We had seven hearty souls join us for a one day Appleseed on MONDAY November 17th.
Over the four years that Birchwood Recreation & Shooting Park in Chugiak, Alaska has been anchor range for Appleseed in Alaska, many employees have expressed a desired to shoot with us, but the very busy weekends at this range always prevented it. Well, on Nov 1 Dale Andrews, the BRSP Rifle/Pistol Manager join us and shoot a 237 on the AQT to earn his Rifleman patch. He become even more enthusiastic about Appleseed and asked if we would ever consider holding an event for his employees on a Monday and/or a Tuesday as the Range is closed to the public and employees would freed up to shoot with us.
Well, you know that fisherdawg never passes up a chance to advance the program, so I said YES! I was able to immediately find at least 3 other Instructors willing to help on a Monday so we scheduled an Appleseed for Nov 17.
Ben, Jansen, Scott, Matthew, Steve, John, and Jesse made it the line on a 27 degree morning 1&1/2 hours before sunrise! Fortunately the 'E' Range at Birchwood has lights. And heat. I told you this is an awesome Range. But, what is even better, much better, was the delightful teachable attitude and enthusiasm all our shooters displayed -- in spite of or perhaps because of the high degree of experience and expertise they brought to the line. In fact this would turn out to be the highest performing group of shooters I've ever had the pleasure to instruct.
We conducted the Admin / Safety Brief at 0830 and we were shooting our first Red Coat by 9:18. Five of seven shooters were able to qualify at some distance and one shooter cleared the target. Two made the Daniel Morgan shingle shoot.
We dove into the fire hose of Instruction, giving the participants the full benefit of the Appleseed Program of Marksmanship. We had lunch in the Rifle Pistol office and told the First and Second Strike. The Instruction resumed and the group was ready for the fist AQT by 2:36 pm. We broke for the Third Strike then shot 3 more AQT's and finished with a Redcoat.
Jansen achieved multiple qualifying scores with his best at 236 and 13 V's.
John W. was also a mulitple qualifier with his best at.... 236 and 13 V's!
(shoot off results pending! :) )
Scott achieved a 222 ;D (and a 214 & 209 ... :-X
Matthew shot a 216 on the last AQT of the under the lights after displaying true Rifleman perseverance through equipment problems.
All were awarded the coveted blue and icicle encrusted Winterseed Rfleman Patch.
That's right: 4 out of 7 qualified and among the other shooters the lowest score was in the 180's -- Elite group!
On the final Redcoat, all shooters qualified at some distance with 3 shingles and 1 cleared. The Shingle served as the shoot off between Jansen & John. Both made the shot, but Jansen was closer to center to earn bragging rights. O0
It was pleasure instructing all including new Riflemen and Steve, Ben and Jesse. Please come again soon -- all of you.
My thanks to great crew -- eagleriver, Knox, hogfamily, Dave220 and 509gman. I'm sorry LittleJohn220 missed it. I know he was there in spirit!
HUZZAH
Maybe we need to come up there to get warm! We didn't top 15 on Monday in the Boise area. Send us some global warming and we'll give you back your Arctic air, how's that?
Congrats! BRSP is an awesome place and I'm glad to see you were able to schedule something for them! Huzzah!
Quote from: Nero on November 19, 2014, 03:12:54 PM
Maybe we need to come up there to get warm! We didn't top 15 on Monday in the Boise area. Send us some global warming and we'll give you back your Arctic air, how's that?
Nero, I be glad of that and will arrange if possible. ItsanSKS may want the road to the Instructor range to stay open just a few days longer though. ;)
fisherdawg
http://hogfamilyalaska.blogspot.com/2014/11/birchwood-recreation-shooting-park.html
I'd like to say a huge THANK YOU to fisherdawg and the staff for volunteering their time and experience (and patience) to work with us on a rather brisk Monday in Chugiak. ~~:)
I snapped a few of cellphone photos and posted them on the Birchwood Facebook page HERE (http://tinyurl.com/o4hs57h). (Public album, no Facebook account required.)
Huzzah!