Pittsburg, KS Mar 9-10 75% Rifleman and first Distinguished in state

[Lomshek]

What a weekend of incredible swings in weather!  In spite of crazy weather we had 75% of the line earn Rifleman badges with no .30 cal rules needed!

Saturday morning began with a cold fast moving thunderstorm that had us change up the usual morning routine.  We stayed under the range picnic pavilion for the first couple hours and gave a preamble about the events leading up, then demonstrated the slings and how to use them, used our trainer rifles with lasers to demo the prone NPOA and how to make NPOA shifts then finally gave the first strike.

As the weather was breaking we did the safety briefing still under the cover before finally moving to the firing line.  While the first strike was being told a few of us instructors prepped the firing line by dragging tables out from under the roof and swept the puddles of water off the concrete pad.  Since the firing line is a couple hundred yards away from and out of sight of the picnic pavilion we were able to do this without detracting from the first strike.

Once all that was done we got the target line constructed in short order, went over the safety briefing and were finally ready to stop the first charge of the Red Coats!

The forecasted weather and this being the start of spring break locally might have hurt attendance some but we had 8 serious shooters on the line who were hungry for learning!  The line was almost exactly split evenly between centerfire and rimfire with one rimfire shooter using a bolt gun (he earned his badge and then some).



You'd think the late start to the day would have hurt us but the shooters were willing to stay late so we kept on until nearly 6:30 PM to get through all of our planned drills plus two AQTs.  It was a hard, high tempo day that saw 240 rounds fired with a 10:30 AM start.

We hit ball & dummy, carding the sights and all the "hard" drills that slow things down but as always the hard work is what pays off.

At the end of the first long day we had three Riflemen!  We had two young men make it plus one extremely dangerous old man!  The youngsters Joe (who was a new Rifleman) and Jon (who was a re-qual) were using AR's in 5.56 while our DOM (Lloyd) used a bolt action .22 to earn his first badge.  I'll need my IIT Lumberjack to share the pics of their badge awarding since they were on his camera. 

Jon and Lloyd both donned orange hats and will be drinking from the firehose in just 3 weeks at our local IBC taught by Max Ord and Ramblin' Wreck!

During the course of the day the weather went from cold rain, to heavy cloud cover and oppressively damp almost cold to wind gusts over 30 with temps of 50+ that quickly dropped to the low 40's as the wind reversed direction.

We ended up weighting the pads down with heavy steel targets like this one with a full size Popper at each end.  The ones with simple 8" steel plates still got blown around!



Here's a gif of a weighted pad with an AR being blown around!


In case the gif doesn't work here's the video of an AR with steel plates weighing down the pad getting blown around.
https://youtu.be/roSHzhzx5R8

Sunday was a whole new and colder ball of wax.  Temps started just about freezing and damp.  It may have peaked at 36 degrees at one point before dropping again.  The humidity was enough that the cold just seemed to soak into your bones and we could watch it cool as our breath suddenly became visible like in some insta-freeze scene from a climate horror movie.

For those of you who've never experienced the wild swings of the midwest here's a real screenshot of a Kansas TV station weather warning of statewide conditions.



In spite of the cold we awarded 4 more Rifleman badges that morning with one of the shooters getting a rare double of a regular Rifleman badge Saturday and Winterseed on Sunday.

Here are the four Sunday Riflemen.  My son Ethan is next to me.  Jacob is beside him and the brothers Joe and Jim (might have them mixed up) and beside each other at the end.



After requaling with his AR on Saturday our new orange hat Jon tried to make Rifleman with his Krebs AK with a red dot.  He spent the whole day cranking out the rounds and kept coming close but couldn't quite crack that nut.  Here's a shot of him from an earlier summer Appleseed last year with it.



Between the non-floated barrel, handguard mounted dot, AK trigger and maybe barrel heat playing a role he was fighting an uphill battle.  He didn't quite make Rifleman but he proved very effective with that commie rifle!

Have to brag on my boy (just a little)! 

He just turned 18 and earned his Eagle Scout (proud papa) a few months ago (reviving a city bike park that took over 230 hours of work and over 10 volunteers) and requal'd at this shoot.  He first earned his Rifleman last year using a nicely done up scoped 10/22 that kansasHwy1 loaned him. 

Here's one more shot of just me and my son. 



I have to brag because this time in spite of the cold Sunday he shot two distinguished scores (232 & 239) with a tech sighted 10/22 that was mostly stock except for a pistol gripped free floated and bedded Choate stock I put on it 20 years ago. 
He's the first person in Kansas to score distinguished since the badge was created and did it in pretty miserable cold, damp weather!  I was extremely proud and a little overcome for a minute.

Here's his high AQT of the day (239) with iron sights.



Saturday both his scores were in the low 200's but he couldn't put it all together on one AQT.  One stage or another went to pot and cost him badly.  Sunday he put it all together.

So all in all we had a group with a 75% Rifleman rate and 25% new orange hats.  Incredible!!!

The ones who didn't make it still learned that there's more to learn than they ever thought possible and showed great improvement and perseverance.  I expect to be handing them well earned badges in the future!  Both are cadets in the local ROTC unit and college gun club members and will be great ambassadors for Appleseed and defenders of the nation one day.

[Lomshek]

Working backwards in time here are our Saturday Riflemen during the gale force winds.



Jon (current Air Force Reserves) on the left did it with a Daniel Defense with a Trijicon Accupower scope on it.  Lloyd on the right (retired Army Warrant Officer pilot) did it with a scoped CZ .22LR bolt gun which he was running like a machine.



They both agreed to take orange hats and are looking forward to the IBC!  Thanks for joining the party gents!

[Dangerous Oldman]

Good write-ups SB Lomshek!  You have good reason to be proud of your boy! Wow! High school graduate, Eagle Scout and Distinguished Rifleman (on iron sights) all in the first quarter of 2019!   A truly momentous year for him!  Congratulations, proud papa!

[Lomshek]

Good write-ups SB Lomshek!  You have good reason to be proud of your boy! Wow! High school graduate, Eagle Scout and Distinguished Rifleman (on iron sights) all in the first quarter of 2019!   A truly momentous year for him!  Congratulations, proud papa!

[sleepy]

Wow! Sounds like one event-packed little shoot! Talk about excellence!

The one which especially warms my heart is Lloyd taking his orange hat. I was privileged to be working the line in Springfield, MO last fall, when he was there.

Jon, I would have suggested ditching the AK if you want to qualify again. Of course,  I probably suggested the same to Lloyd with his CZ last fall, and he proved me wrong; a rifleman perseveres! But...maybe ditching the red dot, depending on how big of an MOA it is?...LOL! Congrats on the hat.

And Ethan making distinguished...with a borrowed rifle, no less! You're a role model for me.

And Jacob, Joe, and Jim; making rifleman is something to be proud of. I hope to see you guys wearing orange hats soon. Your country needs you, badly.

[minuteman1636]

Great AAR..man it looked miserable. Everyone definitely persevered.

Congratulations to the new Rifleman and Orange Hats.

I am curious to learn more about the Winterseed and Distinguished qualifications.

[Lomshek]

The Winterseed badge is a Rifleman badge that's awarded at shoot boss discretion if the conditions are "wintery" enough.  Sometimes that's 2 feet of snow on the ground and other times it's a 35 degree rain.

The distinguished badges are ones that Appleseed created sometime last year.

230 or higher with iron sights or 240 or higher with a scope earns a Distinguished badge for a score well above the average Rifleman score.