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Ottawa IL Mini-Appleseed

Started by Garand69, April 14, 2008, 10:16:28 PM

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Garand69

I didn't originally post this here in the AAR section because it wasn't an Official event, but The Guy asked me to post it here so here it is..........

Ottawa Mini-Appleseed

Just finished Cleaning Rifles at 8PM and I am pooped.

The day started a bit rough, trying to get 3 kids and the Mean Ole' Wife loaded up and rolling while forgeting where the heck I left my staple gun slowed things down a bit, so we got a late start to the range. Instead of the 9:30 target we arrived at 10am.

Conditions;
Temp on arrival was in the mid 30's and by the time we left at around 3:30 it was low 40's. It was cloudy all day until the end when the Sun would peak out every once in a while for a second. Precipitation for the most part behaved. We had light rain all the way there but once we were on the range it had stopped, though snow flurries would pop up now and then, but still totally mild and managable.

The range was of course wet, we have had a ton of rain and the ground was saturated and at the Targets was a wonderful mix of clay and mud. In the end all are boots were trashed, as well as our pants from shooting in positions. But we laid tarps down and it was managable.

Attendance;

Not to shabby. we did have 11 1/2 shooters. The half a shooter was the Mean Ole' Wife who helped out with the two youngest shooters, age 4 1/2 and 7 1/2, so she didn't get as much quality range time as I had hoped but showed she could still hold her own at the plinking pit with a Garand and a 10/22 while making sure the short ones had there barrels pointed in freindly directions. We also had two other Juniors Shooting age 10 and 12 (Wetfoot), the rest were late 30's to late 50's with one youngin' in his 60's, how's that for an age spread!

Shootin' Irons:
The two youngest were using single shot .22lrs (they were also using a standard 100yd bullseye targets in prone only to keep things simple). The next two youngins had bonafide Liberty Training Rifles, one with a wood stock and the other with a Tapco T6. For us old guys, we had one 91 Mosin Nagant that was on the money at 25M but very difficult to reload while slung into postion. 3 M1's all of which were Rack Grade CMP's, 2 AR's, 1 M1A, and a breif appearance of a FAL. All rifles functioned flawlessly with the exception of one of the 10/22's that decided to get the hick-ups in the very end, but it really was just cleanliness issues, nothing mechanical. My choice was the CMP Rack Grade that we are raffling off. We have never even fired the rifle and I wanted to make sure that it was 100% for the lucky winner. I have had such great luck with these CMP rifles, that I didn't bring a spare. I figured that I was running the line, so if I had a serious malf, I would just put more effort into running the line and instructing, good news was the rifle never missed a beat, but the bad news is my score was a bit off because I was running the line. (it is not as easy as running our pistol matchs while competing, maybe because I'm use to running the pistol shoots  )

Other than myself, only one individual had ever attended a position style match before, though two others had atleast gone through rifle qualification in the Military, though not as bendy as they were back in the day  . All things considered, things went very well. I opened up with the Redcoat Targets and we zero'd our rifles and walked through all the stages using them. We started with 3 shots per string and then went over our targets, this ate up a lot of time but it was also an oppurtunity to go over things. There was no way I could give everyone a lecture prior to shooting that would cover everything, so I used every string fired as an oppurtunity to add some pointers. We worked on the Hasty Sling, NPOA, Firing The Shot, and different tricks to adjust your elevation while in position.

At Noon we had a lunch break for about 20 minutes and discussed a few things. I gave the Juniors some tips as well as a few of the older fellas. After lunch we went back to the line and went through the Quick & Dirty AQT by the numbers. Folks thought everything was hunky dory with the Redcoats, but those Q&D grey targets frustrated more than the majority of shooters, especially the 400 yarders. After we shot the course of fire, more than one wanted to do the Redcoats again just to see if they were going goofey or not. We wrapped up the day with some plinking at the pit. Of course that is always entertaining and it winds us old folks down while ramping up the Yoots.

Not a single Rifleman today, which was a bummer. I managed to take high score with a 191 and Wetfoot just missed Marksman with a 119 (which beat several fellas 4 times his age  ), but we are both going to be at next weekends Appleseed in Ottawa and I'm sure Wetfoot will finally Qualify. He needs more sling time, because it is a major distraction for him. The 10 year old was shooting very well on the Redcoats, but then started cross-firing onto his Dad's target during the Q&D AQT. Some more range time and he will be in great shape as well.

As always the Folks at Buffalo Range Inc. treated us excellent, and everytime I go there I see another inprovement. So if your ever in the area check them out.

I'll post some pics later in the week, see you all in Ottawa this weekend.

Garand69

42

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