Evansville, IN KD AAR October 19-20, 2024 (Red Brush Rifle Range)

[sur+rifle]

It is Autumn so time for our annual Appleseed KD course at Red Brush Rifle Range near Evansville, IN.  The amazing weather was only surpassed by the amazing participants at this sold-out two-day event!
 
The first day began in the classroom with sessions on IMC, Trajectory, come ups and collecting data.  About half the group had mil-calibrated scopes so time was taken to give examples in both MOA and mils.  We also had some special history where relics from the 1770s including a London newspaper with stories on Hugh Percy's departure from America and the tactics colonists used to "harass" the British forces.   We then moved to a 100-yard bay where the students shook out their equipment, refined their accuracy, and got familiar with the sighting systems on the centerfire rifles.  100-yard AQTs were conducted which got everyone in practice for the 400-yard AQT the next day.  At the end of the day, the rifle sights were zeroed to 25 yards as an approximate Battle Sight Zero of 300 yards for the next day. 

The second day started with Morgan's Shingle at 250 yards.  The twelve shooters were joined by four members of the instructor corps for a total of sixteen striving to join Morgan's cadre.  Congratulations to Neil and Alessio for earning their Cold Bore Morgan's Rifleman patch!  The marksmanship instruction continued with the other aspects of the three challenges to distance shooting.  We then moved to the 500-yard bay for full distance AQTs.  This was intermingled with excellent history presentations by Jayshoneybunny, Old DominionIron, and Geek.
We ended the instruction of the second day with a zeroing exercise at 500 yards to put proof to the rifleman's quarter mile.  It was an impressive number of 500-yard hits with just the 'theoretical' come-ups.

In the awards ceremony we had a lot of patches to give out!  Congratulations to Reagan on earning his Rifleman patch, Peter, Mike, Neil, Caleb, & Alessio on earning their Known Distance bar, and Alessio & Caleb earning Distinguished bars! 

Thank you to all the shooters for your attention, engagement, and positivity throughout the event.  I look forward to seeing all of you on the line in the future. 

And a very big thank you to the instructor corps of Big John, Geek, Jayshoneybunny, Darkfoot, OldDominionIron, AlexandraTheGreat, ShootNDrive, and TheGunslingingGamer and for making this shoot such a success.

NOTE: Photos to come in the following days.

[Big John]

This was a good shoot with very hard working and determined shooters. The first day had good instruction, good history, good shooting, and a new rifleman and a requalifier score. We rolled into the second day with more instruction and we employed the 500 yard line to our advantage, with a sight calibration at 25, the Morgan's Shingle event via the much anticipated feedback of a cold steel plate target, then the rest of the day at 100, 200, 300, 400, and finally 500 yards.

Although we broke for lunch and history, much of the time was the rifleman's dance between targets and firing line. We closed the day after some AQTs with acquiring 500 yard data and ended with awards and a second benediction.

Captions
Instruction with the Shoot Boss.
Safety Rules with Alexandra the Great
Line commands with Old Dominion Iron.
The firing line in prone.
And again.
Standing position instruction with AtG and ODI.
Seated position instruction with ODI and AtG.
Isaac in the foreground in prone with his brothers next to him.
Dust was an issue from muzzle blast and noticeable at impact.
Reagan scores Rifleman.
Neil requalifies rifleman.
Father and son.
Geek orates on Morgan's Shingle.
Neil joins the ranks of Morgan's men.
Alessio joins the rank of Morgan's men.

[Big John]

More pictures

Captions
The line for standing at 100
Sighters prone at 200
AtG, a clock, and the line commands. Line Boss at work.
We fit 12 shooters into the 500 yard bay and only had to move 1 target line to make it work. Efficiency!
Red, white, and blue rifleman transport vehicles. Patriotic efficiency!
As the sun comes down in the afternoon, those targets are so far away.
Seated, on the way back to 200.
Peter qualifies known distance.
Mike (Myraddah) qualifies known distance.
Neil qualifies known distance.
Alessio qualifies distinguished known distance
Caleb qualifies distinguished known distance and rifleman. That's a lot of patches to hold at one time.
The Bryant family is intergenerational Appleseed.
This video still shows muzzle blast off a Mini 14. We shot till dusk.

[Geek]

This was a great weekend.  We ran things a little differently and it seemed to work well.  Congrats to those that hit the shingle at 250 with that cold bore shot.  To the folks that made score of 40 or better at distance, you know very well what you are about. 

It was nice seeing families attend as well.  For those that feel that cold use a little more time working on the basics, come to another 25M event and hone your skills.  Dryfire is also your cheapest way to improve your 6 steps of making the shot, NPOA, and the Steady Hold Factors.

I look forward to seeing you folks again at another event.

[Myrradah]

I was sore the next day and didnt even transition. Man im getting old....

Great weekend all. As I said I meant to learn that scope and I did. I missed that shingle because the BC is off but Ill get it next time with my data!

Thanks for the awesome weekend all. Learned a lot

[Jayshoneybunny]

Great event.  Glad to see old friends and make new friends.

[OldDominionIron]

A super group of shooters and cadre, a beautiful facility, and a great fall weekend in the Hoosier state. I will be back.

ODI