Project Appleseed

What a great shoot this was! Great to be back at the Impact Zone!

I'd like to thank you and your team for a great pistol clinic. Prior to last weekend, I had been to quite a few Appleseed rifle classes, but this was my first with a handgun and I enjoyed it a lot.

Saturday morning saw the sun rising over the grassy hills of the United Sportsman's Inc. shooting range in Concord, California and warming the air cooled by the night's darkness. The partnership between Project Appleseed and the USI management continues to grow stronger with each scheduled event and has resulted in our group being allowed to erect a metal shed next to our shooting bay to store event tools, equipment, and pop-up sun shades. A heartfelt THANK YOU to Traci and Larry of USI who made this possible and coordinated location and timing to install the metal storage shed on site. A thank you also goes out to Dan, Bill, and Victor our instructor crew who worked as a well-oiled Team to provide first-class instruction for our shooters. A thank you to our shooters who traveled far and wide from South San Jose, Oakland, and San Ramon to attend the 25m Rifle Clinic. The "Squares" target scores improved steadily and perhaps helped by a new "key" indexed to the COI. Each squares 8.5x11 inch target sheet was labeled A,B,C,D, and E. In addition each square was labeled for the position the black square was being shot from. In this was, shooters could reference a shooting position (offhand, sitting, prone) after the target sheet had been pulled off the target backer and evaluate it (talking targets) for feedback without trying to recall the position from memory. Our Team had noted that while we encourage and ask shooters to "write it down", more often than not...details on the position as well as the time of day for the weekend were not being routinely recorded. So with the expert instruction, hard work by shooters on Steady Hold Factors, Rifleman's Cadence, Rifleman's Bubble, 6-Steps in Making the Shot, and the critical to success Natural Point Of Aim, the weekend saw great results. On Sunday, David's efforts and persistence paid off as he scored a 225/250 earning the coveted Expert rating of Rifleman! Huzzah, Huzzah, Huzzah! He was proud to demonstrate what hard work was about which turned out to be especially important as his 14yo son Nicholas was also there. Nicholas's marksmanship skills and ability were incredible to witness as he was putting 5/5 rounds into the black from prone all weekend long. A quiet youth who speaks with his targets showing what he is all about. Amazing I say. Two other shooters Armen and Chris also improved greatly and are interested in attending the Rimfire Known Distance event in Northern California later this year to further expand their skills and experience in precision marksmanship. Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!

Late in the afternoon we honored the American Militia and Minutemen companies blocking the 1,700 Redcoat troops marching east from Lexington towards Menotomy. The Battle of the "Foot of the Rocks" was honored as simulated Redcoat targets were engaged at 400 yards, 300 yards, 200 yards and finally at 100 yards as they marched towards the defenders of the small town of  Menotomy. All targets were successfully engaged by volley fire, and the group who had appointed a different shooter to issue the "FIRE" command for the entire group experienced great success in safely and effectively reliving that afternoon as Redcoat troops were pursued by General William Heath from behind and blocked by rapidly assembled Massachusetts militia and minuteman companies at the town's western border.

Finally, our Team's Eagle Eye and awesome distinguished shooter Dan...had to show that he only gets better and better and better shooting a 243/250 on his first AQT inspiring others on the line to keep working, keep learning, and keep up the passion of honoring the heritage of our nation's defenders of liberty on 19 April 1775.

What a great weekend to be outdoors.  I want to thank Sheepdog Firearms Supplies for hosting another event.  We had a group of youth this round.  What a blessing to see young people excited about our shared American History.

All of the shooters improved as the weekend progressed.  We spent a lot of time on squares targets to hone skills.  Sunday's AQT targets showed us the time was well spent and these folks were listening.  Although we did not have any Rifleman scores, everyone was safe and had fun.

I want to thank my crew of JHB, EchoCharlie, and TheGunsliningGamer for making the weekend a success.

I look forward to seeing each of these youth at future events.

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to give a quick update for anyone interested in seeing Known Distance events here in Arizona.

We are actively trying to get KD events going in AZ, but the biggest challenge so far has been finding a suitable range with the distances we need. Ideally, we are looking for access to 100, 200, 300, and 400 yard firing distances, with a layout that will work safely and practically for a Project Appleseed KD event.

That said, this is something we are working on, and the goal is to get something on the 2027 calendar. Depending on range availability, that may be a full centerfire KD event, or it may be an RKD event using rimfire rifles at reduced distances.

Either way, the intent is the same: give Arizona shooters the opportunity to continue building on the fundamentals learned at a standard Appleseed event and apply them at distance.

If you know of a range that may be a good fit, or if you have contacts at a facility that supports longer-distance rifle shooting, please let me know. We would love to explore any viable options.

Thanks for your patience and support as we work through the logistics. I know there is interest in bringing KD/RKD opportunities to Arizona, and we are doing our best to make that happen.

In Liberty,
Kelly
Arizona State Coordinator

AWESOME!!!!

The AAR for this event may be found here: https://appleseedinfo.org/smf/index.php?topic=71669.0

Spring has definitely finally arrived in North Idaho, as we enjoyed beautiful weather for our second pistol clinic of the year at Fernan Rod & Gun Club. We appreciated everyone's attentiveness, safety consciousness, patience, and persistence through the weekend.  It made our jobs as instructors easier, and it definitely paid off as we saw great improvement across the board and several new Pistoleer™™™™ scores on Sunday.

Congratulations to new Pistoleer™™™™s Alex (215), James (222), and Chris (227) as well as to Tom, who not only qualified as a first-time Pistoleer™™™™, but also shot a distinguished pistol score with a high target of 230 points!  Special congratulations to Michelle, who was voted most-improved/most persistent.  Despite being a beginning shooter and experiencing significant equipment challenges (we tried at least four different pistols on Saturday), she maintained a great attitude, returned on Sunday, and turned in significantly improved targets using Beardo's Mark IV .22LR. Huzzah!

