This event was our first time to enjoy the Rio Salado Sportsman's Club as the Appleseed Organization, though it has been a wonderful place for many of us to participate in other firearms training opportunities such as High Power matches, Steel pistol matches and the 300 yard public range available here.
AZOpie did a fantastic job working the political angles to get us into the smallbore range on this range, and it's going to make an excellent lead-in to gaining access to the excellent 500 yard High Power range at Rio Salado for later dates with known distance elements.
We had around 22 or so shooters for Saturday, including perhaps 7 or 8 juniors. Lots of young blood to learn marksmanship and heritage. Some of those youngsters were smallbore competitors at Rio and quite impressive, though still with room to pick up on some new skills.
Through lunch we shared the story of Lexington and Concord, Revere and his Mechanics, and the actions of Captains Davis and Parker with Colonel Barrett and General Heath. After which we continued with the marksmanship training, ultimately slugging through 1 AQT and a Redcoat before calling it a day.
Sunday saw the return of 3 of those Saturday shooters, along with the addition of 2 new shooters (repeat students from previous Appleseeds) for a total of 5. We bid an unfortunate "good bye" to Frank as he was feeling ill Sunday morning, and elected to start his drive back home, though we were grateful for his assistance and camaraderie on Saturday with the full line.
This diligent crew of aspiring Riflemen continued to refine their skills and reach new personal high scores on the AQT. While the mystical "210" evaded us, there were a couple shooters knocking on the 200 level and are a single skills-grasp away from the leapfrog to send them over the 210 level.
A "Redcoat" target was even cleared by one of those "200 shooters" at the end of Sunday, indicating that the next AZ Rifleman may not be that far from us, at all. ;)
However, the legacy of John Adams' Battle Road memoirs were the ultimate goal to be brought home by all shooters, both Saturday and Sunday. Posterity has been reminded of the principles of Liberty, and of the cost.
We'll meet with these shooters again. And many others, at this new facility for Appleseed to share its message.
This just in - pictures!