AAR Holderness, NH April 17-18, 2010

[Redchrome]

April 17-18th 2010
Pemigawasset Fish & Game Club
www.pemi.org
Holderness, NH

SB: Redchrome
Instructor: Firewall99

New Hampshire has been having an unseasonably warm spring... except this weekend, when it decided to snow and then alternate between snow and rain. The snow and hail started Friday, then proceeded to snow until it turned to rain on Saturday afternoon, and then drizzle in fits and starts throughout Sunday. Fortunately, there was a covered firing line with a very large roof, good walls, and plenty of space beneath for shooting, preparing magazines & gear, and assembling to talk.

We had 5 shooters show up on Saturday. 2 had M1As, one had an M1 Garand, and in a remarkable coincidence the other two both showed up with long-barreled (28" bbls!) CZ452s.  As a side note, a .22LR cartridge fired out of a 28" locked breech barrel (such as a bolt action), makes less noise than my air rifle. Two shooters had M1907 slings; the other three had various varieties of web slings. We broke into two groups, with me instructing the M1907 sling users; and Firewall99 instructing the web sling users. It was a real pleasure to show people the use of the M1907 sling; and watch them learn to use it competently.

At noon I took the students back to the clubhouse for some hot chili and history. Went through the preliminaries and the First Strike over lunch. I love teaching that part of history; history gets dull if you just say what people did... but if you can tell them *why* it happened the students may find parallels in their own knowledge and experiences that make it all relevant.

We got to doing AQTs after lunch; and had a great time with the Commemorative Volley. My voice is still rough and sore from shouting the names of the fallen. We got our first volley off at *exactly* 4pm EST; and it was a glorious occasion. Much smoke and smell from the .30 cals under that covered line; very satisfying.

Sunday started off marginally warmer; with occasional rays of sun breaking through the clouds. 4 shooters came back that day. We got a lot more shooting in Sunday; and managed to squeeze in some 200-yard shooting. Much fun was had by all, and some important lessons were learned. Everyone felt like it was a tremendous lesson in how to prepare for shooting at that range.

Many smiles and handshakes all around as we departed at the end of the day on Sunday.

[Firewall99]

ALL of the pre-registered shooters showed up despite miserable weather.  What a bunch of real troopers.  They were a pleasure to teach, too.  Sounds like New Englanders to me.

Carl did a masterful job SB'ing his first shoot.  What he forgot to mention was that by his perseverance, we actually got everybody moved over to the 200 yard range and shot an abbreviated actual distance COI at 200.

When he suggested we do this, there were some seemingly insurmountable obstacles.  I hadn't seen the new, trimmed, "full size" KD targets, the usual KD targets were too big for our regular, 25 meter backers, and the club's regular 200 yard backers that fit in their pop-up pit stands were locked in a shed.  Not good.

(Whoever figured out to trim the KD targets should get a medal.  That is one of the smartest things I've seen.  Not only does it cut down on shipping weight, but now they fit regular sized target backers!  Bulkhead and the rest of you guys back there doing logistics, you did an outstanding job.)

So we pulled up four target stands and three target backers and easily set them up one bay over.  Took ten minutes.  Then we shot several rounds at 200, and the M1A shooters with their iron sights zeroed at 25 learned that they were good to go at 200.  I was putting the stickers on to mark the shots, and most of them were indeed in the five zone.