AAR Piru CA Feb 19-20 2011

[V]

After weeks of fine SoCal weather, we got a storm forecast for this weekend. Indeed it did rain Friday giving us an interesting mud ramp up to the range, but Saturday morning dawned bright and sunny with seven bold, enterprising Americans, out to sample this thing called Appleseed despite the forecast.

Introductions by me, Dan(753x0), Peter (Mr Pete), found that we had a repeat Appleseeder, two friends who saw the flyers in the local gunshop, a father and daughter who'd heard about it online, and Dan's son.

After welcome, introductions and briefings and the usual Red Coat performance we got down to the Marksmanship.

The rain was kind enough to hold off until the sharing of History where we huddled cosily under the "shade". We lost three of the guys in the afternoon, because of prior commitments, not because of the weather, no couldn't be that as it was pointed out that Cynthia persevered with the shooting.

We got a couple of AQTs and a red-coat in before having to call it a day as the local PiRu wind arrived late, and simply tore the soaking targets off the backers. So we ended slightly early at 4 with our repeat Appleseeder Pete making an impressive 222 on the first AQT

But, everyone arrived back on Sunday, and in addition we had previous Appleseeder Colby arrive with instructor Joey(Cowgirlducky). Sunday was warm and sunny all day, so once the challenge of the mud ramp was met, things went smoothly, well apart from equipment problems. Some combination of ammo, moisture, whatever gave us a low but niggling rate of malfunctions on the LTRs (we swapped mags, ammo, rifles) and Mike with his friends mini-30 had magazine problems (his prep was 3 and 9 to account for the failure to feed the last round everytime). The rear sight of the mini-30 also kept falling loose (once loctited and torqued his groups amazingly improved - whoda thunk it).

So with improvement allround we unfortuanely didn't get anymore Riflemen scores... but it was obvious from the discussions during lunchtime history that we had plenty of Riflemen spirits present.

Our erstwhile supporter, Mike Thompson the range owner, dr.opped round for a few words at lunch, and we had a visit from our Rifleman form last weeks Sunland shoots who's going to be out with friends at the next Piru shoot in March (12-13).

Look forward to seeing you all again on the the Appleseed Trail in the coming months.

Cheers
Phil "V"

[V]

Red Coats
                   Sat                   Sun
               am      pm        am         pm
400         0          2           0            1
300         1          1           1            3
200         3          0           1            1
100         1          0           2            0
0             2          1           1            1

HS          1          3            2           2
Cleared   0          2           0           0

[Mr Pete]

If everything always went smoothly we would never learn anything!  There would be no chances to improvise, adapt, overcome or persevere.  There would be no chance to surprise yourself, excel or succeed against the odds.

Eric and Mike suffered through all manner of equipment issues but followed through until the closing Redcoat.  In spite of the frustration they resolved to be better prepared for the next shoot asking about LTRs and other equipment.  I can't wait to welcome them back.  For me, these are the people who are deserving of my time away from my family and friends.

Pete was shooting well enough (222) on a cold, wet, miserable Saturday and needed more of a challenge.  On our sunny Sunday we threw him a Mossberg M44 (bolt action)...no surprise he hit a rifleman's score!

Appleseed isn't just where I try to inspire...it is also where I am inspired.

-Pete