AAR Muenster, TX Pistol Clinic May 24-25, 2025

[mrakestraw]

Overview, History, and Weather
We had a great pistol clinic at the Goin Firearms Range in Muenster, Texas! We had 13 students come out and brave the potential storms and heat to learn history, heritage, and pistol fundamentals. With great help from our instructors, ranging from Red to Silver Hats, this event was extremely successful. Every student learned and had a great time!
 
Both days were very busy, and every second was used for history. The standard instruction of six steps of firing a shot, talking targets, and more was done by the numbers, but we demoed some of the course of fire, more on that below. The three strikes, Sam and Sam, and equipment selection was provided at key opportunities throughout both days.

The weather ranged from nice and cloudy to bright and hot. We took more breaks the second day in the cool air conditioned classroom. Thankfully the students brought their own canopies which provided much welcomed shade on the line. If your range is not covered, canopies are absolutely the way to go! I made a note of it to ask for canopies in the future. Direct sun can make pistols extremely hot to hold, so towels and canopies help to make the event more enjoyable and efficient.

With great instruction and practice we saw scores increase across the board from only a few shooters qualifying on the initial hits count target to a majority of shooters performing well on the afternoon Hits Count target on Sunday.
 

Lightbulb Moments
We had a lot of "lightbulb" moments with various shooters on the line. These were times when the students or instructors made their own discoveries of how applying good fundamentals with appropriate techniques will get great results. Here is a list of some of these lightbulb moments:

- The biggest one students had across the board was increasing pressure with their support hand. Increased support hand pressure leads to a more repeatable sights.

- One shooter was struggling with reloading and racking the gun. By getting a lot of hands on experience throughout the weekend she started to perform extremely well under pressure on the Hits Count target.

- I and another instructor demoed some parts of the course of fire, such as grip and single handed shooting. Students found this helpful as some people learn by watching. This really came in handy when showing the Big Dot/Little Dot drill on the second day, especially when the heat started to affect us. It's one thing to describe a course of fire, but it's another to show it.

- On the second day we tried a morning review with light stretching. An overview of day 1 was given afterwards, but oftentimes having the students hear what other students found useful really helps. Stretching helps out a lot and later on a student commented that he really needed that stretch.
 

Pistoleer™ Patches
The students came equipped to shoot well! A majority of shooters qualified for Pistoleer™! I actually ran out of Green and Tan Pistoleer™ patches, which is a good problem to have! For some students it took a simple night's rest and a morning review session to have all of the information gel together. Scores rose across the board, even on the second day.

We even had two distinguished shooters, one was our very own MackeyMorgan! Both distinguished shooters ran scores in the mid 240's and both were running red dot pistols. Both shooters cleared the Hit Counts target multiple times! This goes to show that classes are only a small bit of learning how to shoot well. Purposeful consistent practice will yield excellent results.


Conclusion
I want to thank all of our shooters and instructors for a safe and fun shoot. For all shooters seeking a patch or shooting excellence, consistent dry practice will get you there. Come back to another clinic and bring a friend!

[LittleMissE]

I would love to give a HUGE thank you to mrakestraw and to all of the instructors for being so patient, informative, and making my first ever Appleseed experience one to remember! My confidence has been through the roof ever since & I am so excited to discover more about Appleseed & attend more events:) Again, thank you all so, so very much!!!