Camp Atterbury JMTC, IN 22,23 February 2014 WPA Instructor Appreciation

[SPQR]

Do your Appleseeds get interrupted by C130's doing air drops or strafing runs by Warthogs?

Ours do.

'Merica.

Thanks top all who came down, up, and over.   Four days and we put 24 instructors and supporters on the line.   4 days.  Thanks Wolf. Thanks Brown.

[SteelThunder]

It was epic.  Posted some of my thoughts over here at the KD sub-forum. http://appleseedinfo.org/smf/index.php?topic=39716.0  I'll repeat most of them below.

I enjoyed the heck out of seeing old friends and making new ones.  Appleseeders are good people.
Hats off to the IN cadre. They know what they are about. Great facilities, great weather and -- WOW -- Wolf picks up the tab for a weekends worth of ammo for us. Good on them. 

You hear all the time from "the internet" that unless you are using premium 77 gr OTM bullets with match primers, hand weighed powder throws, weighed and sorted cases, you can't do crap at distance with an AR.  Well, I found the Wolf ammo to do just fine for Appleseed style practical shooting.  I scored rifleman twice using the Hits Counts method (3 time by score) and the ONLY reason that wasn't 100% RM scores was because I wasn't paying attention to the wind.  The Wolf did great...went bang every time, extracted great, hit the target all the way out to 500 yards.  In fact, I really hunkered down during the sighters at 500 and had 2 hits under one marker and the other just off to the side by about 3 inches.  THAT is sub-moa (closer to 0.6 MOA)  I can guarantee you that had more to do with the rifle and ammo that the idiot behind the trigger.  I did have some malfunctions but it was because of a  dry rifle, not the ammo.  I borrowed some CLP from SPQR, squirted it in the ejection port and my feeding issues went away.

I love stretching the legs of my rifle. Knowing the she is happy to do anything the software behind the trigger is capable of stirs an ember of self reliance and governance in a man. Thanks to all for spending a bit of your weekend making us better. Where else do you get to shoot AQTs and relish in the sound of belt fed goodness on the range next to you, A10 Warthogs making low level passes with the WHHRRRRR-P!! of the GAU-8, Range 10 constantly catching on fire from tracer fire and a truly pristine set of pits and 500 yd range. Heaven.

Here's some lessons from the weekend:

ZEROS: Know your rifle and pay attention to environmental factors. 

Last weekend I took my 20" A2 AR15 out to our local range to verify my zero.  I was shooting my junk 55 gr reloads.  Confirmed my 25 yd POA=POI zero and adjusted to set up a 100 yd Stage 1 zero.  Conditions were 10 deg F and snowing



Here's my AR laying on the 500 yd berm at Atterbury yesterday.  We were shooting Wolf 55 gr, conditions were sunny, high of 62 deg F, right quartering wind 5-10 MPH all day.  My 100 yd zero shifted by 3 MOA.  Remember the rule?  Temp up 20 deg, sights down 1 MOA.  That worked out pretty close.



COME UPS:  Getting good dope on your rifle is the most valuable part of KD. 

We can estimate, fiddle with ballistic calculators until the cows come home.  You need to know what YOUR rifle does with YOUR ammo under YOUR conditions.  I was shooting a set up pretty close to our "rule" for the AR15.  A 20" A2 model...and the come ups should be 2-2-3-4 MOA...right?  Well, mine turned out to be 0-1.5-3-4 MOA.  The last time I shot KD with this rifle, I also found that my 100-200 come up was 0...I use a 6 o'clock hold for all stages so I'm assuming this has to be the particulars of how I mount the rifle when I'm standing versus sitting/prone.  Comments welcome.  In the end, you need to write down your data and study it...then use it.



My recollection of other people's dope for the mostly 16" AR line was around 2-3-3-5.  With the shorter tubes/velocity, that makes some sense.  Net, net...our rules are pretty close and gets you in the black.  I LOVED finding my come ups out to 500 yds...it is fascinating to me that with stinkin' old iron sights, I can see and hit a man-sized target reliably with nothing but me, my rifle and a sling.

I **think** slim was using BSZ through the COF and if he was, I'd invite him to chime in on how he found that to work.

WIND: ...is not your friend, but you need to be at least acquaintances

We had relatively light winds but they were variable.  Gusting 5-10 MPH, quartering, head on, tail on plus due to the treeline on the range, near the target and at the 500 yd berm we had different values and swirling. 

