BENNINGTON!

[Buzzworth]

O.K. Folks,
So I'll start this thread
We had excellent weather and a superb facility on an important date in Revolutionary war history (8/16/1777 Battle of Bennington) we had reenacters come and talk history
We shot 740 rounds of aimed fire by the numbers
It was OUTSTANDING all around


I've left lots of room for others to fill in please do so

[dwarven1]

I"ll write an AAR tonight or tomorrow, but for now, here are some pix of the shoot.

Morning orientation


Morning orientation


And more Morning orientation


We had a reenactor from the Battle of Bennington show up this weekend and talk to us:





Leroy earned a Rifleman patch


As did Matt


And when you shoot Rifleman exactly (210 points) you get doused. Hey, it's better than getting tossed in the creek!


And even 12 year old Anders shot Rifleman... with a BOLT ACTION. He's one of our newest Instructos In Training, too.


Shooter John at his first Appleseed - open that right hand up, John! John is also our new State Coordinator for New Hampshire.


Andrew and his G22 - nice gun even if it did start failing to eject at the end of a day of 3-400 rounds.


Andrew is flanked by his son Alex on the right and his lovely wife Tina on the left! Both shot borrowed rifles but had a great time.


Shooters shot standing, prone, and are shown here sitting.


Scopes or iron sights, we'll teach you how to become a Rifleman!



The only moose I saw all weekend. No, he's not riding my bike, he's behind it.

[kDan]

Aw, shucks.  You guys beat me.  But I had farther to travel and probably slept later.  heheh.


Let's see...  sixteen shooters (total)...  740 rounds of .22...  and seven (7), that's right seven Riflemen.   You do the math.  As a bolty who can sometimes prefer to "fuss" his own shot, I must admit Nickle is on to something with these rapid-fire aqt's.  Some kind of seventh step mojo.   Either way, there's some shooters in New England (and New York) after all.  Who'd a thunk it?

I got to the range about 4:30 pm on Friday and found Buzzworth hard at work with the target frames and piles of lumber that were laying about the firing line.  Helped him move all that plus the benches out of the way, then borrowed a rifle (Brittany, a sweet-tart 10/22) from him and shot some squares.  Worth the trip right there.  Haven't shot squares myself since RBC I'm loathe to admit.  How's it go - those who can't do, teach?  More like those who teach don't do anymore.  sigh...  that's gonna change at Proctor where I'll be in disguised as Walter Matthau.  Just try and get me to demonstrate sitting position that week-end.  HA!

Saturday morning, we put the frames out as people started to trickle in.  Shot a redcoat, and then went right into the first strike which I covered.  So much information in that first incident, and it's only a relatively minor skirmish militarily speaking, although not historically.  Imagine if we were doing Napolean at Austerlitz.  Would take me a week.  Of course it wouldn't apply, but...  don't get me started...

Next up were the sighting squares with instruction between each one.  This was largely handled by GMB74 and his excellent visual aids.  First, sling use, then the six steps, then NPOA, then some inches, minutes, clicks and we began adjustments.  Finally, we did a ball and dummy on the last square.  Since we had seven instructors to 14 shooters that first day many 'seeders had the advantage of b+d with an instructor playing the jester.

At one point a shooter asked me if we were going to pick up the pace a little as he'd been told to bring 400 rounds and we'd only let off 23 by about 11:30.  I told him to hold on, we'll get there.  We enjoyed a little presentation from one of the Re-enactors who was there in Bennington for Battle Day.  Woulda loved to have seen that.  Much talk about the Green Mountain Boys and how Seth Warner was the real hero, not Ethan Allen.

We threw up some Classification AQT's in order to get through the standing and sitting positions.  Did a transition from standing to sitting, addressing muzzle issues.  And then Dwarven1 and Ripersnifle capably handled Strike 2.

I thought it might be advantageous to get into a stage by stage AQT at this point, but was convinced otherwise and we proceeded to make four Rifleman with four rapid-fire AQTs.  One shot a 210 and yes, he got wet.  A redcoat with little change from the morning and we called it a day.  The shooters I asked said they had learned quite a bit for one day.

