Project Appleseed

In a cow pasture at Leesburg‘s Ares Training Facility ten hardy and enthusiastic souls gathered in the steamy Florida sunshine to learn and practice the honored tradition of rifle marksmanship. What an excellent way to spend a weekend!

A great group of skilled instructors came together and constructed a sea of pop up canopies, a target line, and even shoveled the ample cow droppings to make a perfect place for learning history and marksmanship. Build it and they will come!

We began with a stirring telling of the First Strike by Pirate Girl that set the stage. Many of our students had been to a previous Appleseedâ€"some years agoâ€"so the story was at least somewhat familiar but the interest and engagement was high and the story really came to life, taking us back in time to that fateful day in colonial Massachusetts.

After the usual safety briefing and administrative details were taken care of we turned on the fire hose of instruction. The initial Redcoat target showed "room for improvement" but it didn't take long for the skills to start developing. Learning the sling and a proper prone position started the process. As our shooters absorbed knowledge and practiced obtaining their NPOA, perfecting trigger control, and all the myriad elements of precision marksmanship, the group sizes steadily shrunk and confidence grew. Targets talked, sights were adjusted using IMC, and Rifleman's Cadence was introducedâ€"and out came the dreaded timer! By lunchtime everyone was ready for a break and Sarea_51 took us down Battle Road to Concord and the "shot heard ‘round the world". The afternoon passed quickly with seated and standing positions along with transitions and mag changes. By midafternoon the heat had everyone ready for another break and the "rest of the story" was told by 9mm4545. By day's end Charlie had posted a 211 on the AQT with James and Don closely following with a 206 and 195 respectively. Instructor DavidJr. shot a very respectable 236 to easily re-qualify and showed that he not only can talk the talk but can walk the walk. Range rules required ending by 4 pm, a requirement that no one minded as the heat had taken its toll and folks were beginning to flag.

On Sunday we couldn't shoot until 1000 so from 0800 until then we had abundant time for a thorough review and a lesson on longer distance shooting by Pirate Girl. At 1000 hours precisely we engaged the Redcoat target where the tally showed much improvement over Saturday morning's results. Before lunchtime we had shot the first AQT of the day. To give the students a break, and a few of the instructors some well deserved trigger time, we demonstrated (with narration) a rapid fire AQT where DavidJr. shot the high score of the weekend with a 242. One rapid fire and two more regular AQTs hammered the lessons home and at the end of the day everyone was tired, hot, sweaty, and immensely proud of their solid achievements. James posted a 213 to earn a Rifleman patch while Kyle had to suffer the heartbreak of a 209. Every single shooter by the end of the weekend would graduate from boot camp as "qualified" with Scott, Kyle, Tyler, and Stacie earning Sharpshooter badges. But no matter the scores the substantial improvements made by every single student meant the instructors were well paid for their efforts over the weekend.

Due to the skilled contributions from our instructors the shoot ran like a well oiled machine and made this Shoot Boss's job easy. Thank you beyond words!

I will try to get some photos up soon. Your feedback, photos, and suggestions are most welcome. Now practice perfectly and persist. The results will be worth it! Hope to see y'all again soon.

An honor to work with such committed students and instructors alike! Lady Liberty was smiling indeed and we were "richly paid" in seeing the group making such significant improvements. There were many teachable attitudes among this group making instructing both fun and rewarding. Thank you! 😊
Students, please do that perfect dry practice we explained to retain what you learned and "shoot the score" next time. ðŸ'
Here's a short music video created from pictures by KOF & Rambo Granny. It's free to view in my Dropbox
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/9sjirusy0t95686/AABYzhDPmKu-Mpn8V4Swg-uva?dl=0

Leesburg, always a fun event!
The Students were Great the Instructors were Great. I
think all of the Orange hats were excellent and knew their Stuff.

When Pirate Girl is at an Event there is always Laughter. This Event was no different. But the best reply was from Charley to Rambo Granny asking him if he wanted an option for use in His sitting position, His reply was could He get someone else to shoot it for him. She did get Him to try using a chair to shoot from.

A big Thank You to the shoot boss and all the instructors at the Leesburg match this weekend!
James

It's always a pleasure to watch the reactions to the telling of the Three Strikes at an Appleseed! Kudos to all.

What a weekend!  I was so happy to see so many turn out for history, heritage and marksmanship.  I am personally very proud of all the shooters for their persistence in the face of extreme heat.  Like 9mm4545 said, it was hot!  But, no one quit, and scores improved throughout the weekend.  Some of you were revealed as Riflemen, while some of you are knocking at the door!  I was extremely excited to see that ALL of you made it out of bootcamp!  Huzzah!  2 days of training, when it takes the army 1 week to train for those kind of scores!  That is rare indeed.  I want to invite all of you to join us again at an event of your choosing, but especially the Leesburg Ares range.  The host range loves our program, and we love working with this range!  Please reach out with any questions you have or just to say hi!  See ya'll on the line!

An event I'm sorry I missed! If it's not raining Leesburg is a great place to experience what "field shooting" is all about. Kudos on a great event.

I wanted to thank everyone for such a great weekend!  Sarea_51 and I will definitely be back to the Leesburg shoot.  We look forward to working with everyone again.

David (KOF)

Shoutout to all the instructors, for a great 2-day event!