Tishomingo, OK April 21, 2018

[henschman]

It was a cold, rainy day at the Murray State College gun range for our Lexington and Concord Anniversary Appleseed, but everybody persevered (some longer than others)!  Over half of the attendees were first-year students at the college who are taking gen-ed classes along with getting an introduction to gunsmithing in the pre-gunsmithing program.  This year they have all been working on putting together their own traditional sidelock muzzleoader rifles, and brought them to the range to help us get into the spirit of the occasion!  After a wonderful hot lunch provided by folks with the college and a telling of the First Strike, we let those with muzzleloaders fire a few volleys.  It was very impressive to see 5-6 traditional black powder rifles fire at once... just a small taste of what it would have been like to be on Lexington Green 243 years ago.  Everyone who wanted to had an opportunity to load and fire the rifles. 

The Murray State students left after lunch, leaving us with four gentlemen persevering to master the skills of the Rifleman.  After a couple strings of fire there were 3... and then going into the AQTs at the end of the day there were 2 intrepid souls left braving the weather until the end.  Thanks to John and Eric for sticking it out with us, and for taking part in our Memorial Volley.  John was a first-time attendee, and despite being wet and shivering with numb hands, was able to earn his place among the ranks of Riflemen with a score of 210 on the second and final AQT of the day.  We dispensed with the usual dousing that is tradition for those who patch out with a score of 210, as he we figured he had already been sufficiently doused by mother nature throughout the day... and the nearest body of water was the firing point he had just shot his Expert score from!  Very impressive work John.  Eric had already earned his patch at a previous event with a scoped rifle, and was here to give it a try with irons.  He was shooting to Rifleman's standards on the squares at the start of the day with all rounds inside the black on more than one target, but the effects of the weather took their toll by the end of the day.  He has plans to be back for that second patch at one of our next events in September or October. 

Some of the other instructors took pictures, so hopefully they will be along shortly to post them.  We also have some video of the muzzleloader volleys that should be up soon!

Thanks to everyone for making this a safe and fun event.

[JBUR71]

I just want to say that I am looking forward to doing this again with my AR. I hope that in the future, you might consider a two day class. I learned alot in this one day, my shooting skills definitely improved, and I enjoyed the history lesson. Probably the most important lesson I learned was that my rain gear is inadequate.

[JBUR71]

I'm having trouble posting my photo.

[Lomshek]

I'm having trouble posting my photo.

You'll need to resize the photo to a much lower resolution for the forum photo hosting to work.  Typically resizing it to 600 pixels wide and letting the height auto compensate to keep the aspect ratio correct will get you under 500 KB. Most cameras and phones these days create pictures in the 4 - 6 GB range which is a huge bandwidth hog and too big for the forum.

You can do this very easily in Microsoft Paint.

[JBUR71]

I'll give that a try.

[JBUR71]

It worked. Thanks.