Pensacola, FL 12/1-2/2018

[Heavyduty77]

What an incredible weekend at the Escambia River Gun Club in Cantonment (Pensacola), Florida. The rain started first thing on Saturday and continued all day along with several flash flood warnings. Everyone's shooting mats were soaked through and mud spattered along with all the shooters, their rifles and scopes. The target line was a quagmire and the cardboard backers became 'mushy' and and a pain to mount the targets onto. The canopy tops became overloaded with the rainwater and had to be frequently lifted to drain the gallons of water accumulating in them (three ended up badly damaged). Each time the canopies were lifted a huge torrent of water fell down onto the mats below. The clay soil became a mass of thick mung that had to be traversed on every trip to the target line.



Through it all, the ten shooters 'stayed the course.' No one left early or even mentioned wanting to leave. I can't tell you how impressed I was with the attitudes and perseverance that these shooters displayed. I've been at more than one Appleseed where people left despite conditions not even close to being as bad as they were here. They were all 'troupers' (according to Merriam-Webster: "a person who deals with and persists through difficulty or hardship without complaint"); the true definition of real Appleseeders! I was proud to be the Shoot Boss at this event along with Blue Hat Tim (alchemist) and Orange Hat Archie (papboyer). (Archie also brought and shared some incredibly good jerky and sausage made from a deer that he had harvested. Thank you again.)

Sunday was a total 180 degrees weatherwise from Saturday. Perfect temperature and sun that helped to quickly dry up the clay soil. The nice weather helped the shooters too! Everyone steadily improved their scores and Scott attained his Rifleman's patch with a solid 217 score (Scott also 'cleaned' his Redcoat target). Lillianne, Ian and Hunter were our three junior participants and each made significant progress. Suzanne 'found her NPOA' and improved rapidly.

Ernie had some scope mounting issues that alchemist helped him resolve. Windsor switched from an iron sighted 10-22 to a scoped Rossi and began seeing improvements in his scoring.
Steve knocked at the door with a 204 and Patrick also saw steady gains. Thomas signed up for Saturday only and didn't have a chance to experience Sunday's great weather.

Once again, thank you all for your participation.

Pete (Heavyduty77)

[Cable___Guy]

 
Great Job.

[stoneknives]

Huzzah!

Proving once again that American's ain't quitters.

[PHenry]

 

[B.C.]

 

[Engineer shooting]

The orange sand stains your clothes forever!

[papboyer]

Those shooters were awesome for sticking it out on Saturday  . Rain? lol the only thing missing from that hurricane was the wind.

Thanks for making the drive over Pete. I had a great time helping out.

[JustKim]

HOOZAH!!!  sounds like you had a great weekend!  sorry I had to miss it!  looking forward to the next shoot at the Escambia County Rifle and Pistol club!!