Ramah, CO AAR - June 29th-30th, 2024 KD

[Lead Sled]

Intermediate range shooting on the high plains of Colorado is back in 2024 with our Known Distance event at Ben Lomond Gun Club in Ramah, CO!

We greatly appreciate Ben Lomond Gun Club supporting our KD event at their range. It is truly a world-class facility.

The weather was very pleasant over the course of the weekend. Not too hot, and just enough wind to deal with to make things interesting.

On day 1, we kicked off the weekend shooting Morgan's Shingle! The satisfying PING of rounds impacting steel rang out across the range as we had two students nail the shingle. Peter and Keith were the newest members of Morgan's Rifle Corps! Everyone certainly gained a newfound appreciation for the level of marksmanship required to be a rifleman during the American Revolution.

We then moved into an introduction of the three challenges of a rifleman so everyone could get familiar with the plan for tackling those challenges throughout the weekend. We quickly reviewed sling use and the prone position as a refresher for everyone before getting sighted in at 100 yards and reviewing sight adjustments.

We then spent some time deep diving trajectory and ballistics. The wind was calm on Saturday morning, so we got onto the range and started gathering trajectory data and formulating come ups and refining those. We talked about effective data gathering and the importance of data and recording meaningful data. We started with the standard come ups, which got everyone on paper and with a little refinement, everyone was making good hits out to 400 yards!

By lunch time, the wind was becoming a factor that couldn't be ignored, so over lunch we talked about wind, making wind calls and heard the story of Timothy Murphy.

After lunch we reviewed the sitting/kneeling and standing positions, and we had enough time to shoot an AQT! We spent the remainder of the afternoon shooting the AQT, refining come ups and looking at how wind could affect making the shot at the various distances. After we wrapped up the AQT, two rifleman emerged! Ben and Peter took home a Known Distance rocker! Day 1 wrapped up with everyone feeling like they had a chance to really start to address the skills needed to shoot out to 400 yards.

Day 2, the wind was a factor, blowing 10-15 MPH for most of the day. We kicked off again by giving everyone the chance to shoot the shingle. Two more students connected, becoming members of Morgan's Riflemen, congratulations to Ben and Brian for making the cold bore shot! Keith also connected again, making his second cold bore shot on the shingle for the weekend! Congratulations to everyone who hit the shingle.

We jumped straight into sling use review, and some tips from Luminous Rabbit about ways to return to zero if you get lost dialing your turrets on an optic, both great things that were beneficial to everyone on the line. We dove back into the AQT after a reconfirmation of zero at 100 yards. Everyone was getting great practice in the inevitable lesson of reading the wind if you shoot out west. After the dust settled from the AQT, we had another rifleman! Brian came back strong on day 2 and shot a 43, after barely missing the mark on day 1 with a 39. Everyone on the line saw marked improvement in AQT scores on day 2, and we could see the hard work of addressing the three challenges of a rifleman paying off.

We broke for lunch and heard the stories King's Mountain, Dr. Joseph Warren, and the Battle of Cowpens. After lunch, we dove into the one challenge of the rifleman we hadn't covered in detail up to that point: range estimation. We covered techniques for range estimation and battlesight zero along with some equipment considerations relating to both.

After the academic portion, it was time to put the theory to practice! We setup some steel on the range, and everyone was provided with the width of the steel targets. All the students used their equipment to gather the necessary information to estimate the range to those targets, and then we had the opportunity to use that estimated range to hit those targets. We even introduced some friendly competition and handed out a prize to the person with the most hits. After giving everyone the chance to make some hits, we had tie for high score! Robert and Peter both made 4 out of 6 hits on our targets! For their efforts they both received a Revolutionary War era flag! Everyone had a lot of success making hits after estimating target range and I think everyone enjoyed trying something new and very applicable to becoming a rifleman! Thanks to all the students for making the most of this exercise and for demonstrating a thorough understanding of all three challenges of a rifleman, all of which were needed for this exercise.

We wrapped up the weekend with another AQT, and I think everyone came away with a wealth of knowledge about addressing the three challenges of a rifleman, about their equipment and about the importance of marksmanship during the American Revolution!

A big thanks to our students for spending the weekend at our 2024 Known Distance Event! Your positive attitudes and willingness to learn made the weekend really enjoyable. It was a great shooting with you!

Many thanks to our team of instructors: Luminous Rabbit, flux, NewBlood and bravhrt for making this event happen. It was a great weekend!