Bothell, WA – AAR – 16-17 November 2024

[Iborche]

What an event! Fourteen very eager shooters joined us for our final two-day event at the WCW Shoot Sports range, some shooters new, others returning with more friends. Faced with an early sunset and reduced shooting light, this group was incredibly efficient and clearly wanted to send as many rounds as possible downrange. They wasted no time in putting up impressive sighter groups while enduring the chill of the weekend. Not quite Winterseed conditions but getting close. We don't often complete an AQT on Saturday with time to spare but this group listened well and absorbed instruction like a sponge to make it happen! Mark W was our first Rifleman of the event with a score of 210 on Saturday and he proved again on Sunday this was not a fluke with re-qualifying scores of 217 and 221.

On Sunday review went by quickly, none of this was new to these shooters at this point. They were ready for more drills, AQTs, and moving with such a purpose I was starting to think we'd run out of the planned drills and would have to come up with new ones on the fly! Isabella scored 222, Josh 215 240, Michael J 216, Ben H 215, Chris 226, and Joe finished with a 211 on the last AQT of the weekend after previous attempts had gotten him as close as 208. For all these shooters it was their first time achieving Rifleman. Everyone else was incredibly close, multiple shooters in the 200+ range but not quite able to reach the Rifleman qualification before daylight told us it was time to wrap up. With consistent dryfire, fine-tuning of the steady hold factors, practice maintaining a comfortable and stable position, and acquiring NPOA quickly, I have no doubts every shooter who was at this event will earn themselves a path. Thank you for an excellent finish to 2024 and excited to see you back in 2025!

[Iborche]

Upon further review, Josh's qualifying 215 was vastly under scored. He and another instructor had been focusing on stage 4 to determine if the target should be a 211 or 215, but we'd missed that only one of the silhouettes in Stage 2 had been counted. I uploaded the target into Ballistic-x for a virtual re-score with the 30 caliber rule, which justified an in-person re-score, which confirmed Josh's first rifleman score was not a 215, but a distinguished 240. Lots of dry-fire over the past year pays off! My mistake for only looking at the number on the targets that were handed to me instead of the group sizes.

[RJL20]

Shooting a 240 AQT at my second Appleseed was beyond anything I expected! I thought I had a decent chance of qualifying, so I was already happy when I thought my score was 215.

Once again, I have to hand it to all the volunteers for running a super smooth event, making adjustments on the fly when (for example) rain soaked through someone's target and folded it in half, and generally just having their act together. The history presentations were engaging and thoughtful, and the marksmanship instructions and demonstrations were top notch.

I've already registered for another Appleseed in the spring and look forward to signing up for a KD in the summer.