AAR: Pistol Clinic Watervliet MI October 21-22, 2023

[SteelThunder]

It was the best of times, it was the worst wettest of times.   Well, actually, Saturday was soggy, cold and windy...but it got better!

7 American patriots came out to the Watervliet Rod and Gun Club to test their marksmanship skills, improve, help each other, enjoy learning about our American heritage and experience genuine camaraderie.  We spent a good portion of a wet, cold, soggy Saturday morning inside, working on dry fire skills, grip, stance, six steps and NPOA.  Once things became tolerable, we started outside and putting that dry fire learning to use with live ammo.  Building on those skills, we shot many drills, each focused on putting our learnings together, and blending in malfunction drills, controlled pairs, target transition and recoil management.  Our history brought in some little-known details which made the actions of our forefathers even more impressive.  Oh, don't forget the crowd favorite...one handed shooting.  Our first PQT was at the end of Saturday where we had 2 Pistoleer™s recognized...one new and one repeat. 

Sunday dawned as a beautiful midwest fall day - sunny, crisp and low winds.  Perfect for some marksmanship.  With a review of our buiding blocks, we dove into drills and eventually PQTs.  We broke up the day with a fun shoot (man-on-man duels with a dueling tree) and some "long range" (40 yard pistol shots) drills.  Of our 7 shooters, 5 achieved their Pistoleer™ rating, with our other 2 making immense progress.  3 of the 5 were repeat but made it with centerfire vs rimfire.  Special mention goes out to Chris to qualified both with rimfire and centerfire for the first time on the same day.  Special-special mention goes to Scott who made it on the last PQT of the event and then cleared the Hits Count target just to put an exclamation point on it.

Many thanks to WRGC and Oz, Dave Rose for their hard work.  Here's a few pics.

         

[Oz]

Chris, Scott, Dan, James, Brandon, Dave, and Bruno, thank you all for coming out, learning, and sharing your knowledge.  You made it a great weekend, and it was fantastic to see your progress.  Five Pistoleer™s and two in the 190s--that is great shooting and you overcame challenges and really showed what you can do!  I hope to see you on the line again!

SteelThunder and DaveRose, as always, it was a privilege and a pleasure.  tomahawk, thank you again for your efforts to keep WRGC a great club and to make Appleseed feel so welcome and well taken care of.

I hope to see each of you down the trail.

Oz/John

[tomahawk]