My AQT data tells a good story.  Early on in the day, I wasn't paying as much attention to the wind as I should have been.  I gave a half-@$$%&& attempt at laying in a correction but the targets don't lie...the early 300 and 400 yard groups are all offset by ~3-5 MOA.  Gee...what's that wind rule again?  1 MOA per 10 MPH per 100 yards?  Now look at the "later" groups where I noticed the wind and laid my sight over about half its width.  MAGIC!  The groups are centered. 

Funny how that works...

I overhead a shooter near me futzing the wind...making 1/2 MOA windage adjustments on his scope trying to dope the wind.  In the end, his shots were scattered and offset.  It helps cement in my mind that in the real world of field shooting, wind is best dealt with real time and through sight offsets.



BLAH, BLAH, BLAH - Just hit the target

Coriolis effect, spin drift, mid-dots, milirads, Horus reticles and an endless array of name brands and gadgets.  In the end, none of this mattered a lick.  What DID matter was position, six steps, NPOA, come ups and doping the wind.  If you paid attention to those, you made the hit.  You need to be able to shoot in lots of condition...Range 10 was constantly on fire and smoke obscured the targets.  We shot right up until dusk and the targets were difficult to see.  Too bad...suck it up and make the shot.



Finally, a few notes from the "hygiene" file.  I showed up with my tactical baby stroller, shooting mat, camera bag, shooting bag, backpack, etc, etc.  SPQR preached "only what you will use, nothing that you won't."  After watching others prep, I ditched everything but the backpack and rifle.  Good thing too.  Our line was highly mobile and could shoot, police brass, kit up and move out rapidly.  Good lessons.

What was valuable?

• Layers - the temp varied dramatically through the day and I undressed and redressed as necessary
• Bag with backpack straps - kit up, move out
• Waterproof gear -- It didn't rain but the ground was moist with a little standing water here and there.  Laying in a puddle sucks.  Wet feet suck.
• Decent glass - binocs and monocs were in high demand for sighters at the 300 and 400 berms
• Water and food - dehydration and getting shaky because your blood sugar tanked is not conducive to making hits.

[techres]

I am still processing pictures.

I will say this, when a shoot begins with these lines:

"We put this together in less than two weeks.  Actually it was 4 days for sign up.  One thing you need to know is that porta johns have to be scheduled 30 days in advance.  30 days.  You do the math."

You know it is gonna be fer serious.

[RobbyMaQ]

Had a great time!
YHJ suggested I put my version of the sighter sheet on here. I 'stole' the idea from him at Redbrush last year.
Fold into quads, and easy to fit in pocket. Print on both sides of a sheet for double duty.
Additional silhouette for drawing sight picture, reticle marks, etc.

[Hop]

Thanks to all the instructors for the invite!

I've listened to y'all, watched you prep, get into position, shoot, how you organize your kits, etc...  I've learned a lot in just a couple years from all of you.  I was an OK shot before Appleseed but am a better person now.

[Barbie]

Best. Weekend. Ever.

Every event we hold at Camp Atterbury is always a surprise, because you never know what will be going on around you (unless you're privy to the deconfliction meeting).   We had C130's doing air drops, had to go into a check fire status because said C130 had to land right next door, shot in smokey cover due to range 10 catching on fire... multiple times, and had Warthogs doing strafing runs off to our right.  And this folks is aside from all the shooting we did.

A big thanks to Wolf for all of the ammunition given to us.  This was the 1st time I've ran Wolf steel cased 223 through an AR and it won't be the last.  I had zero issues with it and will recommend it to fellow instructors and shooters. Thanks to Techres & AB's photo handywork I'm sure you won't be disappointed.  Thanks to Brown for all you've done to get this shoot set up, it is much appreciated.  And of course, thank you to all the instructors/shooters for coming out... it is always a pleasure working with ya'll.

Saturday we had beautiful weather... you couldn't ask for anything better, and we were all obviously overdressed since we didn't expect it to be around 60* and sunny!  Layers were being pealed off by 10am.  I shot in the afternoon, but prior to lunch I did SBIT duties and let me tell you folks, shoot bosses put in a lot of work prior to/during/after an event that probably goes unnoticed.  Be sure to give a big thanks to your shoot bosses in the future.  Having this event on an active military base only adds that much more paper work and leg work before a shoot.  There was wind all weekend, and it did come from different directions at times.  Aggravating?  Yeah, at times.  Honestly though, having to deal with wind while shooting KD is a great learning experience.  For the most part, everyone seemed to be getting good dope and everyone had their notebooks out recording all the info they needed to get their shots where they wanted them to be. 

