 the story board he put together REALLY spruces up the strikes) and rolled into redcoats from there. After that we spent the better part of the morning working on fundamentals and a heavy dose of fry fire. We got our first square in just before lunch and the second strike while a couple instructors were put into prep so they could help a shooter with some equipment issues.
After that we rolled into some of the more technical aspects (talking targets, IMC) and continued to tighten up groups before we tackled transitions. We took a quick break to hear the third strike and then unleashed the shooters on stage three of the AQT, where all of our shooters did awesome at their first time transitioning on the clock! From there we jumped into seated/ kneeling and standing, as well as their AQT stages and then wrapped up our first AQT with stage four.
When the smoke had cleared and targets had been scored the verdict was in: We had a rifleman among us who knew very well what he was about! Huzzahs were had and a patch was awarded before we settled down into our afternoon Hits Count target. This might have been the highlight of my day seeing a HUGE improvement in scores over our morning target and over twice as many shooters hitting the shingle!
Sunday we met bright and early, and were greeted by another shooter who had missed out the day before! We caravanned from the gate down to the bay and got started on the fun. As always, the day started off with a Hits Count target and then we took an hour or so for some refreshers and a quick square or two before diving into what everyone had been feverishly waiting for since heading home the night before: another shot at the famed, the storied, the hallowed AQT.
The rest of the day was smooth sailing as we hopped back and forth between AQTs and a few drills on greencoats, all bearing fruit in the form of three more brand new Riflemen! Some even scored up into the 230's!
With day two falling on April 19th, we took a break partway through for our memorial volley and to take some time to reflect on some of the people whose impact was felt on that day in 1775, and whose absence was felt afterward.
Aside from lots of great work done by our shooters over these two days, here are a few other highlights:
- Bravhrt and Lead Sled both received their 50 event pins at this shoot!
- Humongous completed his full instructor pc at this event and I had the honor or putting a red hat on his head!
- One shooter brought out his musket from the period and gave us a great rundown on some living history in the area!
- Maybe the coolest thing to happen all weekend, TWO of our rifleman heard the call and started their quest toward becoming instructors by picking up their orange hats! (They didn't have forum names yet though so now that you two are set up you'll have to jump in here and introduce yourselves!)
Special thanks to our LARGE instructor cadre Lead Sled, CodeFogey, Zuke, TailDragger, Bravhrt, Humongous, Happy Camper, Hezekiah75, and Nhaima and to all of our shooters who got up early on saturday and sunday to come spend the day with us and learn a good deal about marksmanship and the heritage that makes us all Americans.
This was such a great weekend all around and I again can't thank Skyline Hunting and Fishing enough for letting us come out and use their facilities. Lots of rounds were sent down range, liberty celebrated, and friends made. I'm already looking forward to the next time I can get out to the front range and we can do this again!