The instructor dinner at Friendly's was greasy but adequate except for the fact that we could only talk to the 1-3 people at each of our four tables.  I didn't even know Ripersnifle was there - never saw him.  Not much of a large-scale after-action discussion going on over the French fries.  Nothing like Jericho where we all ate steaks by candlelight on a picnic table while the 50's were going off over the hill.  "bum-bum-bum"

I retired to my friend's front porch and the silence of a small-town Vermont evening.  Next morning, the 6 am ride on the Molly Stark Byway was one of the best I've ever done.  Cool air, curves, no traffic and saving America -priceless.  I love Vermont.  Can I wear two state rockers?  Green Mountain boys got everything goin' for 'em.  Too bad they're stuck on the east coast.  Gotta cross like six rivers to get out of that state.  or into it I guess on the plus side.

I can see next year me and Buzzworth gonna have to duke it out see who's shoot boss Bennington.  So what if he's the member of the club who set the whole thing up and did all the work with the awesome target frames that were like a clipper ship with all the wood-work and riggin'.  Not to mention trimming the cardboard sails.  Long John Silver never had a screw-gun thank god, or we'd all be like, "aar, ye maties".


Day Two:

It was nice to finally have a motorcycle section in the parking lot for the 1 %'ers.  Dwarven1 has a most select and choice sled, o my brothers and sisters.  Makes my baby look like a broken heap.  O, wait a minute, she is... a beautiful broken heap.

Buzzworth told us all a tale of neighbors and lawyers.  A story becoming all too familiar these days.  At various points during the day we covered Strike 3, Grumpy Old Men, and a favorite of mine, Pru Wright and her cross-dressing band of armed and furious ladies.

We hit the line with ten shooters, one a new arrival.  Ripersnifle set about with private instruction down one end of the line as we proceeded with our program.  I began immediately to suspect this guy was a ringer RS brought in to make him look good.  Couple hours of expert instruction, and he shot rifleman.  A bit suspicious, no?  I'm just kidding, the guy could shoot when he got there, and RS just pushed him over the edge.

The rest of us shot a redcoat and then the first of many rf aqts, with which we gained a repeat Rifleman and new IIT, a local Vermont boy.  I'll refrain from using the names of people whom I haven't seen on the forum yet, but let's just say this guy refused the 30 caliber rule all day Saturday and shot four RF scores on Sunday, with an open-sighted bolt gun.  Lucky for him, his low score was a 210.  He got soaked too.

We did a rapid-fire exercise, shooting ten rounds at squares with progressively shorter times.  45 seconds, 30, 25, 20, 15, and 10 seconds.  Four people got off ten shots in ten seconds.  Would have gone to five but we'd shot up the six squares and were not about to put up another one.  We had Riflemen to make, our next of whom was an up-and-comer who's twelve years old.  He also "took the hat" and will be standing next to his father as the only father/son instructor team I'm aware of.  A truly impressive young man from an equally notable family of patriots.  Respect and thanks to IIT Dave from bringing his people around.  We could video this kid for proper techniques.  Another bolt shooter, and a lefty.

Let me take a moment to thank the Twiggman for coming out for his first IIT event.  A more genial and approachable gentlman would be difficult to come by.

At some point we broke for lunch and had another demonstration from a different Re-enactor dressed as a colonial Rifleman.  This man was formerly a Marine Recon Sniper so we quickly drew him into a discussion on topics of more recent American conflicts.   He put holes in kDan's theory of shooting from tree-stands, not with the explanation that you limit your escape possibilities as much as the fact that a tree is hardly a stable platform for a rifle (duh, stupid kDan).  Stable enough for a bow at twenty yards on a deer that won't shoot back, but that's about it I guess.

