Port Townsend, WA - AAR - 14-15th March 2026 (WINTERSEED)

[CaptainRebop]

There is nothing quite like shooting in the snow to remind you how easy we generally have it these days in the PNW.  We are used to such mild winters that it's very rare for us to have true Winterseed conditions.  And yet, this cold and snowy March weekend proved that Rifleman can shoot in any weather!

Only 6 shooters from Washington (and 3 instructors) were hardy enough to join us at the Jefferson County Sportsmens Association for this weekend's events.  Forecasts had called for cool but sunny conditions on Saturday and some mild rain on Sunday.  The weather had other ideas...

As soon as we finished our safety briefing and posted Hits Count targets it began to snow.  Even our experienced shooters had to tackle cold fingers, gloves, or multiple jackets - just enough to ensure that not one of our shooters was able to hit the 400yd silhouette.  2 of our shooters managed to hit Morgan's Shingle (General Gage, take care of your nose). 

Our small instructor team got to work teaching the fundamentals of rifle marksmanship.  We covered the usage of the USGI Loop Sling, the 6 Steps of Firing the Shot, Natural Point of Aim, and the Steady Hold Factors for each position.  This group was highly motivated, and once we had rifles fit to shooters they were shooting 6-8 MOA groups very quickly.  Several of our shooters were advanced enough we had to improvise some 2 MOA targets just to challenge their skills.  Despite this, our Saturday AQT yielded no Riflemen.

On Sunday we no longer had to contend with snow, but it was just as cold.  True cold bore shots on Morgan's Shingle on Sunday morning resulted in another 2 hits, and Bill cleared the entire target - congratulations Bill!

Sunday was a fantastic day of review and AQTs, with one small hiccup:  about 2pm, half of our shooters had lost zero on their rifles!  We ended up posting another squares target, running IMC just like BirdDog taught us, and everyone was back on target!  This quick re-zero resulted in 2 Rifleman scores:  Deb (215) and Matt (213).  Both of these folks are returning Riflemen and I was very pleased to award them with Winterseed patches for their perseverance in the cold.  Congratulations!

Shooters, please remember the value of persistence.  You all got a small taste of what it's like to be out in the elements; think about what it was like for the folks who persisted in preserving your liberties.  It's a much smaller task for us to preserve those liberties, but Riflemen are persistent in all things.  Keep up your dry practice, and please join us again!

Thanks to the Jefferson County Sportsmens Association for hosting us on the 50yd range this weekend!  It was the perfect venue to learn a little bit of history and a lot of marksmanship!

To BirdDog and ShadowCatcher, thank you for everything this weekend.  Our 3-man team made this event a rousing success!

A few pictures from our event:

Our small group of shooters prepping magazines:


One of our shooters attempts the Hits Count target standing!


An unexpected flurry:


Fundamentals are the same in any weather:


Deb scores Rifleman and is awarded a Winterseed patch!


Matt scores Rifleman and is awarded a Winterseed patch!