Yet another great shoot at Davilla. The weather? Well it is July in Texas. Need I say more?
17 shooters turned up on Saturday with 12 returning on Sunday.
A great crowd too. There were two Riflemen forged this weekend, Justin and Shawn. And Shawn went on to take an Orange Hat too. Thanks Shawn. You'll be a great help to the central Texas instructor core. Looking forward to working with you in future events.
For instructors there was myself, Reddot, Dan, Reliable, and Semi-reliable. Scout showed up for Sunday afternoon to help us over the hump.
Here's a few pics for y'all.
Congratulations, Justin and Shawn! Great work. :)
Think old age (Or heat) is getting to Kirby :). Semi-reliable is Almostreliable. Also, Bullet was Orange-hatting all day Saturday, and as always, brought some new blood to train. She's brought more new people to Davilla than I even know. Everyone take care. Larry/Reliable
Larry,
I'm with you; the heat wasn't bad at all this weekend, actually I was considering giving some cold weather injury prevention tips; it only got up to 101 on Saturday, last year it was 104, July the year before was 111. So much for global warming >:D
Truly another great shoot!! Looking forward to doing it again next month!
Thanks to Reddot, Scuzzy, Scout, Reliable, and Almost-Semi-reliable **) for being quick to help and answer any questions we have as new IITs...This was a great shoot with much improvement all around. Dan ^:)^
Congratulation Shawn on earning your rifleman and accepting an orange hat.
This was my first Appleseed, so I thought I would share some of my thoughts.
Getting there:
I did what many geeks would do, I put the address into my iPhone and followed the directions to someplace that was several miles from where I should have been. Big mistake, if you have an iPhone, don't use it for navigation to this location. I then spent a while in beautiful downtown Buckholts trying to figure out where I needed to be. The mobile version of the Appleseed website is frustratingly slow out there. So then I headed down FM 1915 to find the place. This is pretty far out in the country and only a few mailboxes have addresses on them. Saw a few that said I had quite a ways to go. Then I saw one that said I had gone too far. Ok, turn around and look again. Nope, went too far and never saw the number I was looking for. Turn around again and go all the way back to the crossroad so I can watch my odometer. Huh, I just passed a number that was 2 greater than the address I have, so it should be the next driveway. Nope, that one has very different address. Ok, turn around again and go back. The gate and such sort of match the description, but there's no sign or streamers on the mailbox or anything else to indicate this is the place. As a native Texan, I am very adverse to driving onto someone's land without being absolutely sure that's where I want to be, but I figured I would pull into the driveway and see if I could spot a bunch of cars. For anyone who has ever been there, the answer is "not a chance". I was just thinking about turning around and going home when one of the instructors pulled in behind me. I wound up following him past the house and turning off on a little rutted path through a pasture where I would not have gone without direction. Of course, after being there once, it was really easy to find Sunday morning.
For the first timers, some sort of signage would be a huge help. Unless someone tells me otherwise, I'll try to make up some signs before the next Appleseed out there.
The weather:
It's July in Texas. It was rather warm. The staff did a very good job of reminding people to stay hydrated and reapply sunscreen. I came through with only a few sunburned spots. I also drank at least a dozen bottles of water and four bottles of Gatorade on Saturday. Sunday was cooler and I actually had space under one of the pop-up canopies, so I drank a little bit less. I found out Saturday afternoon that it was important to keep my rifle covered with a light colored cloth while not shooting, it was almost too hot to hold a few times. In addition, I did get a couple of burns on my left wrist from the metal on the sling.
The staff (even if they aren't getting paid):
They were all great to deal with and very helpful. Besides the obvious firearms safety issues that they dealt with, they were also very attentive to the health issues of the heat and sunlight. The diversity of ages and personalities was also good to see, from the outside the RWVA can appear to be rather monocultural. I think I learned a few things from them that weren't on the curriculum or the mission statement, and that's a good thing.
