De Soto, KS Mill Creek Rifle Club - June 6-7, 2020 AAR

[Lomshek]

Appleseed started back up in Kansas with an Infernoseed at Mill creek Rifle Club near Kansas City!  We had 23 shooters and 7 instructors start the day.  After a long lock up for COVID we were ready to get at it to learn marksmanship skills and a depth of history from April 19th few know.

The hard working Kansas cadre was joined by Flintlock54 who drove nearly 300 miles for some serious cross pollination. His help was vital to the event!

We had a few families on the line and a total of 7 young shooters!  All the shooters put their all into improving their shooting with some great results!

Temps were about 10 degrees above average hitting 93 on Saturday with a morning humidity of 93%!  Sunday was a few degrees cooler with lower humidity and more wind so just a little more pleasant.  Besides being well above average temps this was the first really hot weekend of the year so none of us were acclimated to the heat.



Shooters and instructors were feeling the effects of Saturday's weather but kept on trucking through the day!  We were running a rotating firing line to space shooters out and give them plenty of room with the added benefit of shooters getting a little more break time.

Here's part of the firing line.



Notice the well worn path back and forth behind the line made by the instructors as they patrolled the line!  You know there's some serious walking when you wear a path behind the firing line!

Jonathan gave a great First Strike from John Parker's viewpoint.


Jerry did great with Strikes Two and Three.


I had the privilege of handing out two new red hats at this event.  Both postal16 (Mike) and Dangerous Oldman (Jerry) earned their red hats at this event.  I was able to work with Jerry Saturday night for his advancement and, because of the help on the line, Mike and I spent about an hour on his advancement.

Here are the two new red hats with a proud shoot boss! 


Congratulations to both of you for your hard work and thanks for your dedication to the program!

Sunday dawned a little cooler with more wind to keep the heat down.

You know you're in a windy place when the porta potty is anchored down!


When it was all said and done we handed out 8 Rifleman badges.  3 were re-qualifications and 5 were newly minted Riflemen.  Our highest score was 239 (with optics).  No distinguished by a single point but oh so close!

Here are a bunch of our Riflemen!  We fired a single AQT late Saturday afternoon and got one Rifleman there with the rest knocking it out of the park Sunday.  Sunday we were able to get 5 AQT's shot plus a bunch of training drills.












It was a great weekend of marksmanship and heritage and I can't think of a better way to spend the weekend than celebrating the freedoms we have and enjoying the heritage of arms.

[Flintlock54]

Spending a weekend with a great group of Americans such as this is a truly uplifting experience. The principal of "a rifleman persists" was on full display. We all went home tired, sunburnt, and with a bit of justifiable pride. I'm still tired.

[Nashville Stage]

Congratulations to Mike and Jerry on getting your red hats! That's a great accomplishment.

Also, congrats to the 8 (!) Riflemen! You know very well what you're about.

Huzzah!

[postal16]

Thanks Roger...I look forward to hopefully using the red hat for the first time at the Winter Pittsburgh, KS shoot!

[Dangerous Oldman]

Thank you so much for mentoring me to Instructor, Roger!  I could not have done it without you and Rick Heffron.  I hope to be there with my new Red Hat and shirt(s) at Air Capitol in October!  Live Free or Die!

[Lomshek]

Thank you so much for mentoring me to Instructor, Roger!  I could not have done it without you and Rick Heffron.  I hope to be there with my new Red Hat and shirt(s) at Air Capitol in October!  Live Free or Die!

The journey has been an honor!

[Cleveland]

Huzzah