AAR: Fallon, NV - JUne 26-27, 2010

[Chris_H]

  I've been "down" mentally & physically with some kind of bug for the last couple of days, but wanted to put up an initial AAR on this weekend at Middlegate Station near Fallon, NV.

   When arashi, DarrellM5 & I began our Saturday morning range setup we found that a bumper crop of weeds had sprung up! Since we hadn't had to deal with this at any previous shoots, none of us had thought to bring a hoe or a weed eater, so ended up kicking as much weed growth out of the way as possible. We tried dragging some available pallets behind a quad, but the weeds were too green for this to have much of an effect. Since the weeds were high enough to provide pretty bad interference with even seeing the target line from prone, we cleared some "lanes" for the shooters.

  We began Saturday with only 2 shooters, Mathis & Nelson (Gene). Both had been to previous Appleseeds & both were ready to go first thing.

  Our morning redcoat saw one 300y shooter, and one 100y shooter, so we got to work on steady hold factors, positions, the 6 steps & more.

   Mid morning saw Ryan from Round Mountain show up to join in. We worked to help him catch up to the others and continued shooting.

   At lunch, I told the shooters about the First Strike of the Match, then we went back to the line to work on sitting, standing & transitions with CAQT's.

   We took a break for DarrellM5 to tell the second strike, then introduced the AQT.   At about this time, Winona & Smitty showed up. Winona was registered as a Sunday only, but they arrived early enough for her to get a head start on Sunday.

   After shooting the AQT, the afternoon was beginning to come to a close - arashi presented the third strike before we shot the end of day redcoat. This time there was one 200y shooter, two 100y shooters, and one HS.

  On Sunday morning, we started out with the redcoat target again, and the nights rest helped out - two 300y shooters, one 200 y shooter, and one HS. Mathis almost cleared it, but for one miss on the 400y silhouette!

  We reviewed the previous day's instruction and shot one QDAQT for lunch. We had no Rifleman scores for the weekend as yet, but Mathis, Gene & Ryan were all coming close. At lunch, stories of some of the dangerous old men of April 19th were told, then we went back to shooting the AQT.

  By the end of the day, Gene, who had shot Rifleman at a previous Appleseed repeated it with a score of 217, while Mathis & Ryan both improved enough to be knocking on the door.

  Winona who has a hard time shooting from any position but sitting saw her groups improve from about 20 MOA to 8MOA or so, and had a very good time!

   I would like to repeat my thanks to all of the shooters for your great attitudes & persistence, to Middlegate Station for having us, and to arashi & DarrellM5 for helping to teach!

   Great job everyone! 

Chris

[SavageShootr]

Winona..... Great job getting those groups shrunk so dramatically.

Chris_H Thanks for the report. Sounds like you, DarrelM5 and arashi did a fine job!

SS

[Fred]

    OK, this is a great location. We can shoot full-distance AQTs if we want. We've had 20+ shooters before.

    So, what do we need to do, to fill up the firing line?

    It would be a shame to let this location die out for lack of interest.

     With the right marketing, we could fill it up with urban folks who've never seen such a deserted moonscape as the valley Middlegate is in.

    BTW, there's a guy named "Eddie" - maybe someone can put you in touch with him - he's a member of one of the Fallon gun clubs - he's brought a tractor out before to clear the brush.

[gglovesguns]

    OK, this is a great location. We can shoot full-distance AQTs if we want. We've had 20+ shooters before.

    So, what do we need to do, to fill up the firing line?

    It would be a shame to let this location die out for lack of interest.

     With the right marketing, we could fill it up with urban folks who've never seen such a deserted moonscape as the valley Middlegate is in.

    BTW, there's a guy named "Eddie" - maybe someone can put you in touch with him - he's a member of one of the Fallon gun clubs - he's brought a tractor out before to clear the brush.

For me, it wasn't a lack of marketing. There were several Appleseed forum posts expounding the beauty of this shoot. For me, it was the timing. It was so close to the Gardnerville shoot, I didn't have time to save up more gas, lodging and ammo funds. Maybe if we more strategically schedule the northern Nevada shoots, we can get the local Appleseeders out at every shoot? And with them, their new recruits?

[Johnnyappleseed]

I have worked with arashi +Darrell---they could handle all Northern nevada throws at them
JA