Project Appleseed

We had a truly incredible weekend at the Piqua Fish and Game. Ten eager shooters filled our line for the Pistol Clinic. The rain that was in Saturday's forecast missed us and the entire weekend was warm and dry; a bit of a breeze kept conditions bearable, but temperatures in the mid eighties were still somewhat draining. History presentations given in the shade were very welcome!

As the group worked its way through the layers of instruction, along with the challenges and frustrations that can accompany it, connections with each other were made and friendships bloomed.  By Sunday afternoon our group of students and instructors had bonded into something much like a large family enjoying a great day together.

We began Sunday morning with a brief church service, which was offered before the start of official proceedings, all elected to come a few minutes early to attend. Thanks to WildBillCody for an extremely deep and thought provoking message.

There was a range of experience levels on the line, but probably half the shooters would classify themselves as beginners, but by Sunday afternoon great improvement and confidence were displayed.

We had one new Pistoleer™ over the weekend; Mike R. shot an impressive 232 with iron sights, congratulations Mike! He reconfirmed twice with both targets scoring 213. Our own IIT Messer454 proved he was staying in practice by reconfirming with a 211.

After lunch we dropped the line and placed a Steel target out at 44 yards, then allowed everyone to take a turn at making it ring.  Shooter confidence would build with every hit!

Next we set up the ever-popular dueling tree and shooters paired off against each other, each shooter prepped two magazines with ten rounds in each and had a one-minute time limit. The tree has six steel paddles (three on each side at the start) and rotate to the opposite side with a solid hit. The object is to clear all the paddles from your side and send them onto your opponent's. Not only is it a lot of fun, it also highlights issues that come out during the stress of changing situations.

We ran two more Pistol Qualification Tests before shooting the final Hits Count (Redcoat) target of the day. Sunday afternoon numbers showed great improvement in our group of shooters, probably due to the efforts of our amazing instructor crew of Doc Willi, Griffin, Messer454, Shadow870, Sheepdog180 and WildBillCody.

By the close of Sunday's activities everyone was pleasantly fatigued; the sun had sapped the last of our energy, but strangely we were reluctant to say farewell and end such a special time together.

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It was great meeting some new shooters and having some friends there too!  I hope to see everyone at another shoot soon!

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