(side note:  SteelThunder:  I enjoyed reading through your personal AAR from the Saturday portion of the shoot.  I bet someone who wasn't at that shoot could read through that and learn almost as much as if they had actually been there on the line.  The part about abandoning all your gear and just working with your rifle and backpack made me chuckle a bit... we've seen folks in the past bring everything but the kitchen sink and they end up leaving stuff in front of every berm because it's just too much to haul around, and unnecessary.  I've been out to Atterbury several times and even my backpack or whatever I use gets smaller and smaller... it's like an art, haha.)

Sunday... well, Sunday's weather sucked.  It was cold.  It was windy.  The temperature had dropped a good 20* at least, and up until go time it was sleeting/snowing.  Luckily, the precipitation stopped once it was time to drive from range control to our range so all is good.  After getting our 300yd zeroes we rolled straight into the KD AQT grind.  Part way through we had to go into checkfire status because that C130 had just finished up an airdrop and needed to land next door... now that was pretty wild because it flew directly overhead.  Talk about setting the scene! 

I had a blast running the "balloon assault"drill.  3 balloons were attached to the target backers and shooters rifles were safed and staged at the 300 yard berm.  Shooters then took their magazines prepped with 5 rounds and walked back to the 400 yard berm.  When the command to fire was given, we had to run to our rifles at the 300 yard berm and engage our targets, out of breath, hearts pounding, and wind blowing all over the place.  Oh, yeah... we only had 60 seconds to complete all this.  I won the morning relay and I believe AB won the afternoon relay.  Note to self (and anyone who may do this in the future):  running 100 yards and diving onto the 300 yard berm to quick load your rifle and continue with your SOF may rip a couple holes in your rain gear, but it's worth it when you hit 2 out of 3 balloons!  Some of our shooters had balloons that got scared by the sounds of rapid fire, so they dodged the bullets when they zoomed past... as can be seen by several holes directly behind the balloons.

All in all a great shoot.  Huff, thanks for lending me your rifle Saturday afternoon.  It works like a charm.  I was shooting Rob's rifle Sunday, and was able to score KD Rifleman.  Pretty sweet stuff.  I had no issues with the steel cased Wolf ammo, and would use it again in the future. 

I earned my green hat this weekend, which topped it all off... talk about icing on the cake to a pretty epic weekend.

I didn't bother with pictures, because I knew there were plenty other folks there snapping away, so I look forward to seeing those.

I couldn't have asked to spend this weekend any other way.  A great time with an even greater group of folks.   

[SteelThunder]

I earned my green hat this weekend, which topped it all off... talk about icing on the cake to a pretty epic weekend.

WOW!  Sorry I missed it.  Congrats!

[hawkhavn]

Barbie, Congratulations!  Sorry I couldn't be there! I want pics if nothing else!
And a hearty well done to the team that pulled this off (again!)   

HH

[TJ Kackowski]

Do your Appleseeds get interrupted by C130's doing air drops or strafing runs by Warthogs?

Our do.

'Merica.

Thanks top all who came down, up, and over.   For days and we put 24 instructors and supporters on the line.   4 days.  Thanks Wolf. Thanks Brown.

Low flying airplanes, free ammo, and KD ... pfft ... at Crawfordsville we had ATM, SB promotions, and new shooters who have already signed up for another Appleseed. 

Now that's 'Merica!

Since we're all on the same team, let's call it a tie for best Appleseed of the weekend.

[techres]

2000+ pictures to process, these are some that jumped out.  They are not photoshopped up yet, but still look pretty good.

































































A far fuller set is here:

Atterbury 2/2014 Picture Set

[Nero]

Awesome pix.  I am officially jealous. 

[techres]

And a quick idea of what it looks like at 400 yards:

Brown's AR at 400yards  Prone

Via Auntibellum's Go Pro:

[SteelThunder]

Most excellent.  Almost like I was there. Oh, wait...

[Kimber Custom]

A far fuller set is here:

Atterbury 2/2014 Picture Set

Pink Mace

[techres]

Pink Mace

For when you run dry of .223 and gotta get mean...

[SPQR]

Anybody notice the bucket o cookies in the medevac?  Appleseed really knows how to put safety first.

