Bothell, WA, Rimfire KD, August 24/25, 2024, AAR

[Prescott]

The WCW Shooting Sports range in Bothell, WA hosted our second Rimfire KD event for 2024.  This is a fantastic facility for shooting of this style of an event.   In addition, the range hosts are very supportive of the Appleseed mission and I am looking forward to participating in more events at this range.

Initially this event was sold out, but a couple students need to withdraw as they had not yet finishing harvesting their fields.   While they were missed, I hope they had a bountiful harvest.

The instructors were very complimentary of this group of shooters.   They were all mentally and physically prepared for the rimfire KD event.  They had their gear all prepared and had been practicing their marksmanship and were ready to show off their skills...and they did just that.

Congratulations to Daniel R, Daniel P, Matt, Fan and Amy for shooting the shingle on the Morgan's rifleman challenge on your first shot of the event on Saturday.   Dan G, Megan and Curtis shot their shingle on Sunday.   CaptainRebop actually provided wood shingles for each student at this event.  He took the time to cut actual cedar shingles to scale and these were hung at 125 yards.   This made for a nice keepsake for those that hit the shingle.

This range requires the students to walk from the covered firing line to their targets.  In addition, the 50 yard and 100 yard target lines need to be built and disassembled when shooting at those distances.  This ended up causing the time monkey to get the best of us, and the students were unable to develop their 200 come ups on Saturday.  Therefore, the students were unable to complete an AQT on Saturday.  However, the event ran more efficiently on Sunday, and the students were able to shoot plenty of AQTs.   This allowed Dimitry, Ian, Leo, Matt and Megan to shoot their first Rifleman's scores and earn their patch.   For those that already had their rifleman patch; Dan R, Dan P and Curtis earned their Rimfire KD patch.  Amy also repeated as a KD rifleman.   Huzzah, Huzzah, Huzzah!

For those that did not earn their Rimfire KD patch, there should be a couple opportunities to earn it next year.   Keep an eye on the Appleseed event schedule for events in 2025.  Also, keep practicing your marksmanship skills through dry practice at home.   Remember, it isn't just Practice to make Perfect...it takes perfect practice to make perfect techniques.   Refer to your Guide to Rifle marksmanship or watch on-line video to refresh your knowledge of the AS shooting techniques.

I would also like to thank the three shooters that volunteered to become new Appleseed Instructors in Training.   I appreciate your commitment to stepping up and helping Project Appleseed in spreading the mission to inspire the hearts and minds of Americans with the Heritage of our Country.

I look forward to seeing all of you again on the Appleseed trail.

[CaptainRebop]

A few pictures I took this weekend that I felt like sharing:

Our Shingle crew from Saturday (sadly I forgot to get a picture of the Sunday crew):


These cedar shingles were especially fun because you can see the angle of the trajectory before the impact - very steep with a rimfire round!


I'll also share a quick picture of the target we used for our ranging exercise:


The left target was placed at 175 yards, making the 14" blue square appear to be 8 MOA in size.
The right target was placed at 125 yards, making the 10" blue square appear to be 8 MOA in size.

A large majority of our shooters correctly ranged the target and scored a first round hit! 

Thanks for sharing your weekend with us!

[Prescott]

New Rifleman!

[topper]

That bullet trajectory photo is pretty neat. I had no idea that would be the angle of entry at 125 yards.

[matt65537]

Prescott—thanks for coming out to WA and doing this event.  And also thanks to all the other instructors.  I really enjoyed the event and I thought it was great how the instructors were flexible with helping everyone get their elevations dialed in despite the time constraints.  (One note:  you gave me a rifleman patch but didn't include me in the list above—no worries except I want to make sure the formal records  are right in case I order something from the store that requires verification)

At the Appleseed back in June I had trouble with the plastic receiver on my M&P 15-22 flexing with sling tension and affecting my POI.  That wasn't all bad because I ended up getting in a lot of practice tracking down the problem, and between that and the CMMG* dedicated upper I put together things went a lot better this time. 

The photo of all the new rifle persons makes me happy—at least two of them were also trying at the event in June.  Nice work!

*My upper is "CMMG compatible" but nothing except the bolt was actually branded CMMG.  I had a couple folks ask me about it and I don't think I explained it very well.  The barrel is from "Dirty Bird Industries" and the upper receiver and handguard are "NBS" brand.  I had the bolt already from a CMMG bolt and 4.5" barrel kit I bought a while back when I built a "Han Solo blaster". 

[JustKim]

Very cool!  I like that you used a cedar shingle and that you are able to see the trajectory.

Congrats to everyone scored!