Muenster, TX AAR October 28-29 2023

[AF5US]

Another fantastic, albeit somewhat challenging, event at the world (in)famous Project Appleseed 25 Meter event at Goin' Firearms & Shooting!   

The weather report called for cool & the occasional wet weather all weekend long.  8, count them EIGHT, brave participants joined us on the line knowing that the weatherman was possibly wrong.  In fact, the weatherman was only partially wrong - it was cool, but MOSTLY wet - not occasionally    Nevertheless there was no lightning and none of the instructors are sweet enough to melt in the rain, so onward goes the event!  Students were treated to a careful understanding of the steady hold factors, the 6 steps to firing the shot, natural point of aim, minute of angle & more.  Of course, no event would be complete without the Three Strikes of the Match     A special congratulations to ScottInTX for completing the history portion of his instructor-in-training journey.  The last & most challenging step is all that remains.

Day 02 brings our fearless participants back in the weather, knowing that life isn't always optimal and there's a job to be done.  We spent a great day alternating between AQTs and special drills to reinforce the core marksmanship skills.  Lunch time found us discussing some of the more advanced topics of target identification, range estimation and making the shot with trajectory and other environmental factors.  Of course it wouldn't be an Appleseed day without some history, this time with some Dangerous Old Men and Brave Women.  Seems to me that our younger lady shooters particularly enjoyed the Elizabeth Zane story - go figure    The weather decided to ease up a little on the wetness - but demanded a penalty of a 15 degree temperature drop, from 55 down to 40.  Everyone likes to laugh at the guy that moved from Chicago to Texas, but hey - some of us can tolerate Fall weather better than others    All joking aside, everyone did a really great job sticking it through some less-than-perfect weather.  Looking at the hits count targets Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon, it's clear that your endurance paid off 

Of course the event couldn't happen without our brave volunteers, and this was a special event for the instructors as well.

Congratulations to Helaman for being presented with your 10 event pin 
Congratulations to FloydF for being presented with your 50 event pin 
Oh, and something about Helaman needing to get rid of that old orange hat in favor of a red one? 

In true Project Appleseed style, that orange hat should never be worn again and was therefore retired in style.  You know - I've never seen a hat fly off a backer into the air before? The shoot boss was very pleased to see the entire line wait until it was safely landed before continuing the retirement ceremony 

I think I speak for all of us when I say:

    Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!     
   

[scuzzy]

Thanks for keeping N. Texas rockin' n' rollin'

I wish I could do entertaining AARs like you do.

And I'll add another HUZZAH! HUZZAH! HUZZAH.

[BianchiJock]

Floyd had described this in detail, but it still exceeded all my expectations... even in the cold rain. All the instructors were not just there to log time-in-hat, but genuinely cared about the participants' issues. Bravo!