Sunday's informal competition on the Big Dot/Little Dot target was close, with "Team Right" eking out a victory over "Team Left" by a four-point margin 80-76.  The individual scores in that competition were impressive - Alex in first place with a perfect 20 points, a three-way tie for second between Tom, James, and Chris(l) with 19 points, and Norm and Chris(r) in a two-way tie for third place with 16 points each.  The prize box is lighter by a few patches and "Appleseed Trigger Training Devices", but for some reason I still have a bunch of Appleseed temporary tattoos left in it. Perhaps some younger shooters will claim those at a future rifle clinic.   

Many thanks to Beardo for handling the administrative aspects of the shoot as well as loaning his pistol to Michelle and helping her with it on Sunday, to Schooner and Kjrr for acting as RSOs and coaching, and to Mr. Clean for sharing the instructional tasks with me.  We look forward to having more qualified pistol instructors in the future - Andy and I would like to spend some time on the line shooting, too!

And finally:  The repeated misfire on the last chamber of the 1851 Navy turned out to be an issue with the nipple, not the percussion caps.  After I got home, I swapped in a different nipple and it fired right away.  Sorry, Alex - I wish it would have fired for you, but those old percussion revolvers were still finicky, albeit a big improvement over their flintlock predecessors!

We hope everyone enjoyed the weekend, that we'll see you again at a future event.  Remember the seventh step - telling friends, family, and colleagues about Appleseed and encouraging them to join us!

YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE!

The only Known Distance Event in Florida this year is fast approaching. It will be the weekend of May 30-31 at Port Malabar Rifle & Pistol Club (PMRPC) in Palm Bay, FL.

This NRA certified 600 yard high power range is equipped with ShotMarker electronic targets. You will use your personal handheld digital device (smart phone, Kindle, iPad, ETC.) browser to connect to the private WIFI displaying your target hits in real time. This is a huge time saver, allowing a more humane approach to KD.

You must be a Rifleman who has attended a previous Appleseed event having shot your centerfire rifle to demonstrate your ability to keep all your shots in an 8 MOA group at each distance from 100 to 400 yards. If you have any doubts regarding your qualification to attend you may contact the Shootboss (TheMenace) to discuss your ability.

Info and registration link: https://appleseedinfo.org/location/?locationid=113&eventid=11113
https://pmrpc.com/rifle.html

Huzzah! Patriots Day was a blast this year at Skyline Hunting and Fishing in Littleton. It was my first time there personally and I can't say enough how thankful I am to SHFC for letting us use such a beautiful range and all they do for the program!

Saturday started off a little chilly but surely enough we warmed it up by lighting the brushfires of liberty in these shooters' hearts. We started off with some history (quick note: if you ever get a chance to work an event with Hezekiah75 the story board he put together REALLY spruces up the strikes) and rolled into redcoats from there. After that we spent the better part of the morning working on fundamentals and a heavy dose of fry fire. We got our first square in just before lunch and the second strike while a couple instructors were put into prep so they could help a shooter with some equipment issues.

After that we rolled into some of the more technical aspects (talking targets, IMC) and continued to tighten up groups before we tackled transitions. We took a quick break to hear the third strike and then unleashed the shooters on stage three of the AQT, where all of our shooters did awesome at their first time transitioning on the clock! From there we jumped into seated/ kneeling and standing, as well as their AQT stages and then wrapped up our first AQT with stage four.

When the smoke had cleared and targets had been scored the verdict was in: We had a rifleman among us who knew very well what he was about! Huzzahs were had and a patch was awarded before we settled down into our afternoon Hits Count target. This might have been the highlight of my day seeing a HUGE improvement in scores over our morning target and over twice as many shooters hitting the shingle!

Sunday we met bright and early, and were greeted by another shooter who had missed out the day before! We caravanned from the gate down to the bay and got started on the fun. As always, the day started off with a Hits Count target and then we took an hour or so for some refreshers and a quick square or two before diving into what everyone had been feverishly waiting for since heading home the night before: another shot at the famed, the storied, the hallowed AQT.

The rest of the day was smooth sailing as we hopped back and forth between AQTs and a few drills on greencoats, all bearing fruit in the form of three more brand new Riflemen! Some even scored up into the 230's!

With day two falling on April 19th, we took a break partway through for our memorial volley and to take some time to reflect on some of the people whose impact was felt on that day in 1775, and whose absence was felt afterward.

Aside from lots of great work done by our shooters over these two days, here are a few other highlights:
- Bravhrt and Lead Sled both received their 50 event pins at this shoot!
- Humongous completed his full instructor pc at this event and I had the honor or putting a red hat on his head!
- One shooter brought out his musket from the period and gave us a great rundown on some living history in the area!
- Maybe the coolest thing to happen all weekend, TWO of our rifleman heard the call and started their quest toward becoming instructors by picking up their orange hats! (They didn't have forum names yet though so now that you two are set up you'll have to jump in here and introduce yourselves!)

Special thanks to our LARGE instructor cadre Lead Sled, CodeFogey, Zuke, TailDragger, Bravhrt, Humongous, Happy Camper, Hezekiah75, and Nhaima and to all of our shooters who got up early on saturday and sunday to come spend the day with us and learn a good deal about marksmanship and the heritage that makes us all Americans.

This was such a great weekend all around and I again can't thank Skyline Hunting and Fishing enough for letting us come out and use their facilities. Lots of rounds were sent down range, liberty celebrated, and friends made. I'm already looking forward to the next time I can get out to the front range and we can do this again!