Mrs. featherblue and I want to thank everyone (RWVA people & participants) for making this event a huge success! ^:)^
The people and weather made the weekend GREAT!!! Susie and I heard nothing but compliments and "thank you" from everyone.
Long live our great Country----in freedom. And I wish I had had a tape recorder to save John McKean's (one of the Rifleman winners) comments at the awards get together. Inspirational to say the least.
-fb
I couldn't agree more. Thank you to Terry and Susie for going above and beyond as hosts. I will be stealing John's quote for future Appleseed benedictions
(http://i38.tinypic.com/nvqu7k.jpg)
Pictures.....AAR......Info......please.......
It was great working with you all. Thank you for having us on your range and thank you both for such a great weekend. I have lots of Pictures just going to take a while, because i have to upload them individually. O0
O0 http://picasaweb.google.com/113843901385765981178/Pictures# here are some pictures hope this link works correctly :wb:
Link works good. Thanks for posting these.
Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Featherblue for providing such a great facility. And, thank you to all the instructors who drove so far to teach us our heritage of service to country and marksmanship. Sam, Logan, and I had a great time and learned so much. We can't wait for the next one! As you can see below, a 3 day appleseed makes for a very quiet ride home.
Gardnerville, Nevada - May 29-31, 2010
3-Day Memorial Day Appleseed
What a great time!
We had a LOT of shooters for this one and it was a blast! (No pun intended, just unavoidable.) :D
The number of pre-registered shooters & known walk-ons had us initially worried as there were only 4 instructors signed up, LayloPro, DesertDog, Arashi and I.
However, Trebleshooter, Pineappleshot, & RangeRat all made it up from Henderson, NV to help out. As a bonus, Rangerat brought his wife, Bobbie & son Zach, both of whom recently accepted the Orange Hat. Switchbox also showed up out of the blue to help out!
And we needed every instructor who made it too! There were 29 shooters pre-registered through Eventbrite, & 3 shooters who had sent in checks - Every one of them showed up! Additionally, we were happy to welcome 14 more shooters who showed up, giving us a Saturday total of 48 shooters!
I sincerely appreciate all the help offered by the instructors who were able to come help us out on this event.
OK, On to business...
Shoot Boss: Chris_H
Instructors: LayloPro, DesertDog, Arashi, Trebleshooter (IIT3), Pineappleshot (IIT), RangeRat (IIT), Switchbox (IIT3), as well as Bobbi & Zach, 2 brand new IITs.
After welcoming the shooters & covering safety & line commands, we dismissed the shooters for rifles. Saturday morning's Redcoat showed we had a wide range of beginning shooter ability.
400 yards: 3
300 yards: 4
200 yards: 6
100 yards: 13
Headshot: 6
Cleared: 1
Zero hits: 0
We started covering points of instruction - Sling use, steady hold factors, the 6 steps, NPOA, & more, shooting at squares throughout the morning, and introducing Inches, Minutes & Clicks to help everyone bring their groups to the targets.
After refueling our bodies with lunch, & our minds & hearts with the history of April 19, 1775, we introduced sitting, standing & transitions later in the day.
Some shooters struggled with their equipment. Randal was doing really well with steady hold factors, the 6 steps, & NPOA, but his groups weren't improving & he getting pretty discouraged by the early afternoon. I looked at his rifle, & found he was shooting a stock 10/22, with factory Ruger sights - we talked about the correct sight picture for his rifle & immediately saw his groups begin to improve! O0
No AQT's shot on Saturday, but we saw a great amount of improvement in everyone's shooting. The end of the day Redcoat showed everyone how much progression was made.
400 yards: 7
300 yards: 5
200 yards: 6
100 yards: 10
Headshot: 7
Cleared: 4 (!)
Zero hits: 0
One of the shooters was a wonderful woman named Pat, who made slow progress, but had improved from hitting paper only inconsistently in the morning, to putting all rounds on the 100 yard Redcoat silhouette by the end of the day! O0
After a brief benediction, advice to get rest & a pain killer of choice, we released the shooters & cleaned up for the day.
