Osage Beach MO, 09/18/10

[cmidkiff]

Another great Osage Beach Appleseed!  This one was a bit odd, for those of us used to Longshot's wonderful hospitality.  With Longshot on a well deserved vacation with his family, we had to make do without him.  He was missed, but we still had a great shoot!  Thor's Hammer had the range in great shape, and the weather cooperated... though it was a bit close at times.  There were damaging hail storms all around us, but our camp stayed dry and calm all through the weekend!

21 shooters, improvement shown all 'round, 2 new Riflemen, and one brand new Orange Hat!

Congrats to Ian and Patrick on their Rifleman scores.  Ian even backed his up with a 2nd Rifleman score immediately after, and grabbed the Orange Hat.  Patrick stuck it out through equipment failures, and managed to shoot a Rifleman score right at the end of the day Sunday.  Great job, guys!

We had a husband and wife team who took some photos and are writing an article... hopefully to appear in American Rifleman Online in the near future.  I'm looking forward to reading that, for sure!

My thanks to Thor's Hammer, Jungle George, Thursday, and our two newest MO orange hats, TK and Celtic Mind.  Great job, guys.  I'm looking forward to working with all of you again in the near future!

[wagmon]

My son & I just returned from the Osage Beach Sept 18 & 19 Appleseed - our first. Impressed, humbled and fired up best describe our two days. Greybeard shared with a passion that obviously came from heart. We quickly realized that this was way more than a shooting clinic.

The instructors, all volunteer I learned, were top notch pros and truly wanted to help everyone shoot better. There were no snickers when we messed up, no talking down to us, no lectures about being being sighted in before the event. These guys made us feel welcome and part of the group from the moment we drove into the facility.

Thor's Hammer was a great host - many thanks to all of his help getting sighted in initially, loaning his sling, working with my son late in the day Saturday as he switched guns and preparing a great location. 

Thank you Greybeard, Thor's Hammer, Jungle George, Thursday, TK & Celtic Mind. Your commitment and professionalism is amazing.

[nemohunter]

congrats to the new rifleman. sorry i could not make it but my schedule just would not allow it. no rest for the weary. see you at De Soto.

[Thor's Hammer]

What a great weekend! A little cooler would have gone a long way, though. This was one of the most enthusiastic groups with a teachable attitude I've seen in a while. Had some issues early Sat. with some brand new scopes that weren't bore-sighted. No problem. A quick trip over the bridge with a 4' clean backer and an early lesson on IMC and everyone was on the paper. Late Sat. was hot and humid, but everyone hung in and a few even wanted to do one more AQT at the days close. We were more than happy to oblige them.

Sunday started off much cooler and everyone got into the groove. Worked in a "fun" shoot after lunch on some bowling pins. Team Right did more damage than Team Left, I suppose there needs to be a re-match! Later on brought a trip to the KD range with 3 AR's, 1 Mini-14 and 1 FAL. The grins were from ear-to-ear from bangin' on the steel redcoat at 200, 300 and 400yds. 100 would have been waaaay to easy! The students really learned about NPOA on the KD range. Only bad thing that happened was one of the chains holding the target got wounded, but it was quickly repaired as Jungle George and I took a ride and TK kept an eye on the line.

I was sad to see the weekend end so quickly. It is always sad doing the last bits of tidying up, burning the trash, taking down the signs and making sure everything is put away. It's not easy standing there, looking at the naked flagpole and the empty firing line remembering the happenings of the weekend, all the great people, all the history and all that was accomplished, then I remember it will be happening again in a month, and I have to start preparing for the next one. Time to grab another bucket and never give up!

[Jungle George]

It was great shoot in Osage with another bunch of good people shooting.  As Greybeard said the weather went all around us, I drove north to home and fields looked like lakes.  We missed it all  . 
   We had some returning shooters and it is always good to see them return and perservere.

JG