Macon, GA 25m event November 4-5 AAR

[Roswell]

Another great weekend at the Marion Road Gun Club in Macon, Georgia! This was a make-up event due to injury and illness on the Instructor cadre. It was very nice to be able to make this up to the club and the shooters. Thank you to MRGC and Club President Kyle Turner for being very accommodating.

Saturday morning dawned with 6 eager Patriots ready to hear the story of April 19th, 1775. We began the morning by framing things with the First Strike of the Match as told by Captain John Parker.We then moved to Safety before retrieving our rifles for the morning Hits Count target. We had some shooters for sure! Half the shooters got the 400 yard target and 1 shooter cleared it! Good job Mike! (apologies for not getting a picture)

Not wanting to reinforce any possible bad habits though, we put the ammo up for a bit as the fire hose of instruction was opened up. Eye Dominance --> Sling Use --> 6 Steps of Firing the Shot --> Natural Point of Aim (NPOA) --> Prone Position --> Rifle fitting and Prone Position Exercise --> Dry Fire Trigger Exercise. Then we went live again on some squares. 

We got ahead of the game by covering Talking Targets --> Shooting a square to reinforce it --> Going over Inches, Minutes, and Clicks (IMC) --> Shooting a square to reinforce it. All before lunch! 

At lunch we heard the Second Strike of the Match.


We then performed a combined Rifleman's Cadence and Carding the Sights Drill.







After that, things started to get interesting! We did a combined Magazine Change and Target transition Drill. Twice. Then Captain Parker joined us again for the Third Strike of the Match. Refreshed, we got back to it with Transition to Prone with a dry practice followed by Stage 3 of the Appleseed Qualification Test (AQT). Next was Seated Position(s) --> Transition to Seated --> Dry Practice --> Stage 2 of the AQT. Standing was next followed by Stage 1 of the AQT and finally Stage 4.

I have often referred to Stage 4 as the nap stage. Because you can shoot some, take a nap, and then finish it off. Sometimes shooters take me seriously...






The day was going so good that we even had time for another AQT! Well, everyone, except Don who had to leave for a wedding.  Had he stayed though, he'd of seen his partner in crime, Mike re-qualified with a 214! To put even more icing on the cake, with us down to 5 shooters, we still had 4 get the 400 yard target and quite a bit of improvement with our other shooter that was very new to rifle shooting entirely. 3 Shooters even cleared the target! Huzzah! Well done Mike, George and Dennis! We closed out the day with the story of Timothy Murphy and how one person can make a difference.

1 cleared Hits Count target!

[Roswell]

Sunday saw 5 Patriots return as one had a previous Church obligation. With the time change the night before, we all felt pretty refreshed and ready to get down to work. We began with some history from 1776 before diving into review. We reviewed Sling Use --> NPOA --> Prone --> Sitting --> Standing --> 6 Steps --> Talking Targets --> IMC. With the review done, we went over safety before retrieving our rifles from the car for the morning Hits Count target.

Yankee Davey then Instructed us on Rifleman's Bubble --> Rifleman's Dance --> Ball and Dummy.







Some of our advanced shooters, got really creative and tried shooting while balancing a piece of .22 brass on the barrel.


Having checked off the last two items on the list, Yankee Davey earned his red hat!!! 





We then promptly put him to work calling the line while we retired his orange hat.   





Very short video as I took a turn shooting too, 

https://imgur.com/Ilsb0Ad

Just like yesterday, we found ourselves well ahead of schedule and dove into 2 AQTs before lunch. 











At Lunch we heard some Dangerous Old Men stories. Hezekiah Wyman, Pitcairn's Letters, David Lamson & Mother Batherick, Samuel Whitemore, and Nancy Hart. We finished our time at the 25m range with 2 more AQTs. Then the Shoot Boss instructed on the 3 Tasks of the Rifleman, a.k.a. Known Distance Shooting, while the other Instructors scored targets and got us ready to move to the 100yd range.

When the white smoke of hundreds of .22s had cleared we had many Riflemen among us!!!

Dennis got a 218! (asked not to be pictured)

Don re-qualified ( a few times I believe)



Joey qualified with one of my favorite numbers, 223!





This must have been Yankee Davey's day as he re-qualified and earned distinguished with a 243! 



We then packed things up and headed to the 100 yard range! First we shot with no adjustments. Then we measured the drop that the shooters correctly assumed would occur. We converted those to clicks, made adjustments and shot a confirmation group. Down range, we saw that everyone was pretty much on so, we took turns shooting steel.  A friendly contest, saw Joey the winner. Congratulations sir! Enjoy your well-earned Project Appleseed Pin. 







I'll say it again. What a great weekend! Thank you to MRGC, the shooters, and my fellow Instructors. Congratulations to Yankee Davey and the new Riflemen! To all of you, keep up the perfect practice. I hope to see you all on the line again soon. You all have what it takes to be Riflemen.

In Liberty,
Roswell