Ramseur, NC - RWVA Home Range April 19-20 AAR

[Geek]

Day 1, the 250th Anniversary of the Lexington and Concord Battles:  What a great way to commemorate the choices our founders made 250 years ago to the day.  We started Saturday with 12 shooters.  The weather in the morning reminded me of what it was likely to have been that day all those years ago.  Cool, a slight breeze. and a distance sound of bells and single shots if you listened close enough.  We heard an engaging First Strike to set the tone prior to our safety brief.  After our first Hits Count Target, we knew there were some very skilled marksman on the line.  Our first POI was Eye dominance, a first-time attendee discovered they were cross-eye dominant.  He spend the rest of the day working to shoot from the left shoulder.  What a great example of perseverance.  After learning about the three pillars of marksmanship, <steady hold factors, NPOA, and the six steps to firing the shot>, the shooters engaged some sighting squares.  We saw very good groups on the first square.  We did a repeat of this to reduce the size of our groups before learning about sight adjustments via a lesson on IMC.  Time for lunch.  During our break, the group heard the second strike and learned that up to this point, the colonists were merely defending themselves and only firing when fired upon.  They also learned the name of Isaac Davis, the character that is an integral part of our Appleseed logo.  After lunch, a couple more squares were used to verify sight adjustments and learn about mag changes.  Then the came the challenge of an AQT.  Simon showed us he knew what he was about with a 223.  The passionate third strike was presented and the group learned about the Percy quote, 'They have men amongst them that know very well what they are about'.  A collective volley was fired to memorialize those that died on April 19, 1775.  The KD range was participating with us.  Although the timing was of a little, it was a nice touch to do it at the same time.  We shot another AQT and Simon, Nathan, and Carter all made rifleman's score with 220, 231, and 224 respectively.  We closed out the day with our second Hits Count Target.  Great improvement was seen when we collected the data on this one.

Day 2, Easter Sunday:  We used the morning to review all of our Points of Instruction presented the prior day.  We heard about History versus Heritage.  Time was upon us to start shooting and the first Hits Count Target showed they remembered a lot of what they demonstrated the prior day.  We jumped into an AQT while everyone was fresh and found two new Riflemen were in our ranks.  Congrats to Kevin and Christie.  Simon and Nathan both turned in requal scores too.  Carter decided a scope made things too easy on Saturday and switched to irons on Sunday.  His first AQT scored 209.  We did one of my favorite drill, ball and dummy.  The AQT after that had Carter shooting a 216 with his iron sighted 10/22.  We ended the day with another Hits Count Target and two folks cleared it.  They were awarded a George Rogers Clark Quarter.

A couple of things worth mentioning beyond the feats of marksmanship and Rifleman scores.  On both days, we had several IITs working on progress checks.  They did a fantastic job.  I love to see our Instructors In Training grow.  We also added three new volunteers.  carts1249, and pewpewnicorn took orange hats.  gresvig took a blue hat.  North Carolina has a lot going for it and these folks will make it event better.  We had a couple first time shooters with us for the weekend.  They made improvements with each new target.  A rifleman persists and they did.

I also want to thank the folks of North Carolina for letting me, a border raider, run this special 25M event.  It was an honor to run the event on April 19, 250 years after those first shots of the War for Independence were fired.  The crew helping me included, Waky, Mrs Waky, JHB, Bulldog14, Recon82, Steelringer, Nimbi19, Ms Oakley, Pepperblaster, Farmcat, Proud Patriot, and ToLiveDeliberately.

[Geek]

Here is a group photo we got.