Van Meter, Iowa - Known Distance - 05Oct2024

[IXOYE]

We had a fantastic Known Distance clinic in Van Meter, Iowa. Shooters came from all over, including two from St. Louis and one from Detroit. The temperature reached into the low 90's on Saturday but everyone pushed through it and we had three people qualify. On Sunday the temperature dropped and it was in the mid 50's in the morning rising to the mid 70's in the afternoon. Those cooler temps must have helped because we had multiple shooters qualify.

After some classroom instruction on Saturday we worked on developing everyone's ballistic data by shooting and documenting five sighters before shooting each stage of the AQT at the various distances. We then had time to shoot another AQT resulting in three shooters qualifying, two of which were requalifications.

We started Sunday with some classroom discussions followed by exercises to estimate ranges of various objects using our front posts or scope reticles. After completing the range estimation exercise we moved up to the 250 yard line to shoot Morgan's Shingle. Four people hit the shingle with several others hitting very very close.

We repeated collecting ballistic data while shooting our first AQT of the day. We followed that up with two more AQT's, ending just after 5:00 pm.

Out of eleven shooters, we had eight qualify to earn their known distance patch and one earning a distinguished patch. Most were shooting 223's with I think three shooting either a .308 or 30-06. A special shout out to Ken and Mitchell as a father/son team who both qualified on Sunday!

New KD Qualifiers:
Jack: 206/46, 220/43, 221/45, 236/48
Mitchell: 206/39
Brent: 197/40, 201/36
Seth: 221/42
Ken: 202/41
Nicholas: 225/46

KD Re-Qualifiers:
Adam: 205, 210/36, 224/45 (those last two with a red dot)
Braden: 209, 203/35, 206/43

Morgan's Shingle:
Braden
Jason
Will
Adam

Many thanks to Cort, Mark, and Brian for all their help instructing. Many thanks as well to the Des Moines Rifle and Revolver club for allowing us to rent their wonderful range and use of their clubhouse.

I will attach some pictures in a separate post.

[IXOYE]

Here are some pictures. If you click on them they will expand. Click on them again and they will collapse.

Prone at 300 yards

Prepping at 400 yards

Morgan's Shingle

Here are most of our Known Distance qualifiers (Minus Braden). I hope I got all the names correct.

Adam	Jack	Seth	Mitchell
Ken	Nicholas	Brent

[JHP]

Thanks Rex et al for putting on this great event! Learned a ton and had an incredible amount of fun developing a dope book for my rifle. Turns out there's a reason people enjoy shooting at longer ranges - who'd have thought? Definitely looking forward to continuing practicing these skills into the future.

[209Ken]

Thank you IXOYE and the Iowa cadre for hosting an excellent KD shoot!

Great instructors, great range, and great weather - could not ask for anything more.

Hopefully we'll meet up again on the Appleseed trail.