[Pitmaster]

And a quick idea of what it looks like at 400 yards:

Brown's AR at 400yards  Prone

Via Auntibellum's Go Pro:

That is a great example of NPOA. Watch his front site come back every time. By any chance is there a photo of that target?

[Brown]

Unfortunately I wasnt really locked in hard with the sling. had to make a couple adjustments during the 10Rd string. Will have to see about finding the witness target and trying to post it up here.

And a quick idea of what it looks like at 400 yards:

Brown's AR at 400yards  Prone

Via Auntibellum's Go Pro:

That is a great example of NPOA. Watch his front site come back every time. By any chance is there a photo of that target?

[SPQR]

I'm calling at least two fliers.  The first shot and the one before you flexed your hand.

I'll forgive you since I know you have had limited trigger time recently.

[Unbridled Liberty]

Good seeing everyone again, and nice meeting you Michigan instructors.  SPQR, et al; thanks for getting this thing put together on such short notice.  Brown, thank you once again for working with industry partners and gettin' it done.  Techres; thanks for your photo wizardry.  Barbie; congratulations on your green hat!  Best wishes in New York.  And Slim; well, what can I say?  Thanks for being the Appleseed "Force Multiplier".

I learned quite a bit, not the least of which is that I have quite a bit to learn.  You can have nice tight groups, but if you are not skilled in reading and compensating for wind accurately, it is all for naught.  SPQR, I really appreciated your Sunday AM wind and lighting instruction. 

I also learned that the EoTech 512 is more than adequate for Rifleman work at 400 yards on a 16" carbine.  Even with astigmatism, the 1 MOA center dot is more than fine enough for long distance if you dim it down quite a bit.  Even at 500 yards I could easily pick my POA; head, neck, shoulders, chest, etc.  Another benefit to dimming the dot way down is that it forces you to focus on the dot better.

And once again Wolf Performance Ammo proved that it is also more than up to the task.  Not a single malfunction all weekend, and as you can see from my target below, accuracy and consistency is outstanding.  Many thanks to Wolf for supporting Project Appleseed!

[brianheeter]

Having had time to get my thoughts in order....

First off, thanks to Brown, Yellowhousejake, SPQR and the many others who made this happen, fellow participants included.
Thanks to Wolf for the ammo, of course, and for supporting Project Appleseed.

My rifle seems to like Wolf ammo just fine.  After knocking the rust off on Saturday from not getting enough practice in the previous few months I scored a Rifleman score twice on Sunday.  No malfunctions, no issues.

I have finally decided to give up on my "small ball" front sight post.  I've had issues with glare on the front post and thought I could work through them over time but I have been unsuccessful.  I'm going to replace it with a rectangular post next time I get to the range and can re-zero.  It's hard to put the front post where you want it if you can't tell where the top of the post really is.

Loved the video from the camera mounted to Brown's rifle.  Next time I'm feeling like I need to get out and do some KD and can't I'm going to pull that up!

C ya,

brian

[techres]

For the record, the AQT pic in the glinting light is AB's and one so good I wish I had taken it. 

What a fun weekend!

[Rayne]

~

[Hop]

Sweet pics!  I already stole the group one for FB.  Hope you don't mind.

[techres]

Steal away!

Sweet pics!  I already stole the group one for FB.  Hope you don't mind.

[smiledochill]

A far fuller set is here:

Atterbury 2/2014 Picture Set

Pink Mace

Yep, give you a for serious case of pink eye!   

[Wiggly]

Thanks for the invite out, thats not something that I normally get to do with a 5.56 rifle, so it was certainly a good experience. There was a lot of people willing to open their minds and learn the other side of the house of long range shooting with mil-dots, MOA adjustments, Mil radians, doping winds via formulas, theories of hitting moving targets (I've found that rarely will people stand still) etc., which I thought was very cool. The appleseed is a good program and teaches people to get hits on targets, but its always good to learn other ways to broaden your background and expand your shooting capabilities.
Things I took away from this:
Bi-pods are a crutch
Give 5.56 a little extra love when doping wind
Wolf ammo is more reliable than people think

Again, thanks for having me out, and I hope to work with you guys again in the future.

[AuntieBellum]

"We put this together in less than two weeks.  Actually it was 4 days for sign up.  One thing you need to know is that porta johns have to be scheduled 30 days in advance.  30 days.  You do the math."

You know it is gonna be fer serious.

I sure wish I would've got that memo before drinking my coffee on the way in.    

