Project Appleseed

The Prickly Pear Sportsmans Association range was absolutely beautiful on Saturday morning, and the instructor cadre gladly took in the beautiful views from the altitude along MacDonald Pass while enjoying their coffees and setting up the range.  While the snow on the berms was a fading reminder of the very white winter we Montanans endured this year, the emergence of spring was made evident by the perfect temperature, a light breeze, and plenty of mud puddles.
Twelve shooters decided to spend their weekend with us.  We had young folk (11-13), more experienced folk(70+), and family folk among us, as well as a few that had traveled a distance to attend this event. 
After an introduction to the program and a quick framing of the history, the participants listened attentively to the safety rules, posted some redcoats, and off we went! We covered all the fundamentals and pounded those squares!   
Next the shooters grabbed their coolers and camp chairs and circled up to hear Xeyed's in-depth accounts of Boston Tea Party, the Boston Massacre, and the first strike of the match.  Trebleshooter carried on to finish the second strike and asked the shooters to consider the sacrifices made by the individuals of that day. 
Before the post-lunch syndrome could catch up with us, we mustered the shooters back to the line to solidify some more fundamentals.
Our group joined in the liberty volley, and punched a ragged hole through ignorance, apathy, and inaction in honor of those that paid the ultimate sacrifice to secure our freedom.
The light spring breeze decided to kick itself up into a full wind during standing practice, but our group persisted and bent those knees and practiced calling their shots. 
During an afternoon water break, Mark Davis told the tale of the Redcoat Retreat to Boston and summed up the third strike of the match. 
Before we knew it, those pesky redcoat targets snuck back up on us, but we took them out. 
Most of the shooters had improved by at least 100 yards in their maximum effective ranges!! 
We gathered up, discussed the importance of the history and civic involvement, and introduced a state legislator that had registered to attend the event.  Becky explained how she went from writing letters and making phone calls to running for office and holding an elected position, all to participate in the system that she felt needed changing. 
With Becky helping to drive the point home, we wrapped up our final group circle and everyone did an amazing job of helping to pack up the range and backers that we didn't want to lose to the wind.

Sunday brought some new challenges, but there wasn't anything that this group wasn't willing to persist through. Every single one of them showed back up, plus some!  After a safety recap by One Eyed Jack and a morning redcoat (which showed even more improvement!  ), we picked up where we'd left off the previous day with fundamentals. 
Before we knew it, the AQT was upon us and the grind commenced. 
We took time for lunch while Trebleshooter and One Eyed Jack told the stories of the Dangerous old men and women from ages past, and we awarded our junior shooters, Ryder and Langston, with their WELL EARNED Luther Blanchard patches. 
We broke up the monotony with some drills to work on rifleman's bubble and NPOA and a contest. 
The shooters were grouped into the minutemen, the militia, and the alarm list by age, and were told to engage a redcoat target with 10 rounds each for 60 seconds.  They had four minutes to plan their strategy, as the smaller targets were worth more points. The majority of the rounds found their marks, but the alarm listers took first place!!!
After another AQT or two, the redcoat target made its last appearance for the weekend.  It was evident that fatigue had settled in, but the scores were still significantly improved over the effective ranges of Saturday morning. 

Thanks to all the attendees and instructors that helped put on a great event.
Pics to follow.