Public AAR, :cool2:
Please add to this instructors and shooters!
First Day Pictures, a great well paced Appleseed. :)
Look thousands of words without the coughing fits! A quiet Shoot Boss is a joy.
Two Riflemen made today! America is stronger already.
Congratulations to the two rifleman (Denny and Greg), and greetings from Waterman, Il.
We've had a great AS here as well. Guy and Eel have done a great job with the history, the instructing has been excellent, and I can tell you that the shooters in my platoon have made tremendous progress.
Theophilus
Great photos Earl, thanks for getting those posted! and thanks for not being able to talk, Presscott and I were able to get some words in edge wise.
Congrats to Denny, Greg and Cal for getting thier Rifleman Patches.
A good time was had by all, great weather, wonderful facility.
!@#) Earl must have had a couple hours more to drive than Ducko to get to his home and computer cave - but I have arrived! :) You don't need me, just more pictures.
Beautiful day for Refresher, learning more about our rifles and marksmanship and Dangerous Old Men, don't mess with the Shoot Boss? ^-^
So what does happen when your target is now a 100 meters away, and your groups are low - Rifleman's Dance anyone?
These pictures make it look like the Cal (214) show, but I was sure that Pat and Robert were going to be Riflemen, if they hadn't had some real challenges to overcome. A Rifleman perseveres. Looking forward to y'all on the range. O0
What a great weekend for our second successful AS at Douglas Ridge. The Douglas Ridge staff was great, and their assistance on the range was greatly appreciated.
Congratulation to our three new Riflemen; Denny, Greg and Cal.
Ninja-Elbow (Gabriel) from Portland and Zombie Squad here.
Thanks for the great weekend and all y'all did to help us out. Gretchen sure did like it and it was good to see so many willing to help her through her challenges. She wants to practice shooting at least once a month now ... how did you guys do that? :bow: She was afraid of guns before she met me and I took her to the range to shoot some of my pistols prior to Appleseed. Now I gotta schedule one day a month to practice shooting with her. Worse could happen I guess. O0
Anyways, I learned a lot considering I got me an Expert Medal in the Navy about 17 years ago. I knew I needed a refresher ... er ... let's just say I came to Appleseed with an empty cup and that is what needs to be done.
The stories about April 19th were awesome too. Already looking for some reading material.
Thanks again, and see y'all soon.
What happened to all the young girl shooters from Saturday? Julie saw Earl's photos and said she'd sign up as an IIT for Stevenson. (I'll miss my September Garand fun match that weekend but the new Rifleman gets to babysit our four-year-old, as promised.) Maybe Julie can encourage the women to shoot both days. I'll help her to find the right person to PM.
All my thanks to the Appleseed crew and Douglas Ridge RSOs for the Eagle Creek shoot,
-Cal
Thanks to all for an enlightening and humbling weekend! I will be back with a scope for the old man eyes. Think I will bring my teenager daughter. Did improve from sub 100 to 164 on Sunday. Greg :---
Here's an update on what I've been doing to improve my skills since I earned my patch. I spent a little time shooting out to 325 yards on a friend's farm and worked up some loads and ballistics cards and headed out to Wyoming to hunt antelope. A Wyoming antelope hunt provides plenty of real world long range field experience and plenty of practice on the other rifleman skills (target identification and ranging) as well as taking the shot, of course. I think Wheeler44 is right--hunters are nuts for not using a good sling (for the most part). I rigged a hasty sling alongside a nice comfortable hunting sling so I'd have the best setup for both carrying and shooting.
I came back with 5 antelope in the coolers--one buck and four does. All of my shots were over 200 yards and my two longest shots were over 400 yards. Those critters sure get flightly after opening day and 200 yards seems short to me now. :) Both of the 400+ shots were from prone position but I had to take some shorter shots from a kneeling position because the grass was too long for prone. I've adopted kneeling rather than a sitting position now, because, like Earl says, kneeling provides a good quick-shot position. The speed more than compensates for the slight loss of stability of the platform. I think it worked well for me on the AQT and it works equally well for quick shots on a hunt.
Here's where I got the ballistics cards for the loads I was using. The holdover numbers were essential for the ranges and winds I encountered:
http://www.jbmballistics.com/cgi-bin/jbmcard-5.1.cgi
The whole experience completely validated the goals of the Appleseed program and I proved to myself that I'm an effective rifleman at 400 and 500 yards. ^:)^
Here are a couple of pics. I used my Winchester Winlite M70 in .30-06 on the buck (130 grain Barnes handloads) and my new Oly Gamestalker AR upper in 243 WSSM (Winchester 95 grain Supreme) on the doe.
Thanks to Earl and Wheeler for all the instruction and training.
-Cal
(http://home.comcast.net/~calinb/buck.JPG)
(http://home.comcast.net/~calinb/doe.JPG)