After Action Report for Fredericksburg, TX Ladyseed Event March 29-30, 2025

[GenX Minuteman]

One Heck of a Fun Ladyseed Event

    Well, I will say first of, this was an absolute blast of a weekend!  The roster for this event only included four students, all of whom were great friends.  This made the event feel more like a celebration of Spring than an academic explanation of rifle marksmanship.  It was truly a fun event for students and Instructors alike!

    Reesa, Donna, Leigh and Traci were the only brave souls who decided to roll the dice with the Texas Spring weather and attend our March Ladyseed event in Fredericksburg, TX.  We were fortunate enough to be hosted by Patriot Academy at their keystone campus location.  They have done an amazing job transforming their range into a serious world-class facility, one which they have been overly gracious in allowing us to use for our Appleseed events.  I would like to say a very big "Thank You" to Patriot Academy for hosting us! 

    Our four brave students started out the day preparing their rifles for the day's events by addressing the first target of the weekend, our initial "Red Coat" target.  We could tell there was indeed some inherent marksmanship within our group, but additional instruction would most certainly be beneficial.  Only one of our shooters were able to prove field-effective at even 100 yrds.  Plenty of opportunities for improvement.  Most all the ladies had brought Ruger 10/22s for use except Traci who was mastering her skills using her AR-15.  Our students ran into their first irritating aspect of the 10/22, the Bolt Release Dance!!!!  This is an infuriating feature which surely plagues every new shooter.

    This group of ladies had asked to make things a bit less of a physical challenge by omitting shooting from the prone position.  We compromised a bit by having the ladies shoot seated from a table while still using a rifle sling for support.  This is still a worthy challenge and requires all the same necessary attention to detail of steady hold factors in prone position.  The students got their first block of instruction completed and were able to make quick improvements to their group sizing.  A lot of the rifles were still a bit "off target", but this would soon be corrected with the upcoming discussion on zeroing a rifle. 

    Noon quickly came upon us signaling a good time to take a break for lunch and begin our history discussions for the weekend.  Gus provided us with a very good telling of the first act of atrocities enacted upon the colonists on the morning of April 19th, 1775 at Lexington, MA.  Way to go Gus!  This provided just enough time for everyone to get refreshed and refocused for a technical discussion on how to properly adjust a rifle's sighting system to improve accuracy.  After a few clarifications, everyone was on the same page and ready to tackle the task of getting their rifles zeroed in.  The earlier cool morning quickly gave way to a bit warmer than usual afternoon.

    With everyone's rifles successfully zeroed in, we introduced our eager students to a new shooting position and everyone's favorite, the seated/kneeling position.  There was much early concern regarding the ability to even acquire these positions and then later return to an upright position.  The warmer weather must have helped everyone's mobility because all four students did a wonderful job getting into a seated position safely and getting back out of position. 

    The ladies were doing superb thus far and making quick strides in their skills improvement.  Their energy level continued to match their enthusiasm, so we took the opportunity to springboard into our final block of positional shooting instruction, The Standing Position.  While no one truly feels comfortable in the Standing position, our ladies adapted to it with little difficulty.  The only difficulty was the fact the afternoon was quickly accelerating.  We took another short break, now at 3:00 p.m., to regroup, refuel and listen to a continued account of what happened to the further give life to the Revolution on the morning of April 19th, 1775.  Gus provided another professional history discussion, this time on the "Second Strike of the Match" and what occurred in Concord, MA on that fateful morning.  Excellent job Gus!

    With energy levels still high and attitudes still willing, we began walking through our first Appleseed Qualifying Test of the weekend.  As is customary, we did a detailed inspection of the targets after each stage which helped provide feedback on their current skill level.  The afternoon heat and lengthy physical demands were starting to add up quickly.  By the time we completed Stage 4 of the AQT, everyone indicated their limit had been reached.  These ladies did way better than they had earlier given themselves credit for.  They came out and put forth a full day's worth of intense effort.  We wrapped the day up a little early without doing a Red Coat target for the afternoon, but it was clear from their completed AQT they had already gained significantly in marksmanship.  Way to go Reesa, Donna, Leigh and Traci!!!!!

    The following day began with the same cool weather and cloudy skies as before.  Wonderful conditions for us to quickly reconfirm shooter's newfound skill level.  We did so by once again addressing a "Red Coat" target.  Our students were now able to show three out of the four were now field effective at 100 yrds.  This is a 300% improvement!!!!!  Wonderful to see!!!!  We quickly jumped into making sure the ladies' rifle's accuracy was still unchanged by verifying our zeroed status acquired from the previous day.  Only a few small changes were necessary.  There was a request to simplify the day's activities as the previous day was indeed taxing.  As such, we jumped directly into our first AQT of the morning.  Everyone did significantly better than they had expected, but there were still some difficulties which needed to be overcome. 

    After completing our first AQT our students felt they could use some work understanding and practicing the concept of Natural Point of Aim.  We worked on completing an NPOA cross drill to help emphasize the importance of moving your body to establish your initial Point of Aim and then ways of properly relaxing and verifying that POA is a true Natural Point of Aim.  After this skills drill, we quickly applied this understanding by addressing another AQT, this time by starting at Stage 4 and working our way upwards.  This helped everyone!  Everyone did very well on this AQT with Traci scoring the highest at 153!!!  Way to go Traci!

    While not quite eager for another AQT at this point, our ladies were up for a quick one-on-one competition.  This time it was the Red Coat Betting game.  Five rounds, five targets of increasing point level and any miss zeros out your overall score!  The ladies loved this game and took it very seriously.  Sadly, everyone had a missed round on their target, but Reesa had the highest scoring target, so we declared her the Winner and receiver of a history-based Appleseed deck of playing cards.  Way to go Reesa!!!!  At this point, everyone felt a well earned break was necessary.  While everyone was grabbing an early lunch, I finished up our primary history stories by telling the "Third Strike of the Match" and the beginning of our Nation's Revolution.  It was indeed hard to get through the story without becoming overly emotional at times, I must say.

    After our noon break, we gauged everyone's feeling about pressing on with further AQT opportunities.  It was unanimously agreed there was only about one more full AQT's worth of energy left.  Understandably so!  We had completed a lot of instruction and shooting in a very short time frame.  After helping Donna find a rifle sighting system she could use and Leigh a properly acquired cheek weld, they were gung-ho to tackle this final AQT.  Our students quickly moved from Stage 1 to Stage 4 and wrapped up the last AQT of the weekend with a much higher level of confidence than before.  Way to go ladies!

    Our last "Red Coat Target of the Weekend" proved to be where our students put their best foot forward.  I am proud to say 100% of our students were now able to prove themselves field effective out to 100 yrds. and half of the class was field effective at 200 yrds.  To add to this, Donna and Leigh were also able to hit Captain Morgan's Shingle!!!  Way to go Ladies!!!  You progressed significantly in very short order due to your incredibly positive attitude and willingness to learn.  We at Appleseed thank you greatly!!!!

Chad Stovell – GenX Minuteman

San Antonio Cadre Present:
Chad Stovell (GenX Minuteman) – Shoot Boss
Jerry (Twinkle Toes) – Instructor In Training
Mike (Gus) – Instructor In Training
Josh (cypherpunk) – Instructor In Training

[GenX Minuteman]

[JustKim]

Way to go Ladies!!