What a wonderful weekend for an Appleseed, the winter weather of a few days ago gave way to summertime temperatures, calm winds and sunshine. Thirteen shooters joined us Saturday morning at the Piqua Fish and Game range for shooting and history. The day proceeded on pretty much on schedule and allowed us to shoot two scoring AQT's in the afternoon.
On Sunday we lost two shooters from the previous day, but gained three new ones. We also gained three new Riflemen from the morning's AQT's; Adam with a 220 score, Trent with a 213, and finally Chad scoring the magic 210 to make him rifleman, and earn him quite an unexpected baptism with the waters from the "North Bridge". Chad had been working hard to get his rifleman's patch; this being his third Appleseed, he was feeling really bummed out that he was always just a couple of points short, and the last AQT before lunch didn't look to him like it would make the grade. After triple checking the results, the instructors concluded it was indeed a 210 score, and decided to sneak up and give the baptism first, before awarding the patch. The Buckeye Trapper anointed him with a full gallon of water poured slowly over his head completely soaking him. To Chad's credit he took the abuse with good humor. I think I see orange hats in the future of all three of our new riflemen.
Following our known distance instruction and 100-yard shoot, we had a little fun breaking into teams and shooting pieces of chalk tied on string. We used two pieces per shooter with as much ammo as needed; the first team to hit all their chalk shouted out a HUZZAH!! and claimed their prize of RWVA lapel pins. Congratulations to Adam and Tom.
Many thanks to the instructors, The Buckeye Trapper and Coyote 217, two of the best!
It was a great weekend spent with a wonderful group of fellow Americans.
More photos from Piqua.
Award photos.
The Baptism of Chad.
Photos of Chad, Trent, and Haley (10 years old) with her first cleared Red Coat on Sunday afternoon.