Project Appleseed

This is just a placeholder for the full report which will follow.  Summay, fantastic shoot, details to follow.  Shooters, please fell free to post your pictures and thoughts from our event this weekend.

Corvette

 

Corvette

I want to thank Corvette and all the instructors. This was a great event, my second. The weather was beautiful and the Tusco Rifle Club is a top notch facility. I managed to clear my first red coat and shoot Rifleman for the first (226) and second (219) times today. Being my second event, things really "clicked" this year for me. It's a testiment to the excellent instruction and support you receive at these events.

Thanks again for a wonderful Appleseed!
Alex

What an amazing range facility! Why oh why does it have to be so far away? Sigh. Big thumbs up and thank you to the Tusco Gun Club 

So, all of my photos are from Sunday because I may have been a bit busy Saturday lol...not to mention a bit overwhelmed. Here's Jonathan and Jennifer, ready for a great day of shooting:



Bruh, put the phone away, we already posed for one picture...

Morning safety review:





Going over the positions, starting with prone:









Followed up with cross-leg sitting:



Cross-ankle sitting:



Open-leg sitting:



Kneeling:





And standing, reaching way back on the shelf:



Making a hand sandwich:



Pull it down:



And rotate it up:

Me and Jennifer's home away from home for the day:



Red coats awaiting their fate:

The shooting line:



Jonathan chatting with his new friend Bill:

Learning how to shoot the AQT:

End of the day center-fire fun ringing steel at KD:

A frosty start to the weekend.

A big thank you to Corvette and all of the instructors for an incredible weekend of heritage and shooting. I couldn't possibly ask for more in a first Appleseed event.

I don't want to steal the punchline from my newguy thread in the Ohio forum, so if you would like to hear my results, take a look there.

Jonathan did quite well for his first Appleseed, consistently scoring in the 170's, with an AR no less. The funny thing? His scope wasn't adjusted the whole time. So, the AR was a last minute purchase and I mounted/sighted the scope Friday evening at an indoor range. When I got home, Jonathan did a couple of dry fire snaps with it in the house. So, naturally, I turned the adjustable objective down to 10 yards. Alas, I never really explained that to him, and he didn't realize that the blurry image was not normal. I discovered this when I went to shoot it for KD. How he managed to ring steel at 200 yards with the objective set to 10 I'll never know lol.

Jennifer struggled all weekend with malfunctions, so she never really completed an AQT. The Remington's trigger failed after the first 20 or 30 shots on Saturday. Then she was getting malfunctions in the loaner on a periodic basis. We tried switching at one point (with her on my bolt action and me shooting the loaner), and it functioned perfectly for me, turning in a good rifleman score. Of course, the bolt action with Tech Sites was just too different for her to manage a great score, but it gave her an opportunity to compare the two experiences first-hand. The shooting gods just simply were not with her this weekend. But, I was amazed at her ability to work through the challenges, continue to improve, and remain calm. Certainly a lot of credit goes to the instructors who got down on the line and coached her one-on-one. Overall, she is well equipped with skills and knowledge for her next Appleseed. Now I just need to hook her up with a reliable rifle that she knows.

At the end of the day, both Jonathan and Jennifer shot Corvette's M1 Garand    . That was really the icing on the cake for them, so thank you Corvette! I think they spent 30 minutes in the car talking just about that lol.

Thanks again to Project Appleseed, Corvette, and all of the instructors for a memorable weekend and I look forward to seeing ya'll again real soon.

A cold and frosty morning dawned over Tusco/New Philladelphia

Registration

First Strike

first strike (again)

checking the targets

First a BIG Thank You to Tusco!  The people are wonderful and the fascility is top notch.

Thank you to all the shooters that came out for their excellent safety and attention to instruction the whole weekend.  The youngsters were a treat to work with.

Chuck

What a great shoot at New Philadelphia, Ohio this past weekend. Saturday morning dawned clear and cool. But we had 14 shooters show up to start a great weekend.  Our shoot was diverse.  We had a family group of five that included two fine young men of 6 and 8 years old.  We had other family groups, work friends and a good mix of new and repeat Appleseeders.

Saturday started with the welcome and the safety brief which was followed by the morning Red Coat.  The results were not promising.  We had 7 of 14 competent at 100 which is a typical percentage but we only had 1 at 200, and 1 at 300.  We did have 3 who joined Daniel Morgan which was a hint at what was to come. 

Instructions started with the related shooting drills. Most shooters progressed through the steady hold factors, the six steps and NPOA.  However, we did have a number of shooters that were struggling to find paper and there were a handful of equipment issues that slowed things down some.  But everyone persisted and before we knew it, it was lunch time.   Tusco rolled out their usual wonderful lunch for the shooters and the first strike was presented in the clubhouse.  Soon we were back on the line to work on sight adjustments.

The steady hold factors for seated were presented followed by off-hand instructions with related drills shot. The Saturday Red Coat was shot with some improvement.  We had 11 of 14 competent at 100, 6 of 14 at 200 but we only had 1 at 300 and nobody at 400.  However we had 6 shooters join Daniel Morgan. 

The day came to a close with a combined Second and Third Strike and the Saturday call to action. 

Sunday dawned just like Saturday but warmer.  After a review of the safety brief, the steady hold factors, the six steps and NPOA, we moved to the line for the morning Red Coat.  Normally, there is a little fall off from the Saturday afternoon Red Coat.  This group of Americans was not the norm.  Out of 14 shooters, we had 13 competent at 100, 12 at 200, 9 at 300, 4 at 400, 3 joined Daniel Morgan and 2 people cleared their Red Coats.  It was like Sgt. York came down from heaven and sprinkled special dust on the shooters.  This turned out to not be a fluke.

We moved on to several NPOA drills and moved to the introduction of the AQT.  A practice AQT was shot followed by multiple AQTs.  From the very first AQT we started a parade of Rifleman scores. We broke for lunch and the KD presentation. We returned to the line for two more AQTs. 
On Sunday we had a total of 10 Rifleman scores.

Ed requalified three times with a 211, 217, and a 229
Mark shot four straight scores with a 228,217, 225, and a 231
Alex shot a 226 and backed it up with a 218
Bill requalified with a 217

And, in the high point of the weekend for me, Jess finally got her patch with a 210.  Her father had the honors of baptizing her with holy water from the North Bridge.  This was special for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was that her older sister Hannah can no longer tease her that she has a patch and Jess doesn't.

We shot the Sunday afternoon Red Coat and the scores were equally stellar.  12 of 13 at 100, 9 of 13 at 200 6 of 13 at 300 3 at 400, 5 joined Daniel Morgan and two more cleared Red Coats. The difference between Saturday and Sunday was simply amazing.

We took the last part of the day shooting at distance at some steel targets we setup at 200 yds and 300 yds and a very successful Appleseed weekend came to an end. 

My thanks to the fine group of instructors that worked the event.  Dom, Chuck, Colleen, BAS, and Tom, you guys made the shoot work.  You have my thanks.  Hope to see all of you soon on the trail.

Corvette

Wonderful weather, great facility, outstanding shoot crew. They covered all the bases and really got the information across. Corvette, TexasT, Chuck, Elen, Bas, and Dom, you were a well oiled machine that really got the job done. I gained so much from this shoot. Thank you all.

Erin, I'm very sorry for the misspell. Fat fingers and poor eyesight added to a small keypad are my only excuse. You did great.

learning the seated position

The future of shooting.

Mark making Rifleman!

Two new Orange Hats!

Checking AQTs...

Eren, spellcheck got me that last one.

Working on our Prone positions

Jessica makes rifleman, with a little special North Bridge water!

Standing