A great weekend.  Lots of good shooting - with both rifles and cameras!  I seriously cannot think of a better combo for a weekend! 

I simply could not have been on the line without the generosity of WPA.  Thank you for the opportunity.  On Sunday I averaged 9.5 out of 10 in the black at 400 yards with my 16" DPMS and a $50 scope.  I had only one FTE throughout the weekend, but it was easy to clear and I still managed to get all of my rounds down range in that 65 seconds.  I also can't remember the last time I cleaned my rifle...I'm gonna say it's been at least a year and half, maybe two, maybe longer - who knows.     So I'm gonna go with not the ammo's fault on that one.  And honestly, 1 FTE out of 200 rounds...yeah, still not gonna bother cleaning it.     My assessment in going through my range data book, is that this ammo grouped better than any of the others I've used in the last two years.  I've used reloads, a steel cased bulk, and a brass cased bulk, and none showed the level of consistency that this did.  Guess what I'm gonna buy next time?   

Thank you, everyone, for all of your hard work in putting this together, especially on such short noticce.  It was a pleasure to spend the weekend with you.  I look forward to seeing you all again soon.

[smiledochill]

I hadn't shot a semi-auto rifle since the KD Appleseed wolf sponsored in June of last year.  I hadn't shot the rifle I use at this seed since the KD Appleseed I went to over a year ago.   As a testimony to the AR system, I've tore down, and rebuilt this AR many times to many configurations since then.  I reassembled it to the same configuration, screwed on the scope and it is still dead on at 400 yards, right where I left it.  It is a cheap pellet gun scope so I didn't want to rely on it being able to accurately track up and down when I dial in the come ups.  For that reason I used BSZ of 400 yds. 

This shoot was great for so many reasons but for me it was hugely advantageous because we were able to use our optic to inspect our sighters.  This allowed me to visually chart my hold overs and unders.  My reticle has fine cross-hairs with hashes on the horizontal and vertical.  I held dead on bulls eye for the sake of the sighters and was able to chart where the actual POI was for each yardage up to 500.  At 500 I used the top edge of the target as the reference point so the POI wouldn't be too far below the target.

Using BSZ on a pellet gun scope and Wolf Ammo I scored rifleman 4 out of 4 times.  Not the highest scores at all for the weekend but Wolf ammo is consistent, and accurate! 

My rifle loves Wolf.  I used to defend Wolf as not having the disadvantages you about in internet forums.  Now I unapologetically talk of its advantages.  Highly accurate, less expensive, and at least in my rifles 100% reliable. 

[RobbyMaQ]

I didn't have a lot of time to expand on my experience earlier.

But now that I have a moment, I wanted to take the time to thank everyone involved in organizing, and attending the event. And of course, wolf ammo (which ran flawlessly in my ar all day Saturday). The fact that I was invited just reaffirms how outgoing the firearms community has been to me. I am always amazed at how friendly and helpful everyone is, and it's become very contagious!

I also want to apologize for my overly enthusiastic display of my score from Saturday. You see, my first KD last year was a disaster (score-wise), but I was provided with the knowledge to fix what was wrong, and by golly, I was so excited to see everything come together in my scores. I'm sure I looked like a dork grinning ear to ear, so if it is any consolation, Saturday was my first rifleman score at distance.

And I patched it twice with a 35 & 36 score. Both AQT's I failed to get a round off . Both AQT's I managed to score 10 hits from 400 yards!

I was surrounded by riflemen and riflewomen that I know, and really look up to. Many more that I had never meant, but knew that they all knew their stuff. I was ready, willing, and able to digest every little nugget that was within earshot. I'd never been to Atterbury, so there was much to learn in that respect as well. Having never been in the pits, it was awesome watching the shooters score hits, and decipher what they were doing, what the wind was doing, etc... It was just an awesome day all around.

At my high point, while leaving the range and ready to meet some fellow INGO'ers for some good grub (and of course brag a little), I found there was a family emergency that pretty much put an end to the weekend. In the long run, everything turned out as best as it could be, and certainly not as bad as what was initially happening.

I do wish I could have made it back Sunday. But, there is always Redbrush in June (I was already signed up prior to this event). So I will see some of you there come summer.

Perhaps the funniest nuggets I heard this weekend:
"Um yeah, target 39 has been up all this time"

"Just keep that scope pointed downrange and not off to the side where Slim is peeing". "Uh, I don't have enough magnification for that anyways"

"I want you to comb the desert" <- this one took me by suprise