Nickle called a meeting with all the instructors except me so they could talk behind my back about all my short-comings.  I got them back later when Dwarven1 made the mistake of mentioning Ramseur, and I barked out "208!"  A moment of silence while everyone looked around at each other, then he moved on.  I don't think anybody had any idea what that was all about, teehee.  I was left to run through an aqt NPOA drill with the 'seeders, moving from black to black.  "Close your eyes...  Take a breath...  Relax...  Open your eyes...  Are you on it?...  You better be..."  You gotta hear Nickle's cadence on this one - like a gunny from the movies, without the language.  "I don't see any butts wiggling!"

We did a Junior Birdman challenge on the Redcoats, and proceeded to finish out the day with eight more AQT's (another Rifleman) and another redcoat.  Boy, we broke some paper this week-end!  Along the way, we got Ripersnifle's fifteen minute presentation on Wind and the handouts he produced just before Jericho.  I think this presentation should become a protocol of the program.  I know we can't do much about wind at 25, but to talk about it for a minute during a water break and get these excellent hand-outs (Fred, Guy, have you seen these?) will go a long way to address this important part of distance shooting.  At least give the seeders an idea of the whole thing.

Nickle touched upon come-ups and then Dwarven1 left us with a stirring read of Patrick Henry's "liberty or death" speech and a rousing call of  "Fire, for god's sakes fellow soldiers, Fire!" on the last Redcoat.  With a lot of help we broke up the range in about five minutes, shook hands, a few see ya later's and maybe a hug or two, and it was all over.

[GMB74]

You forgot the near- perfect weather we had this weekend. Temperatures were very pleasant. While it did cloud over a couple of times, it didn't rain. We have had plenty of that over the past month or so.
I think a good time was had by all. Every shooter showed great improvement over the course of the weekend, and the nearly 50% rate of Riflemen is phenomenal.
Buzzworth calling out the Six Steps is going to be the standard at all Vermont shoots from now on.

[Twiggman]

Ya know, I believe I've learned more about marksmanship in just one day as an IIT than I have in dang near my entire life.

Nickle's rapid fire drill on the 1" squares was a real eye opener for finding a natural cadence.

I can't wait to have a shot at speaking about history at the Proctor shoot !

...and I will have range commands memorized by then. 

I can still hear ..."Sqqqqqquuuuuuuueeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzz the trigger !" 

[Nickle]

I always seem to be saying to each group that they're the best bunch yet, and this group was NO exception.

We gained 2 new IIT's, Anders and Nathan

One is ocal guy, from the SAME town Solomon Brown settled in (2 of our crew from a small town of about 1100 people, go figure). Add that I'm in the next town, and GMB74 is 2 or 3 towns away, and that says something about the area.

The other is the son of one of our IIT's, and believe it or not, is NOT the first father/son team we've got. Yup, We have another one in the area, GMB74 and Monkeywrench.

Who says Appleseed isn't family oriented?

The numbers were impressive to say the least, and folks up here LOVE to shoot.

A great time, and a great crew of Instructors and Shooters.

I can't wait to go back there again. Looks like we will, though, as that discussion we had while kDan was doing an NPOA drill was about how to get the program ramped up further in the area. We're looking at doing monthly (or more often) events in Vermont alone, rotating them back and forth from the clubs, with our pillar event being Jericho and Full Distance.

[nes_matt]

Hi all,

Just wanted to say thanks for a great Appleseed shoot.  I knew going in I was going to regret not shooting both days, but after the first day I was REALLY regretting it!  I had a great time, learned tons, and left with some things to continue to work on.  This really is a great program.  Thanks to all of you for spending your weekend teaching and for the prep time you all obviously put in before the event.

