Annapolis, MD AAR -October 9, 2020

[Catch-10-22]

Another perfect weather day in Annapolis, MD for our private event for the members of the Maryland National Guard! 6 shooters dedicated a Thursday to improving their marksmanship and learning about the day that kicked off the Revolutionary War.

The students showed vast improvement for a one day - we went from only one shooter demonstrating a 300yd plus effective range to 5 out of 6 doing so (including 3 400 yard shooters), with the final shooter in the 200 yard range. We also had one shooter, Chris, clear his first Red Coat target to earn a "Sons of Liberty" patch.

With the dedication of the shooters, we were able to conduct 3 AQTs at a one-day event without losing an instructional quality. From this, TWO Rifleman emerged! Andy requalified several times with a high score in the upper 220s. And Chris qualified multiple times as well in addition to clearing the afternoon Red Coat. His most impressive to me was qualifying despite several cross fired hits on his seated target! Even when removing a bunch of 5s (his buddy at least made good hits), he had still collected enough points to qualify. A Rifleman's persistence paid off!!!!

While we didn't have any other shooters qualify Rifleman, each one showed significant improvement - typically between 40 and 60 points from their first target to the last, with many scores in the 180s and 190s. As we discussed at the end, it is very rare for a shooter to qualify at their first event. We hope that the shooters will come to a future Appleseed (with a friend or two) and continue their road to Rifleman.

Pictures are available at this album on the Maryland Appleseed Facebook Page, with more to be added soon: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=264406060313831&set=a.3387489078005498

We did a hat exchange ceremony for Agent711 and he received three Huzzahs from our students and shoot boss. We greatly appreciate his commitment this year and that was well earned in instruction and line boss duty throughout the day. Liberty Boy did an excellent job in his RSO role as well.

Would like to thank AAFG for being just an amazing host range for us - thank you for the support of our mission. A weekday special event is above and beyond.

[Sheepdog87]

This was a great event! On behalf of everyone in the group, I would like to commend the professionalism and patriotism of Catch-10-22 and Agent711, as well as Liberty Boy. We really appreciated them taking time out of the week to put on this special event for us. I know that each and every one of us learned quite a bit about history, heritage AND marksmanship, all crammed into an action-packed and exciting day.  I'm hoping that this will spark a passion for that journey that we call marksmanship in all of us. I know that I've got my sights set on bettering my targets and even attending a KD sometime in the future.

[Agent711]

Retired my orange hat with the help of my kids Devlin (LibertyBoy),  Ailika and their dog Blue. Thanks to all the instructors and a special thanks to Jim and Brian for your continued mentoring and running point for the "Old Line State".

https://youtu.be/e8eAL9rOCl4