Sunday saw a slight drop in the number of return shooters, but still over 30. We welcomed everyone back, reiterated safety & line commands, then brought rifles to the line & shot Redcoats. After reviewing the points of instruction & getting a bit of practice on squares, we practiced by shooting from different positions with NPOA shifts on dual CAQT targets, then we shot one AQT before lunch.
Two of our shooters had to leave at lunch, but both shot rifleman scores on the AQT - Matt a 214, and Terry a 216.
After awarding them patches, the shooters took a breather for a quick bite to eat, and we talked about several dangerous old men & women. After lunch, we shot dessert (Oreos at 25m!) before going back to shooting AQT's.
We paused after a couple, and fired a "Rifleman's Cadence" drill, to give the shooters an illustration of how shooting too slowly or quickly can affect groups, then went back to AQT's. Boyd achieved a close 208 & will likely shoot Rifleman at the next Appleseed he makes it to.
By the end of the day, we saw 3 more shooters get Rifleman scores:
Eric & John, both return Appleseeders, shot 227 & 218, respectively.
12-year-old Weston earned his Rifleman patch at his fourth Appleseed with a score of 219. The persistence of Weston, as well as several other young men - Sam, Logan, Kiel, Daniel, Barrett, Charlie, & Jack - gave us cause to award all of these young men Luther Blanchard Youth Achievement patches!
One of the attendees, Alisa, watched her husband & boys shoot on Saturday, & on Sunday asked if she could try shooting too. We quickly got her setup with an LTR & worked with her to get caught up to everyone else. In the morning, she was having a hard time just hitting paper, but she persisted & even though it was her first time shooting a rifle at all, she was able to put 3 holes in the 100y Redcoat silhouette by the end of the day!
^:)^
We advised the shooters again to rest, and also reminded them to get active, to 7th step, to dry practice, & to persist.
Monday saw 17 shooters return to keep shooting, this time at known distances.
We began with a review of safety, & some introduction to KD shooting, then since many shooters were shooting different rifles than the first two days, we let them zero at 25m with a few 4moa squares.
After this, DesertDog talked to the shooters about target detection, & LayloPro talked about range estimation & gave the shooters an opportunity for some Q&A.
The few who were still using rimfire rifles shot at 100y silhouettes, while the center fire shooters confirmed their battle sight zeroes by shooting at their first long-range targets - 30 cal shooters at 200, and 223 shooters at 300. We went downrange to mark hits & paste holes, then shot the same targets again.
Next, arashi discussed trajectory & come ups, then we had the center fire shooters change to targets at the next ranges - 30 cal at 300, & 223 at 400. We shot two rounds at these distances, giving the shooters a chance to eat between courses of fire, then I talked about the effects of wind - estimating speed & value, determining sight corrections by formula, then gave the shooters Fred's simple wind rule.
We changed ranges again, with 30 cal shooters now moving out to 400, and 223 shooters coming back in to 200.
After two courses of fire, the shooters (& us instructors!) were getting pooped so we all decided to wrap things up at about 3PM. A few folks still wanted to shoot a bit more, so after a brief prep period for those packing up to take their rifles off the line, & gather their gear, we ran a quick FD AQT, without going downrange between stages.
The wind was picking up by that time, & was constantly changing direction, so it was little surprise that no one managed to achieve a Rifleman's score, but everyone did great.
Afterward, we did a final equipment collection & clean up, then wrapped it up to head home.
Featherblue has provided us with an awesome DAR, and this weekend's turnout showed us that the range is starting to mature into a fantastic place to shoot. I would like to say thanks to Featherblue & his wife (yes, again.) ;)
I appreciate the help of all of the other instructors, and the good attitudes of the shooters. I hope everyone had as good a time as I did!
Chris
What a gorgeous setting! And a very impressive turnout. Well done! ..:..
Thanks again to all the instructors and to our gracious hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Featherblue. I am wondering if anyone found 3 Ruger 10-22 magazines laying around after the shoot? We have torn apart all our gear and cannot find them anywhere. If anyone has them I would gladly pay shipping to get them back. Thanks.