Regards,
Matt

[tomg]

Bennington was a lot of fun!  However these guys also had me working very hard.  I couldn't make day1, but when I showed up as a walk-in for day2 they were super friendly and set me up right away with a 1 on 1 coach "Ripersnifle", who was amazing!  It was his job to get me up to speed as fast as he could, and I can tell you he did a great job.  By lunch time they decided to merge me into the group, and man I didn't think I could keep up with those guys.  They were firing rapid fire cadence drills in the morning that were over before I got off three or four shots.  Ripersnifle did a tremendous job bringing me up to speed.
After a great talk/history lesson at lunch it was back to the range, and this time I had the pleasure of "Buzzworth" reinforcing everything I had learned in the morning and then some.  NPOA, NPOA, NPOA I kept hearing as I made each shot.  I think I was repeating NPOA in my sleep last night too, or was that still you Buzzworth?!
Kdan, Nickel, and the other guys ran an extremely tight program, which not only improved my shooting, but also educated me about our nation's history, and made me think about my nation's future.

Savage MKII - $239,
500 rounds ammo - $30
Appleseed - priceless

ps- didn't tell the wife about the first two.

thanks guys,
hope to make Hartford
tomg - Copake NY

[kDan]

NOT the first father/son team we've got. Yup, We have another one in the area, GMB74 and Monkeywrench.

Of course!  I worked with monkeywrench at Jericho.  All apologies GMB74 and son.

[didactic]

Glad your shoot went well.  Correction:  Glad your shoot went AWESOME!

But this "instructors in the family" thing ain't new.

Dad, the dad, is a shoot boss.  Hot Brass, the mom, is an IIT.  The son, smiley_dan, is an instructor. 

They're from Kansas, but they make it down here to Texas, and other places, from time to time.

Huzzah!  Huzzah!  Huzzah!

[ripersnifle]

Another great learning experience.
kDan quote:  "And then Dwarven1 and Ripersnifle capably handled Strike 2."
More like:  "I butchered it badly, and Dwarven1 bailed me out."

It was a pleasure working with TomG.  kDan was right, he was a ringer.
A rifleman who just hadn't been to an Appleseed yet.
Describing MOA, all I said was, "It's an angular measure that's worth ~1 inch at 100 yards."
And he said, "So it's a quarter inch at this distance."  Sheesh.
He was SURE he had not been to an Appleseed before.
It was nice to work with all the Instructors/IITs present.
Buzzworth did a great job preparing the range.
The RSOs were VERY GOOD at clearing the line.  It went quickly and smoothly.
9-year-old Alex really impressed me.
He nearly cleaned the final Redcoat on Sunday with iron sights.  WOW.
All the participants were easy to work with.
I was glad I made the trip.

sk

[Buzzworth]

O.K. folks
Here is how this shoot happened
I had purchased Fred's guide and targets and knew about Appleseed (read SN) (seed planted)
Not sure of the date sometime in 2005
I Spread the word around the club (some buzz got going on)

Tried to get CMP clinics going too much paperwork and not enough hands on deck to do the work

Then the President of the club gave me a hand out he got at a GUN SHOW from NICKLE (another seed planted)
In February 2008
Requested and sent back our club application for an Appleseed with full knowledge of the club
Something was said about an August date I told Nickle that Bennington Battle day is in August and that may be a nice fit for the program (it was is) (seed watered)

Then I attended an Appleseed in Proctor VT and with an o.k. (from the shot boss) to have two free respected club members also go so they could vouch for the program

For me that was it I was IN and up to my eyeballs we would have a shoot in Bennington County even if we had to do it in a cow pasture (lots of those around here) (seed germinated)
Only one of the free shooters could make it, Leroy he shot riflemen so did I (last weekend he was shooting 245 with no 30cal rule it has been my honor to have been humiliated by his marksmanship skill many times)

Any way after Leroy's input and a pitch to club members by Nickle at the club meeting fist Monday in March and after a call to the lawyers and rescheduling of a handgun event and...
We got the green light

Thanks to Appleseed for being a turnkey operation no extra club members needed to have this event in a very safe and structured way (you all have my thanks and gratitude and respect for your OUR operation)
you have read what happened (TREE GROWING)

That small Gun show hand out was the kicker (not sure why it just was)

I have sent the link to the AAR to all club members I have e-mail for
And I hope to be able to have three or more next year (working on being able to shoot full power full distance)
Tree makes more seeds

WELL DONE!!


Back to work planting