Whitewater, KS Air Capital Gun Club AAR - Oct 17-18, 2020

[Lomshek]

Wow!  What a crazy windy weekend.  Our annual October shoot at Air Capital has never offered boring weather and this one was no exception!

Hunter and I hit the road at 0400 Saturday leaving our little Appleseed neighborhood behind and heading for the mean streets of Whitewater, KS almost 3 hours away.  Having a neighbor three houses down as a fellow Appleseeder makes carpooling easy!

Saturday was forecasted to have highs over 70 and steady state wind approaching 30mph.  I'm not sure it got over 70 but the wind definitely blew!  Sunday was supposed to be a high of 46 which it barely hit with winds still blowing steady out of the ENE at over 20 mph.  We had some short periods of calm but for the most part shooters tried to counter the wind and instructors tried to shout over it!

Here's a short video from Day 1 with Rick shouting over the wind to explain our trigger follow through drill.
https://youtu.be/5I62jlTCJkY

We had the best and most wind proof target line I've ever seen assembled thanks to Kevin's hard work Friday. 

Here's what it looked like Friday night.


I was so impressed I had to snap a pic of the back for anyone curious about how well built it was.


On with the details!  This was a small shoot in attendance numbers but we were big about freedom and heritage.  Six brave shooters toed the line Saturday morning and went from an initial Red Coat to multiple drills and finally an AQT before we shut things down as we approached 5 PM.  It was a full, exhausting day on the range that left the shooters' bodies aching and brains swelling with knowledge.

Jonathan started us off with the very important safety briefing.


Rick took over to explain the Red Coat target and give us some insight into who Daniel Morgan is and why it was such an honor to be in his company.  Jerry did a fabulous job holding the Red Coat!


After shooting the Red Coat Lloyd explained the use of the sling and the prone position while Rick demo'd.


We got used to covering the 25 meters of ground between the rifles and targets as we evaluated our targets to see what we needed to work on.


With an almost 1:1 ratio the shooters got a lot of attention from the instructors.  Jerry's back is to us as he offers Nathan some tips.


Jonathan explained how targets talk to us and taught us how to interpret what they were saying.


Once we had some groups on paper Hunter introduced IMC to us and explained how to do sight adjustment at any distance.


Hunter also covered the six steps and is explaining trigger control and follow through in the photo below.


Young McKenna turned 10 on Sunday so we sang Happy Birthday at Saturday's lunch and enjoyed delicious cup cakes. 

Her dad Jonathan offered up a rousing Second Strike during the lunch break! 

(I promise I wasn't sleeping!  The camera always snaps a pic at the wrong moment.)

McKenna turned out the highest score of all shooters Saturday with an impressive 163!
This was her first Appleseed shooting with no bag or other aids.  She shot by the book slung up using a 10/22 with an Axiom stock and Eotech with 3X magnifier. 

Here she is with the target and then with me giving her her youth patch.  Because I was so impressed I wrote her score and the date on the patch!  She did great.






Besides McKenna we had two young men who were extremely dedicated to learning the craft of riflery.  They got youth patches as well after a long day Saturday fighting the effects of wind and exhaustion.

Coit and Cason both did a remarkable job and showed a ton of improvement as the weekend continued.  They'll make solid Riflemen before long!


McKenna's dad Jonathan also earned his red hat today with a rousing Second Strike.  Welcome to the ranks of full instructor my blue corded infantry brother!


He spent a little time coaching McKenna and helping her sort out her gear early on.


We lost McKenna on Sunday.
Apparently mom thought it was important that McKenna be home on her 10th birthday instead of out on the range.  Knowing not to get between momma and a cub her dad wisely headed for home with the family Saturday night.

Sunday dawned colder and almost as windy but none of us buckled. 

After the morning Red Coat we knocked out an AQT.  After scoring them I huddled the group up and reminded the shooters that their goal was to outshoot a 10 year old girl!  That drew some nervous laughs because no one beat her score yet. 

To make sure the guys with scopes knew what proper eye relief and a scope sight image looked like I pulled out my M4 with a cantilever mounted scope and let each of them get into position behind it.  By moving their head front to rear they could see how clear and stable the image became when they had proper eye relief.  I wiped it down with alcohol between shooters.


We started working on drills to make improvement where we saw it was needed.  No one made Rifleman on the AM AQT but we did see some improvement from the day before. 





By early afternoon we had a Rifleman with everyone making big jumps in improvement. 

Jonathan (Not McKenna's dad) made it with a score of 215!


With a little at home practice I expect to be handing well earned Rifleman badges to all of these men!

Nathan was shooting left handed with a right hand bolt action and showed some extremely impressive scores.  The tight time limits on stages 2 & 3 and re-establishing NPOA when working the bolt or reloading was incredibly challenging.  He made big improvement over the weekend.



Craig and his boys worked hard as they learned the art of riflery.  Working out the equipment bugs and learning (or relearning for Craig) the positions takes time.  They all applied themselves diligently and got closer to a Rifleman badge.  A Rifleman persists and I don't doubt they'll all get their badge soon.







All in all it was a productive weekend with some crazy weather swings and wind strong enough to make you lean into it.  We had a great cadre of instructors and the students were super attentive and worked hard at learning as we taught both the American heritage of marksmanship and told the story of the sacrifices made to give us this beautiful nation!