What a great time at a great range in Jonesboro IN. Gene and the local crew always take good care of us.
First, congrats to our renewing and new Riflemen. Mitchell quickly showed everyone that he still has what it takes by knocking out a good score on the first AQT of Saturday. Sunday, everyone worked hard and Karl followed up his previous rimfire RM with a patch using his AR. Mick FINALLY :shootself: figured it out and crossed over that line. Great job to all.
21 great Americans of all stripes joined us on a pleasant Saturday morning. While we got off to a slow start, all were attentive, focused on marksmanship and the camaraderie and attentiveness to history were outstanding.
Sunday we unfortunately dropped to only 12 shooters, but most of that was either planned or due to unforeseen events (I hope you all got your water pump fixed!).
Very enjoyable time -- even with the intense heat of Sunday -- and join us again. Thanks to the border raider instructors -- Cadence, HammBone and Shep from Ohio and Lonestar6 from Indiana.
Steel
:pics:
Had a nice time crossing the border and it was good to finally work one with the "Warlord of the West". The Deer Creek range is SO nice. Completely covered equipment area and with some teamwork, a completely covered firing line. We set up a "rappelling rope" for a shooter running a prosthetic leg who had trouble with the elevation change from equipment area to firing line. Two of the younger shooters were converted to "designated marksmen" shooting from a rest which really helped to turn them into shooters versus "Call of Duty" pew pews. We had a GREAT Mexican instructor dinner on Saturday night. Steel tempted us all with his new DSA Israeli FAL firing it's first shots. And we had new shooters ringing steel out to 200 yards with the loaner centerfires. A very memorable shoot with an always touching history presentation from Cadence. If you ever get into a "comfort zone" with your instructor duties, sign up for a new range in a new state. You know what they say: "Free your mind and your a$$ will follow."
I was glad I signed up to help with shoot as we had a great group of instructors under the leadership of Senior instructor SteelThunder, and the range along with the club members was magnificent. I never been to a shoot where people from the host range set up and tore down the target line! Plus we had a covered firing line which proved to be a blessing when the rain came right after lunch. Luckily the heavier rain and lightning went around us.
We had a full line of shooters and had to squeeze them together to fit the target line. Thankfully, all came with a teachable attitude. Unfortunately, our Sunday count dwindled down to 10 shooters due to one family who brought 7 members to the Saturday instruction having to drop out because of a broken water pump at their house.
Those that remained showed what they were about with 2 new riflemen (1 on Saturday).
It was good to see my fellow Ohio instructors Shep, and Hammbone along with meeting Indiana instructor Lonestar6. A pleasure working with all of you.
A special shout out to the Tikoo family who came from Chicago area to drink from the firehose of freedom. Also to the winning team of the tree target competition.