The course:
Going into the course, I already knew I was a terrible shot with a rifle. Before the class I was certainly a much better shot with my tiny .380 than with a rifle. I can see why the course starts by showing people what their current skill level is, but for me it just added to the pain in my back. Yeah, I'm in bad shape. As Saturday progressed, I did see quite an improvement in my accuracy, but by the end of the day I could hardly move from being both tired and sore. My form is still really bad, I know that's where I need to improve. I think I would have benefited from more practice and coaching on getting into a stable position and less shooting. But I'm slow to learn a lot of physical things.
I didn't sleep much Saturday night because my back was hurting so much, but I showed up up early Sunday morning anyway. Some folks had been Saturday only attendees, so the class size was down, which made for a bit more personalized instruction. Unfortunately, my back and neck were so sore I wound up having to sit out a few rounds.
Partway through the day on Sunday, Scout offered the use of one of his rifles with a proper sling and a scope. I had a few problems getting the right relief on the scope, but the higher sight line made a noticeable improvement in my neck pain. Add to that the fact my vision is only about 20/35 and there was even more improvement. I'm actually quite happy with the improvements to my marksmanship while standing, it's the sitting and prone positions that I'm having real trouble with. Still, the last Redcoat target showed me to be a 200 yard shooter, and I was doing it from a bad sitting position.
Next:
I plan to be back in August, unless something serious interferes. Hopefully I will get in enough practice at home so that my back doesn't cause nearly the problems. It's four days later and I'm just now going without aspirin and ibuprofin. I also need to pack a couple of Sharpies next time to mark the magazines when the course calls for magazines that are less than full.
Quote from: technoronin on July 26, 2012, 09:45:25 PM
For the first timers, some sort of signage would be a huge help. Unless someone tells me otherwise, I'll try to make up some signs before the next Appleseed out there.
Thanks for the offer.
It was a pleasure to meet you last weekend. And yeah, doing the full shoot is very physically demanding. Heck I've even seen teenagers complaining about how sore they are after a shoot. But I'll give you a tip of the hat for sticking it out the entire weekend even though you were in pain. Many people won't do that. So you have my respect there.
Being as you're out of Austin your best bet to get a sling would probably be the Appleseed store. They have em cheap:
http://www.appleseedstore.flyingcart.com/ (http://www.appleseedstore.flyingcart.com/)
See ya next time.
Quote from: technoronin on July 26, 2012, 09:45:25 PM
Getting there:
I did what many geeks would do, I put the address into my iPhone and followed the directions to someplace that was several miles from where I should have been. Big mistake, if you have an iPhone, don't use it for navigation to this location. I then spent a while in beautiful downtown Buckholts trying to figure out where I needed to be. The mobile version of the Appleseed website is frustratingly slow out there. So then I headed down FM 1915 to find the place. This is pretty far out in the country and only a few mailboxes have addresses on them. Saw a few that said I had quite a ways to go. Then I saw one that said I had gone too far. Ok, turn around and look again. Nope, went too far and never saw the number I was looking for. Turn around again and go all the way back to the crossroad so I can watch my odometer. Huh, I just passed a number that was 2 greater than the address I have, so it should be the next driveway. Nope, that one has very different address. Ok, turn around again and go back. The gate and such sort of match the description, but there's no sign or streamers on the mailbox or anything else to indicate this is the place. As a native Texan, I am very adverse to driving onto someone's land without being absolutely sure that's where I want to be, but I figured I would pull into the driveway and see if I could spot a bunch of cars. For anyone who has ever been there, the answer is "not a chance". I was just thinking about turning around and going home when one of the instructors pulled in behind me. I wound up following him past the house and turning off on a little rutted path through a pasture where I would not have gone without direction. Of course, after being there once, it was really easy to find Sunday morning.
That's curious. The first time I went to Scout's place in '08 I drove right to it with no GPS all the way from Midland using directions from the EIP and a road map.