Missoula, MT April 21-22 Patriot's Day AAR

[peterlandsiedel]

The Western Montana Fish and Game Association shooting range (aka the "Deer Creek" range) hosted this years Patriot's Day shoot.  Eleven shooters and three instructors mustered at the range for a weekend of marksmanship, history, and camaraderie.

I want to thank each and every one of you for coming out and improving yourselves and learning more about the importance of civic engagement in our country.  We were very fortunate to have Eert (Pat) from ID make the drive to do most of the heavy lifting for me!  Slainte (Dolan) took some time off work and did a fantastic job working with individual shooters and covering several points of instruction throughout the weekend, and earning himself a promotion as an instructor in training.

I'm not embellishing when I say that this group of shooters showed more improvement in their marksmanship than any other group I've instructed in the past 5 years.  You all had teachable attitudes and I could tell you were excited about shooting. Barry came out and requal'd as a rifleman, and then graced us with his M1 Garand.  Stu and Jeff scored rifleman this weekend, at their first shoot! Congrats to all three of you.  We had at least 3 other shooters hitting in the high 190s, low 200s throughout the weekend, and I am confident they will qualify as rifleman at their next shoot. 

It was a pleasure meeting and working with all of you.  Eert, thank you again for making the drive out.  Slainte, thanks for rearranging work plans to come out to the shoot.  I could not have done it without either of you.  Also thanks to Paul V. for bringing a number of shooters out with him! Finally, thank you to the Deer Creek range for being stalwart supporters of Project Appleseed. I hope to see all of you at another shoot soon!

[wstrngnnt]

I had a blast shooting this weekend.

Thanks for talking me into shooting a AQT with the Garand, not that it took a lot of convincing. Was one of the finger things I've done in a while.

[peterlandsiedel]

I was gonna say, it really didn't take much convincing! 

Glad to hear you had a great time. Look for an email from me re: getting an orange hat on your head...

[Slainte]

It was a great shoot with a great group of shooters.  I enjoyed helping Peter and Eert instruct.  The Garand was great to see and I loved the reaction of the 10/22 shooters at her first bark.  Our young shooter was really surprised.
I look forward to working with return shooters at the next ‘seed.