Miamisburg, OH March 27/28

[DryFire]

What a great weekend to save the country We had a great group of people turn out to drink from the firehose this weekend. I will leave this as a place holder for the moment, everyone that was there please chime in. Hopefully Mogget can post some of her pics.

[Mogget]

Pictures as ordered.  First, meet Andrew.  Andrew wasn't given his Young Patriot Award this weekend.  No, Andrew earned his Young Patriot Award by sticking through an entire day of serious mud!  So for your viewing pleasure, here's Andrew!




Here's what Andrew's Mom gets to wash...

[Mogget]

And here are some of my favorite scenes from the weekend:

First, the target line early in the morning, followed by the firing line at about the same time.  Note the presence of grass.  






And after about an hour, here's the firing line again.  We don't stop an Appleseed for much of anything except perhaps lightening, so folks get a chance to learn how to "dress for success" on the range.






It only got worse as the day progressed.  By the time we shot our final Redcoats, we were in danger of losing our boots!  Fortunately, the the marksmanship has improved tremendously, so the Redcoats ran off and we left with our footwear.




More rain was expected on Sunday so we made our preparations Saturday night before dinner.  Boba Fett came up with fifteen bales of straw.  Here's Hoover spreading the straw while the rest put up Dryfire's fancy new overhead cover kits:




And here's some shots from Sunday so you can see how the straw and the overhead cover worked out.  The knees in the bottom right corner of the first picture belong to a mysterious new shooter who appeared early Sunday morning...  






In addition to the excellent overhead cover, note the silver tube near the feet of the shooter on the right.  That's a very neat little speed loader for a tube-fed rifle.  It has eight chambers, each of which can be prepped for a different load.  Very nice!

[MeanStreaker]

Mud Mud Mud Mud Mud.  

But this was an incredible event, with beautiful weather allowing all of us to hone our Marksmanship skills and reconnect with our Heritage.  Congrats to everyone on a very successful Appleseed.

Can't wait for the next one!

[M60FOREVER]

Great pics. It definitly was a mud hole. Doesn't look like it was as bad Sunday.

[Luna]

Great event.  Dryfire awesome job as SBIT.  It seems that we attract a lot of mud at our recent events.  It was great to see Mogget again since meeting her at an RBC last year.  Boba thank you for the feedback and keeping the pace Sunday.  Meastreaker as always provides the leadership needed to make a great event even better.

The shooters this weekend really had a desire to learn.  The improvement was event on the 2nd Redcoat Saturday afternoon but the smiles proved that the shooters truly enjoyed the entire experience.  This was a true test of commitment and  persistence.  Although we had only 1 Rifleman score it was obvious that we have many Rifleman in the making as the attitudes remained positive despite the conditions.  Congrats Regan on the Rifleman score and for stepping up and taking the Orange hat.

Working with Steve and his son Andrew Saturday was a pleasure.  They both tightened their groups throughout the day.  I hope to see them both at another event real soon.  Great job Andrew on earning your youth patch. 

Travis brough his mom, Valerie from TX, to the event this weekend.  They encouraged each other and continued to improve their groups.  It was evident that this family were true American Patriots sharing a weekend together learning skills and bonding in the history of our forefathers.

I can't wait for the next event....

[LindaFromAppleCreek]

What a way to spend my birthday!! 

Moggett scored my last AQT Saturday at 165, so I most assuredly am improving!

It was a great time, and I am hoping to get to another this year, and maybe bring a child or two.

Glad to have met all of you that I know from cyberspace!

[DryFire]

Thanks to everyone who came out and perservered through the mud and the wet.   It was a great weekend and we saw many people improve from the Saturday morning redcoat to the Sunday evening redcoat. M60 it was great that you guys could make it out and I hope you get a chance to take the instruction and apply it to your AR rifles. Don't forget to that in 2 weeks we have that shoot at Crittenden, KY where I believe Slim will have you guys shooting out to 300 yards. Linda it is always good to get to put a face with a name from OFCC, it is too bad you guys could only do Sat. but I look forward to seeing you guys at future events and to you, and Ted getting your patches.

