Talladega, Alabama KD AAR June 15 - 16, 2019

[Ramblin' Wreck]

The break between my last stint as Shoot Boss in Talladega and this one was nearly 2 years so I had some rust to knock off and plenty of help from the best instructors in the program to help me do it.  The pre-reg list showed some familiar faces and quite a few new ones. Of the 11 shooters on the line, 5 were instructors who had made the trip to re qualify and prove that if we talk the talk we can also walk the walk.

Group photo by the John C. Garand statue




As usual Saturday morning started off with classroom blocks on trajectory and environmental factors that affect longer range shooting. We then moved to Range 2, the 100 yard range with e-targets, to confirm zeros and get in some sighter shots before shooting stage 1 of the FDAQT.  At the noon meal, dinner where I come from, Cleveland told some history about the battle of King's Mountain where we heard the story of why you should leave people alone and not insult them if you don't want your command wiped out. Tyrants never learn do they? Then we had a few more blocks of instruction on target detection and range estimation which included measuring the width in MOA of the front post on your rifle or between to known marks on your scope to facilitate range estimation the way a rifleman would do it. If you're ever confused on the topic just ask Google, she makes a living making the difficult understandable.

After instruction on Target Detection and Range Estimation we moved to range 5 where the day before we had done our best to place targets in difficult-but-not-impossible places for the TD/RE drill. After removing bolts from rifles we took up our position on top of one of the divider berms at a pistol pit. Targets were located at distances from 60 yards (this is a "gimmie" but you'd be surprised how hard it was to accurately range it) to over 300 yards. We had a few folks get impressively close to the laser reading using what they'd learned and a few who recognized the need for practice of this very critical skill. As we tell shooters, it doesn't matter how good a shot you are you're not going to hit the target past your BSZ if you don't know how far it is.


The evening meal is always a fun time with instructors and shooters congregating at one of several acceptable watering holes and this time, as usual, the vote was Rana's, a Mexican restaurant that you can see from the hotel where most everyone stays. What a great time with like-minded folks.


Sunday began with a short stay in the classroom and then on to Range 1 where shooters would engage targets at 200, 300 and 600 yards. By the end of the day we had several people who demonstrated that they know what they are about.
Rusty, aka Maximum Ordinate, and John shot perfect scores of 50/50 with stage 4 at 600 yards. John actually did it with IRONS!  Huzzah!
In addition, Google shot a Distinguished score of 48, and Morpheus and Terry each tallied a 47.

It was a great event as usual and I look forward to seeing most of these folks on the line again in the fall.
Stay tuned for an announcement about another Appleseed-friendly KD range coming online in Tennessee with electronic targets out to 1,000 yards.  Rifleman's HALF MILE anyone? 

See you on the line.
Ramblin' Wreck