Bothell, WA - AAR - 8-9 March 2025

[Iborche]

The first two-day clinic of the year was quite the success! Thank you as always to WCW Shooting Sports for their support and to the nine shooters that joined us. Many of the instructors were fresh out of our skills development event the weekend prior and it showed!

We started Saturday with some framing for the year ahead - 250 years since the start of the American Revolutionary War. With a good distribution of skill levels and about a 50/50 split between scopes and iron sights we sent the opening rounds of the weekend, two shooters successfully hit Captain Morgan's Shingle with a cold bore shot. Shooters learned steady hold factors, the six things to do for every shot, and the secrets of the natural point of aim. By the end of Saturday, Rob showed practice and persistence pays off and shot a qualifying Rifleman score of 213!

Sunday morning had another chance for a cold bore shingle shot, this time four shooters made the shot, and one shooter cleared the whole target - well done Ross! A warmup AQT before lunch got a lot of the jitters out and shooters were doing very well afterwards. Ben was the next to qualify for a Rifleman patch with a score of 214. After jumping 10 points each AQT Steven squeaked by with a 210 but proved that was no mistake and shot a 224 on his next target, taking the highscore of the weekend. Paul made it happen on the last AQT of the event with a 211. Huzzah to all! Jamison was so close but I'm excited to see that 208 improve at the next event! Many others were almost there in the 190s. Volunteers also had an opportunity to re-qual and took advantage of it. Ultragtr with a 217, Birddog 219, and Gunsmoke Music had the volunteer highscore of 221.

Thank you to all the volunteers who came out to make this event run as smoothly as it did, especially the IITs who ended up doing most of the instruction and thank you again to all the students for choosing to spend your weekend with us. We hope to see you again soon!

[Jamison]

Thank you sir, last weekend was a great time. I'll be seeing you next month. Already signed up for April.

It was great going back to the fundamentals. I know the things I need to work through to get the patch.

Everyone was super helpful and a great resource. I've already recommended this to a few friends, and am trying to get them to attend. We'll see.

Jamison

[penglish]

Thanks to all of the instructors and volunteers! The ratio of coaches and volunteers to shooters was incredible and it was fantastic to get so many Q&A in.

Prior to Appleseed, I'd only shot a rifle at summer camp ~30 years ago, so I was entirely a beginner, and my wife hadn't shot a rifle ever. Starting from that point, I feel strongly that the 2 day class is the way to go as a one day would have been a real rush and struggle with new-to-us equipment and positions.

In hindsight I should have been a bit more serious about the need for a shooting mat and I'm very grateful for the loaners. I also didn't realize that the sling that came with my wife's (used) rifle was not the USGI sling! Easy / cheap to remedy, but again - thanks so much to the instructors/volunteers for providing a loaner.

We will certainly be taking Appleseed again! With plenty of dry fire practice beforehand of course.