I must say I was a bit shocked when I asked who had come the furthest and Valerie's hand shot right up. I was more suprised when she said she was from Texas. Talk about a shoot full of border raiders. Valerie it was great to have you and your son for the weekend, you were both a pleasure to work with and to see the improvement you made once we got you a rifle with a front sight you could see was great.    Andrew you should be proud of spending the day out in the cold laying in the mud making great groups. Hope your mom doesn't mind the muddy pants   There were just so many good folks it is hard to mention everyone. Melinda, it was good to see you again too, keep at it and I know you can get there. We missed you on Sunday and I know a few instructors were sad to see you couldn't make it back. I certianly couldn't have done it without my great interstate instructor crew, with folks like this the midwest is well squared away.

Regan I look forward to working with you on the trail. Don't worry about how often you can get out just get out. To do something no matter how small is far better than sitting on the coutch complaining and doing nothing.   Even though my name may be DryFire I can't ephasise it enough for everyone get down on that living room floor 2-3 times a week, work on stretching out into those positions practing that trigger squeeeeze, follow through and finding and verifying your NPOA quickly.

See you next time,
DryFire

[SoxInCincy]

Hey all!  Thanks for the awesome weekend!  It was an honor to shoot with all of you.  Instructors, thanks for everything.  You guys ran a great event and I learned a ton.  Hope to see you all on the line again soon!

[BadBigDog]

What an awesome day!
We brought too much mud home to get a kitchen pass for Sunday, but it was a painful loss for us.
Thank you to all the instructors--you all were great.  We learned a lot!
This was my son's first time shooting and you really made it a great experience for him.  That says a lot given the conditions.
Thanks for loaning us equipment.
The history was almost as enjoyable as the shooting.
We'll be back until we earn our patches.  And we'll be joining the RWVA.
A great group of people to hang out with.
Thanks to everyone.
-Steve

[MeanStreaker]

Hey Steve, hope to see you and your son again very soon!

[MeanStreaker]

(Finally had time to take some pics of one of the coolest things that has been "donated to the cause" yet -- other than all of our generous host ranges of course.)  

Early Saturday morning, a very nice older gentleman rolled into the parking lot and we started chatting.  He wasn't there to shoot, but had heard about us initially from a few Appleseeders passing out fliers at the Cincinatti Tea Party gatherings last year.  Then he heard reviews through members at his club that had attended here in Miamisburg and then read about us in Shotgun News.  He came to talk to me about attending his club's membership meeting to propose dates.  He was very happy to hear that I have already been in contact with his range's President and we're making progress.  I was turned away last year, but there has been a change in leadership and they seem much more willing to hear us out.

This Dangerous Old Man was a pleasure to converse with to kick off the weekend and I made sure to have him promise to bring friends and family to a shoot, and help us promote from within once we're officially on his club's calendar... as well as other Appleseed help we need elsewhere.  He said he'd be happy to pitch in.  We exchanged contact info and we'll be in touch.  He stayed around for the safety briefing and a little bit of the Daniel Morgan history we do to frame that first RedCoat target, shook our hands with his Tshirt that read, "I'm Fed Up!" and climbed into his pickup that sported a sticker reading the same.  


By the way, he brought some gifts for RWVA.  One is a very cool, old school shooting jacket with patches from the 1950's and 1960's.  Good historical stuff.  He said it's a few sizes too small for him nowadays and we need to give it to a young man that would make good use of it.

The second is below, which he told me, "I picked this out decades ago and just don't have the energy to do anything with it anymore.  I heard about you guys so I could bring this here and have a real Rifleman finish it off."  




He even "dedicated" it to us with writing on both sides:





I've had a lot of touching moments out on The Trail.  Most of them seem to come out of left field.  This is one of those that I won't soon forget.

[MamaBear]

I have to say that I LOVE the shelter that y'all set up for the shooters- a great idea if you don't have an easy-up- I'm not the "handy" type, but this would be a good thing to know how to do.  Does anyone have instructions/blueprints on how to set one up?

MB